This Trench was located in the Eastern Entrance of the amphitheatre. The stratigraphic sequence was straightforward but very shallow, as the modern gravel surface was found immediately to overlie surviving Roman deposits.
A wall was found running beneath the foundations of the amphitheatre walling, on a different alignment, which was the earliest structure on the site. Most of it had been robbed out and capped with clay. To its east lay a tank-like feature filled with silts that had accumulated over a number of years. The lowest silts contain decayed organic material, suggesting that there may have been sewage type material passing through it, while above a layer of sandstone rubble that sealed these deposits, the silts were clean. This may indicate that a period of rapid water flow separated two periods of slower water, the later without organic materials. The rapid flow may have occurred when the building and even the fortress were abandoned in the interval between the departure of Legio II Adiutrix c 84 and the arrival of Legio XX Valeria Victrix up to ten years later. It is difficult to say precisely what these features represent. The ‘tank’ may well be related to water supplied by the early aqueduct known to have run under Grosvenor Park and Priory Place that appears to have gone out of use c 100. The massive nature of the foundations suggests something built by the army. Perhaps it was a bath house, perhaps something else. Further investigation is needed to elucidate the nature of these structures.
The south wall of the amphitheatre’s east entrance (porta postica) sealed these features. A contemporary pebble floor was laid around AD 100; by 130, rubbish began to accumulate on it and continued to do so until the end of the third century. Shortly before AD 300, a new mortar floor was laid. The refurbishment included a thorough redesign of the entrance, with the insertion of a colonnade, at least two columns deep, at the point where the passage emerged from under the summum maeanium (the upper tier of seating). At the same time, the gate into the entrance was narrowed, and a blocking wall inserted. Although evidence for the secondary nature of the east wall of the entrance was recorded during the excavation of 1967, this was not published. |
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Continued use of this part of the amphitheatre into the early medieval period is shown by the masonry walls inserted into the inner part of the entrance, reducing its width. Thought by the 1960s excavators to be the base for an official box, it was clearly post-Roman (as initially believed in 1967) and may be compared with the seventh-century church crypts in Ripon Cathedral (Yorks.) and Hexham Abbey (Northd.). As St John’s Church is said to have been founded in 689, it is likely that this masonry belongs to it. This may be confirmed by the discovery of a skeleton during the construction of the car park to the south in 2000, which has been radiocarbon dated to the tenth century Cal ad. This is an extremely significant discovery and one that changes our entire perception of this part of the amphitheatre. |