Rural Conditions in Roman Britain

Abstract

A NOTABLE addition to our knowledge of the conditions of farm life in Roman Britain is made by the account of an excavation of farm buildings in Carnarvonshire carried out by Mr. B. H. St. J. O'Neil on behalf of the Office of Works, which is described in the Times of December 29. The site is on Caerau farm, north of Pant Glas station, in an area which has already afforded evidence of similar cultivation sites, evidently parts of a rural group or community centring on the Roman fort of Segontium, at Carnarvon, and in which the ancient field system of terrace cultivation can still be readily discerned. Of a succession of four ancient farms along the hillside, facing the west, one is practically intact. Within what is described as an excellent system of ancient fields, rising one above another, are two separate courtyard houses, of which the first is an oval about 100 ft. long, bounded by a stone-faced wall of earth or turf. It was approached by a cobbled road 8 ft. wide, which passed through an opening in the wall into the courtyard. On this yard two rooms now open, but originally there were four. These rooms are circular, the larger having a diameter of 25 ft. Their structure is interesting. The walls are now 4 ft. high and may never have been higher. The roof was supported by six posts, for which the holes remain, mid-way between the wall and the centre of the building, where there may also have been a post. The room was provided with a stone bench on the west side, drains and a trench which may have been a slot to receive a wooden partition, dividing the room into two. The smaller hut, which also had a system of drains and gulleys, apparently was used for industrial purposes; the find of a crucible and two hearths suggests the reduction of metals. The second house on the edge of the field system has a polygonal boundary wall with a well-defined entrance and at least five rooms around the courtyard. One room appears to have had a ridge roof. The numerous pottery fragments are typical Romano-British of the second and third centuries A.D.