Excavations at Gloucester. Fourth Interim Report: St. Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, 1975–1976

Abstract

SummaryExcavations at St. Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, showed that the site was occupied in the second century by the Roman municipal tile works which was abandoned by the fourth century. The ruined church which now stands on the site shows two successive building phases pre-dating a Norman arcade; excavation established part of the plan of this late Anglo-Saxon church and also uncovered part of the tenth- to thirteenth-century cemetery. Documentary evidence suggests that this was the ‘new minster’ built by Æthelflæd and Æthelred of Mercia. Taking other historical and archaeological evidence into consideration, Gloucester can be argued to have had, in the late ninth to early tenth century, a special significance for the rulers of Mercia.Specialist reports are offered on the stratified medieval pottery, and on the inscribed bell-mould from the tenth-century church.