SEARCH FOR BURIED TOWN NEAR LONDON

Northern Advocate, 29 December 1937, Page 6

SEARCH FOR BURIED TOWN NEAR LONDON

Traces of an ancient British town have been found at Brockley Hill, on the old Watling Street, near Edgware, Middlesex,

Trial excavations are taking place at the site where Sulloniacae is said to bo buried. On the hill is an obelisk that formerly bore a plate recording a legendary account of the ancient Briton’s last stand against the Romans. Mr F. Cottrill, an archaeological authority at the London Museum and a local secretary of the Society of Antiquarians, told the “News Chronicle” that the name Sulloniacae appeared in the itinerary compiled in the second century A.D., which gave the road distances from London. “The London and Middlesex Arch- j aeological Society asked me to help in I a trial excavation with a view to making it a larger job later on,” he said. “Already we have found near the roadside evidence of a Roman industrial area with fine specimens of pottery and building materials, including the remains of brick kilns.

“The discovery throws light on the extent and position of the pre-Roman town. Further trenches are to be dug to help us form a more accurate knowledge of Sulloniacae. “It is probable that it was not so large as Verulamium, the old city near St Albans, and that it contained not more than a hundred inhabitants.”