Gloucestershire

The county of Gloucestershire encompasses a wide variety of landscapes, from the mix of urban and traditional farming communities (now more often dormitory settlements) in the south, by way of the woodland and estuarine zones of the west, to the Cotswold hills of the north and east. It is hard to think of a definitive site or settlement that really sums up the county, and Current Archaeology’s coverage is similarly varied. This is, I should emphasise, a strength, not a weakness.

North and west Gloucestershire

One of the county’s most famous sites lies just to the south-east of Cheltenham and Gloucester, and is well worth a visit. Mighty Crickley Hill is a well-known local landmark, rich in wildlife and archaeology, jointly owned by the National Trust and the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. CA 37 (March 1973) paid the first of many visits there when it was in the long process of being excavated by a team led by Philip Dixon, and CA 50 (May 1975) followed up on that first foray. CA 76 (May 1981), however, is the issue to home in on, when a full write-up placed the site in its wider prehistoric context, alongside Hambledon Hill in Dorset (see CA 406, January 2024, for my column on that county). CA 110 (July 1988) returned to the site, by which time its post-Roman history as the stronghold of a ‘petty chief’ had been uncovered and understood; and a full and fascinating take on 35 years of fieldwork there then comes in CA 200 (November 2005) – a paean to a project, and a life, well-spent in a wonderful place.

The other ‘great’ site of north and west Gloucestershire is that of Lydney Park Roman temple, which lies just to the south-west of the town of the same name. CA 2 and 3 (May and July 1967) first mention this site, which had originally been excavated by the Wheelers in the late 1920s (see CA 216, March 2008, on Tessa Verney Wheeler’s work there). In the early 1980s, it was spectacularly re-excavated, as reported in CA 76 (May 1981), demonstrating that most of the buildings date from the late 3rd or early 4th century, rather than the late 4th century as previously thought. The site has a complex history, with the Temple of Nodens (Templvm Marti Nodentis), alongside its guest house and baths, all standing within a prehistoric promontory fort situated on a steep bluff overlooking the Severn Estuary. It was reoccupied in the Roman period, first by a community engaged in mining iron, before its later redevelopment as a ritual site. (Those of you interested in the mosaics there and their wider context in Romano-British art should see, too, CA 251, February 2011.)