ROMAN IRON MINE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 79, 27 December 1929, Page 11

ROMAN IRON MINE

DISCOVERIES IN ENGLAND LORD BLEDISLOE’S OFFER • TO THE NATION The exploration of the “Roman Camp” in Lord Bledisloe’s deer-park at Lydney, on the western shore of the . Severn, has recently been concluded by the Society of Antiquaries (states a correspondent of the London “Times. ) The excavations have shown that this site—a commanding promontory jutting out from the fringe of the Forest of Dean —was occupied continuously from the second or first century B.C. to the fifth or sixth century A.D.; while a partial investigation of a closely adjacent hill-top has carried on the story into the Norman period. Lord Bledisloe (who is the new Governor-General of New Zealand) has generously offered the site in perpetuity to the nation. ■ The first occupants of the promontory, within the last two centuries of the pre-historic \era, built upon it a small fortified hilPtown from four to five acres in extent. The hill-town was defended by the declivities of the ridge and by earthen banks and a rock-cut ditch. Its occupants made pottery somewhat similar to that of the lakevillages of Glastonbury and Meare. “Bee-hive” quern-stones show that they were agriculturists; animal remains indicate that they kept flocks and herds. Moreover, iron is recorded to have been a British export before the Roman conquest, and it is likely enough- that the Lydney hill-town, like others that cluster thickly in the West Country, owed something to the wealth of its ore. The Roman conquest in the first century A.D. seems for a time to have altered but little the general character of the population of the hilltop. The principal change was due to the gradual extinction of the native crafts, although the discovery of a smelting-hearth has shown that bronze-working was still carried on. Now, however, definite traces of the exploitation of the local iron-ore begin to appear. One of. the most striking discoveries has been that of an ironmine which has been cut into the pre-historic defences, and had, in turn, been completely sealed by a Romano-British hut-floor built across its entrance. The hut-floor contained coins of the latter part of the third century, by which time therefore the mine shaft must have fallen into disuse. The mine has been explored for 30ft., and it is hoped to follow it farther. The shaft is generally from Ift. Gin. to 2ft. wide, and dips downwards at an angle of 20 degrees. On crawling into it, the excavators found the working exactly as it had been left by the Roman miners; the surface of the rock still bears the sharp incisions made bv their pointed hammers or picks. This is the only iron mine yet found in Great Britain which can definitely be ascribed to the Roman period. About 365 A.D. a group of elaborate Roman buildings was constructed in the lower half of the camp and surrounded by a massive precinct wall. One of them, a temple, was excavated in 1928, and was described last year. Its presiding deity, Nodens, appears to have exercised among his functions, the art of healing. Another building of large size, with a central courtyard and a- great hall, 85ft. long, was almost certainly a guest-house for the pilgrims to the temple. A third was a'large set of baths, as on other sites where healing was practised. A fourth building, a long structure ou the brow of the declivity behind the temple, re-x-alls the similar long structures adjoining the temples of the god of healing at Epidauros and Athens., Those buildings are thought to be places of seclusion for the patients. Indeed, the whole group at Lydney recalls', on a smaller scale, that of the sanctuary of Asklepios at ' Epidauros, and though the Lydney temple is of a late date, the pagan gods of healing were among'the last to yield to Christiandty. Coins of the Dark Ages. For a few- years this sanctuary flourished and attracted wealth in the form of coins and other offerings. Apart from special, hoards, upwards of 7000 coins are known to have been found in and around it. But after the break with Rome circumstances changed. Several of the numerous mosaic pavements fell into disrepair and were roughly patched with slabs of stone or ill-made cement. The earthen ramparts were now once more repaired. Of this period of decay one relic is eloquent. In a cavity of one of the damaged mosaic pavements of the bath building was found a hoard of 1450 minute bronze coins. Among them ivere a few clippings of coins ol the fourth century A.D., but the remainder —many of them less than three millimetres in diameter, surely the smallest coins ever used in Britain —bear little more than dots and dashes which occasionally and remotely reflect four-century coin.types. All the circumstances point to .'the Dark Ages after the Roman occupation. The population of the hilltop, behind its renewed ramparts, had reverted to its original barbarism. The site thus represents with unusual completeness, and in surroundings of exceptional beauty, a complete cycle in the history of civilisation in western Britain.

A tentative exploration of a smaller earthwork on the summit of a small hill to the south-east of the main site, close to Lydney Park House, has shown that the banks and mounds there cover the remains of a small stone-built castle of the 12th century.