The Temple and Other Sites in the North-Eastern Sector of Caesaromagus

With contributions by D. Andrews, S. A. Butcher, V. I. Evison, C. J. Going, R. M. Luff, J. G. McDonnell, R. Reece, W. J. Rodwell, R. Turner, P. Wilthew. Reports on sites in the north-eastern sector of Roman Chelmsford, which together form a coherent group. The excavated sites either lie between or include two parallel metalled roads running eastwards from the main London-Colchester road. All lie outside the earthen defences of the town, constructed c AD 160-175 and levelled c AD 200-220. Within the area bounded by the two roads (? an insula), the main area, Site K, contained a fourth century octagonal masonry Romano-Celtic temple, though its walls had been almost wholly robbed in the sub-Roman and medieval periods. The site appears to have had religious significance from the first century AD, and part of a building with masonry foundations has been interpreted as a first century temple. This building lay within an enclosure defined by ditches and many brooches and other copper alloy objects were associated. A subsequent building of Hadrianic date must have occupied the northern frontage of the southern road, and provides a date for its construction. The site appears to have been deserted from the fifth century until the thirteenth, when there was a possible dyer's establishment on Site K. The Late Roman and post-Roman subsoils were badly truncated by flooding soon after the mid thirteenth century which deposited a deep alluvial silt. By the end of the sixteenth century, the area was under cultivation.