ROMAN REMAINS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1929, Page 9

ROMAN REMAINS

LORD BLEDISLOE'S ESTATE

ANTIQUARIAN TREASURES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 23rd August. Lydney Park, tho home of Lord Bledisloe, besides being interesting as a model English farm, was in Koman times a sito of wealth and distinction. At Lydney, nino miles north of Chopstow, tho Forest of Dean thrusts southwards towards tho shore of tho Severn with steep, finger-like ridges divided here and thero by small streams. Ono of the more imposing of theso ridges has been enclosed for moro than two centuries within the boundaries of Lydney Park, the home of tho Bathurst family.

On this estate are tho remains of an earthwork and a group of Eoinan buildings, which, at the invitation of Lord Bledisloe, are being excavated and proserved by tho Society of Antiquaries of London. Excavations begun in 1805 revealed, together with -a great many interesting relics now in Lord Bledisloe Js collection, the remains of a temple and other buildings, all with elaborate mosaic pavements and enclosed within a buttressed precinct-wall which, where possible, followed the contour of the promontory. The tomple was shown by votive tablets to have been dedicated to an otherwise unknown god of Celtic origin named Nodons, to whom tho dog appears to have been hold particularly sacred; for several small bronze dogs wero found here, including ono of exceptional excellence as a piece of Gfracco-Boman genre. Other offerings included bronze and bono representations of parts of the human body which had presumably been healed by the god. A rango of small rooms which flanked the precinct-wall behind tho temple was probably a row of shops and seems to havo included the establishment of a Roman apothecary, a partner or rival of Nodens in the succouring of the iofirm. Near by a large courtyard house, known to an older generation of writers as "the pro-consul-'s residonce," may rather have been tho guest-house or sanatorium in which were housed tho pilgrims who must have resorted to this Roman-British shrine. Boyond this was an extensive bathing establishment, the inevitable adjunct of every Romanised community. As a group, the buildings are without parallol in Britain, although somewhat similar assemblages have occasionally been found at important springs and, other sacred spots in Gaul.

The Roman buildings occupied half the area of a camp or "promontory fort" to which a prehistoric origin has long been ascribed. The original main entrance, hewn out of the limestone and flanked by in-turned barriers of this material, was riveted and adapted by tho Roman builders as the principal entry into their own precinct. Beneath the Roman road-metal at this point have been found many shreds of pottery and other objects dating from the last phase of the prehistoric Iron Age, and resembling those found in the Glastonbury Lake village (late second century B.C. to about A.D. 50). Cuttings through the high rampart which bounds the camp on the north and north-east have yielded a similar result. The nucleus of this rampart was a small bank, 5J feet high, which contained numerous pieces of "Glastonbury" pottery and a prehistoric "beehive" quern, and was doubtless surmounted at one time by a stockade.

Whether this prehistoric camp or hilltown was ever abandoned is not yet known. Coins, pottery, and brooches, however, found their way on to the promontory before the end of the first century A.D., and evidence of occupation in the second century, though not particularly abundant, is definite. But it was not until the fourth century A.D. that the settlement reached the maximum of its prosperity. Something like 6000 coins of this century (reaching down to Honoriu3 and Arcadius) have now been recorded from the site, whilst countless others are known to have been found ana dispersed. And it was in this century that the Roman temple, as we know it, was built upon the relics of prehistoric timber structures of which only; the slightest yestigee zozaain.