Summary
The below ground remains of a mid-1st century AD to early-5th century AD nucleated Roman settlement at the junction of the Roman road from Leicester to Godmanchester and the Roman road from Water Newton, and close to a Roman crossing of the River Nene.
Reasons for Designation
The Roman Town at Titchmarsh, North Northamptonshire, a minor Roman town which shows evidence of having grown at a junction of two roads and near a river crossing, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Period: as an example of a Roman settlement, which is thought not to have been an official Roman town, but one which developed an urban character distinct from more common rural settlements;
* Rarity: this is a rare site type nationally, one of around 130 minor Roman towns in England and one of four on the Nene;
* Documentary: the site is well documented by aerial photography, and parts of the site have been the subject of investigation through archaeological excavation and geophysical survey.
* Group value: the town has strong historical and spatial group value with three scheduled Roman towns along the Nene Valley as well as with the nearby Roman bridge over the Nene;
* Survival: around 12ha of the town survives as visible in cropmarks. Although ploughed, selective excavation has confirmed good survival of below ground features;
* Potential: the deeply stratified archaeological deposits will retain significant information with the potential to increase our understanding of the structures and their function in the town. There is further potential to reveal any specialist religious or manufacturing function the town had, and in general to add to the existing body of information on minor Roman towns.
History
The first well documented archaeological evidence for Titchmarsh Roman town was produced in the 1960s when observations made during quarrying west of Titchmarsh village revealed a Roman inhumation cemetery where around 50 burials were noted. The Roman custom was to locate cemeteries outside the boundary of a settlement, indicating such a site was nearby. Historically, Iron Age and Roman finds from the area around the town have been reported, as has the exposure of stone buildings by deep ploughing. Notable artefacts recovered are a boundary marker stone, and a stone column base or capital.
Subsequent understanding of the town has developed through archaeological excavations, as well interpretation of cropmarks shown on the aerial photography, and it is these cropmarks which have best indicated the form of the town. A cropmark is a visible anomaly formed by crop growing to different heights due to variances in the moisture and nutrient levels between soils, distinguishing between soil which has covered an archaeological feature and the undisturbed soil surrounding the feature. Here the cropmarks have shown a density of tracks, enclosures and probable buildings comparable with other sites identified as Roman towns. The excavations, and surveys using metal detectors, have produced many small finds including assemblages totalling over 800 Roman coins. The coins date from Claudius (Emperor 41-54 AD) through to Honorius (d. 423 AD) in distributions indicating continuous occupation of the site from the mid-1st century AD to the early-5th century AD. Combined, these sources show a nucleated settlement of around 12 hectares situated at the intersection of two known Roman roads: the north-west to south-east running Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) to Godmanchester (Durovigutum) road, and a road running from Water Newton (Durobrivae) in the north-east to Titchmarsh in the south-west. It is thought the Water Newton road continued to Irchester, though its route has not been identified.
Roman towns in Britain were founded following the Claudian invasion in 43 AD as imperial control extended through the island. There were four types of ‘major’ Roman town which had legal status and roles in the imperial administrative system: Municipia (formally chartered towns), Civitas Capitals (which provided administration over areas corresponding with that occupied by the local Iron Age tribes), Coloniae (military foundations where soldiers who had completed their term of service would be granted land and Roman citizenship), and Provincial Capitals which were the administrative centre of an imperial province. Additionally, there were a variety of urban settlements which did not hold formal town status. These ‘minor’ towns were at least small hubs for agricultural activity and local trade and industry, but could be of substantial size. Such larger minor towns were distinct from the major towns through being less likely to have an organised grid plan street system, and in lacking the full range of public buildings such as a forum, baths, basilica or theatre. However, minor towns would often have a temple, and could have a specific industrial or religious focus. Minor towns often originated as continuations of pre-conquest Iron Age settlements, around military bases, or at communications nodes such as river crossings and road junctions.
The Roman town at Titchmarsh is one of a series of Roman settlements spaced along the River Nene, with the towns of Ashton (National Heritage List for England 1021454) six miles to the north-east, and Irchester nine miles to the south-west (NHLE 1003892). There is evidence of an Iron Age presence in the vicinity of Titchmarsh; the Roman graves in the cemetery to the west of the town were observed to have been cut into ditches bearing Iron Age finds, and 27 Iron Age coins have been recovered from around the site. The excavations carried out in the area have also produced limited Iron Age features. This suggests significant activity in the immediate pre-Roman period, but is not sufficient to prove that the Roman settlement is the direct successor of an Iron Age one in precisely the same location. Even if its origins were in an earlier settlement, Titchmarsh developed around the likely junction of the Leicester to Godmanchester road with a road from Titchmarsh to Water Newton. Reinforcing its importance as a communication node, the town is around half a mile from the point that the Roman Leicester road crosses the River Nene at Harper’s Brook, where the remains of a Roman timber bridge are a scheduled monument (NHLE 1003644).
A magnetometer survey was carried out in September 2021 on land mainly south and east of the A605, covering the south-eastern extent of the town. Results from this survey broadly corroborated features previously identified on the aerial photographs, and identified some additional features detailed in the ‘Description’ section below. Both aerial photography and Lidar imagery show earthwork remains of Medieval or post-Medieval ridge and furrow immediately north of the main concentration of cropmarks west of the A605.
There have been two substantial archaeological excavations over parts of the town. The first was in 1986, just north and east of the current A605 / Oundle Road roundabout. This revealed a section of Roman road, thought to be the Leicester road, with the stone foundations of a building to the south of the road, and a single inhumation north of the road. The second large intervention was carried out at the end of 2021 when a series of evaluation trenches were excavated over the same area as the magnetometer survey of that year, with the north-western trenches uncovering deeply stratified Roman deposits of up to 1.2 metres depth, including masonry and yard surfaces. Other small excavations carried out over the town and its fringes in the late-C20 and early-C21 have uncovered linear and discrete features with Roman and Iron Age finds.
Details
The below ground remains of a mid-1st century AD to early-5th century AD nucleated Roman settlement at the junction of the Roman road from Leicester to Godmanchester and the Roman road from Water Newton, and close to a Roman crossing of the River Nene.
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: Titchmarsh Roman town is located south of the River Nene, in an area of around 12ha which slopes gently down to the river from the south-east. The local geology is varied, banded with sands and gravels and sandstones, mudstones and siltstones. The site is likely to contain the junction of Roman roads from Leicester to Godmanchester and a road to Water Newton. The west side of the town was bounded by a cemetery which was removed by quarrying in the mid-C20. In 2023 the site was under arable cultivation.
DESCRIPTION: Titchmarsh Roman town is located immediately north-east of the town of Thrapston, around a mile west of Titchmarsh village, and about half a mile south-east of the Roman crossing of the River Nene at Harper’s Brook. The north-western limit of the site is defined by the line of the former Northampton and Peterborough Branch railway. Aerial and geophysical surveys of this area have clearly identified buried features interpreted as a Roman settlement.
The best understood feature is the Roman road to Leicester, the line of which is thought to run north-west from the south end of the layby north of the Oundle Road and A605 roundabout. The continuation of this line for the road coincides with a contemporary field boundary running north-west to the dismantled railway. Two excavations have added weight to this interpretation: in 1986, on this alignment immediately north-east of the roundabout, metalled surfaces interpreted as a road were revealed, and in 1963 a similar arrangement of road on this line was uncovered in the quarry outside the town boundary 400m south-east of the known road crossing at Harper’s Brook which is 760m north-west of the railway track.
Outside of the scheduled area in the field north-east of the Roman Leicester road, west of the A605, are earthworks of Medieval or post-Medieval ridge and furrow. These earthworks obscure the course of the Leicester road and mean there are no cropmarks visible which would be expected here to show the continuation of those shown on aerial photographs immediately east of the A605. The cropmarks bordering this ridge and furrow to the south show an increasing density of smaller, more regularly rectangular enclosures on the south side of the Leicester road, consistent with what is characterised in Roman settlements as ladder development.
The largest and most dense area of features is west of the A605 road, level with the roundabout linking with the Oundle Road. This grouping is dominated by a main looping thoroughfare which heads south from the old railway at the level of the Leicester road in the north-west, then takes a sinuous path east to the roundabout. The looping track acts as a spine for smaller tracks to both its north and south, alongside irregular and rectilinear enclosures, consistent with the sort of development found in minor Roman towns not laid out on a grid. South of the point where the looping track turns east is the largest rectilinear enclosure which is further distinguished by its internal subdivisions and could represent a temple or other public building. This area of dense cropmarks shows other discrete enclosures and linear features.
There is a further, smaller area of Roman features east of the A605, just north of the roundabout. The features here are defined by two nearly parallel tracks; the southern one a straight linear on the line of the Leicester road, the other to the north curving and aligned with a field boundary in the ridge and furrow west of the A605. These parallel tracks are connected by two smaller straight tracks; one at a right angle between them, the other at 45 degrees. Immediately east of the roundabout and south of the southernmost of the parallel tracks the 2021 magnetometer survey showed a further track running from north-east to south-west with enclosures off it suggesting more ladder development; features which were confirmed by that year’s evaluations. There are other discrete and linear features and enclosures in this area.
EXCLUSIONS: all fence and gate posts and other modern intrusions are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath them is included.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the scheduled area includes the buried remains of the Roman town. The scheduled area is in two discrete parcels either side of the A605 Road. The largest parcel is around 7.2ha and is west of the A605. This is bounded by the line of the former railway track to the north-west, the track to the north-east, the A605 Road, roundabout and Oundle Road to the south-east, and to the south-west by the boundary with Springfield Farm. The second, smaller parcel is around 4.5ha and is north-east of the first parcel, across the A605. This second parcel is bordered to the west by a stretch of the A605 and the roundabout with the Oundle Road. From the road it follows the field drain which runs south-east for around 220m where it turns north and runs for another 165m before turning north-west back to the A605, level with the top third of the layby west of the road. South of the field drain, the second parcel extends around 75m south-east of the roundabout before returning north to join the rest of the scheduled area.
