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Chelmsford has a number of claims to fame: its Roman predecessor Caesaromagus was the only town in Britain to bear the emperor’s name; Chelmsford was England’s acting capital for six days in 1381, when Richard II moved his court there during the Peasants’ Revolt; and it is described as the ‘Birthplace of Radio’ thanks to Marconi opening the world’s first wireless factory there in 1898. Now two recent archaeological discoveries are adding to a growing understanding that this area could have been culturally and politically significant during the Iron Age, too.
Although a small hillfort (a rare example of this monument-type in Essex’s mostly flat landscape) has been identified just south of the city at Danbury Camp, and works on the Little Waltham Bypass about 6.5km (4 miles) north of Chelmsford revealed a moderate-sized roundhouse settlement in the 1970s (see CA 36), the local archaeological record for this period has traditionally been relatively quiet. You could have been forgiven for thinking that this area was a bit of a backwater during later prehistory – but, as Timeless Treasures: Unlocking the Great Baddow Coin Hoard, an absorbing new exhibition at the Museum of Chelmsford, attests (see ‘Further information’ below), that view is now being dramatically revised.
Our story begins six years ago, with the discovery of the Great Baddow Hoard on the outskirts of Chelmsford, near the village that gives the find its name. Thought to be the largest hoard of Iron Age gold coins known in Britain, it was found with the remains of a copper-alloy vessel and tiny fragments of red glass inlay hinting at an ornate container. Bearing stylised images of a running horse and an abstract wreath, all but three of its 935 coins are Whaddon Chase-type staters, a distinctive form produced between 60 and 20 BC, which is named after another hoard that was found in Buckinghamshire in 1849. Unfortunately, the contents of this latter collection were divided and dispersed soon after its discovery, meaning that we do not know its exact size, though estimates range from 400 to 2,000 coins, and it has been suggested that the 73 staters known as the Little Horwood Hoard (listed as BUC-5D0980 on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database), which were found on the same site in 2006, may represent further elements that were missed in the 19th century.
The same fate could so easily have befallen the Great Baddow Hoard, as 933 of its coins were originally uncovered by a metal-detectorist who was searching private land without permission and did not initially declare his find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Fortunately, the coins were recovered before they were lost to archaeological research, and last year they were acquired by the Museum of Chelmsford. The circumstances of the hoard’s discovery meant that little was known about its burial context, so, in the autumn of 2025, a National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported project saw Archaeology South-East (part of the UCL Institute of Archaeology) carry out an excavation over the find-spot to see if any evidence had survived to help shed light on this. While no further clues about the hoard’s burial could be ascertained, Senior Archaeologist Rob Cullum did discover two more Whaddon Chase-type staters during this work, bringing the Great Baddow total to 935. These were swiftly reported as Treasure, and joined the previous finds in the collections of the Museum of Chelmsford in April of this year.
While the Hoard’s archaeological context sadly seems to have been lost, its contents still have an intriguing story to tell, as Whaddon Chase-type coins are normally associated with sites much further to the west, in the traditional territories of an Iron Age people that the Romans called the Catuvellauni. Chelmsford, however, lies within lands associated with their eastern neighbours, the Trinovantes. While it is possible that these coins could have travelled through trade – a hoard of 16 Corieltauvi staters struck in Lincolnshire were recently found over 150 miles to the west on Anglesey (CA 403), testifying to how far such coins could move – the sheer number of staters in the Great Baddow Hoard hints at a greater significance. They were buried at a time when the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni are known to have been vying for local supremacy, and when Julius Caesar twice attempted to invade Britain. Might the Great Baddow Hoard be related to this period of upheaval?
Dangerous neighbours
Britain’s Iron Age population came into violent contact with the Roman world almost a century before Claudius’ legions conquered southern England in AD 43. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar was years into his campaign to conquer Gaul, and in his own account of the conflict he writes that British warriors were actively helping the Gallic resistance (see CA 361 for a report on a high-status burial, found in West Sussex, which may be connected to these events). This cooperation was Caesar’s justification for his first attempt on Britain but, faced with fierce opposition and ferocious weather, his efforts were short-lived. Roman forces returned the following year in greater numbers (see CA 337 for possible archaeological echoes of the invasion), but this time Caesar offered a different reason for his attack, giving intriguing glimpses of Iron Age rivalries between people who left behind no written records of their own.
Caesar had been specifically asked to intervene, he claims, by Mandubracius, a deposed prince of the Trinovantes whose father had been killed by Cassivellaunus, ruler of the Catuvellauni, and who had fled across the Channel to ask for help. Might the expansionist ambitions of the Catuvellauni explain the presence of so many of their coins in a hoard found within Trinovantian lands? The Trinovantes, meanwhile, clearly recognised the potential usefulness of having such a powerful ally during their territorial struggles. They and several other tribes quickly submitted to Roman authority, Caesar writes, and their collaboration with his invasion force was rewarded when Caesar defeated Cassivellaunus (who was leading the British resistance), restored Mandubracius to power, and forced the Catuvellauni to promise not to threaten him again. This peace was secured through the taking of hostages and an annual tribute to Rome.
Trinovantian relations with Rome appear to have remained friendly for some time. In 15-10 BC a richly furnished burial, today known as the Lexden Tumulus, was built within the defences of their capital at Colchester, and its grave goods include a small medallion of the Emperor Augustus, dated to 19-15 BC (CA 208). Might this have been a gift to a local leader, intended as a sign of Roman favour or allegiance? If the Trinovantes had hoped that contact with Rome would solve their domestic disputes, though, they would soon be disappointed. Within a generation of the Lexden Tumulus being built, the Catuvellauni made another grab for their neighbours’ lands, and they succeeded in capturing Colchester, with their king, Cunobelin, minting coins there from aroundAD 9. This time, Rome did not intercede.
Hopes must have risen once more with Claudius’ invasion, particularly as the Catuvellauni again headed the British resistance, putting themselves in direct opposition to Rome – but even after the defeat of the Catuvellauni’s leader, Caratacus, c.AD 50, the Trinovantes’ capital was not returned to them. Worse, Rome actually seized Colchester for its own use, driving local communities from their homes in order to establish Britain’s first legionary fortress and a colonia for retired soldiers. Adding insult to injury, the new settlement was named Colonia Claudia Victricensis, ‘the colony of Claudius’ victory’, and a large temple dedicated to the deified emperor was built at its heart. These actions sparked intense resentment, the Roman historian Tacitus tells us, and when Boudica of the Iceni (the Trinovantes’ northern neighbours, who had also initially allied with Rome) rebelled in AD 60/61, the Trinovantes joined her cause. The first target of their ire was Colchester: the town was razed to the ground, its temple destroyed, and its inhabitants slaughtered.
After the revolt was suppressed, a small fort was built at Cheltenham, which lies halfway along the Roman road between London and Colchester, and a civilian settlement (Caesaromagus, ‘Caesar’s market’) grew up alongside it. This flourished into a posting station that survived long after the fort went out of use, gaining a large mansio (a residence for travelling officials) in the 2nd century. The Trinovantes vanish from Roman written sources after the Boudican revolt, but evidence of their traditional practices and significant places can be seen continuing for decades and even centuries later – as we will discuss shortly.
For now, though, let’s return to the early years of Essex’s contact with Rome. Might the turbulent events described above explain the burial of the Great Baddow Hoard? Iron Age gold coin hoards of this size are very unusual; other than the Whaddon Chase Hoard, the only comparable find in Britain is a group of 840 mainly Iceni staters found at Wickham Market, Suffolk, in 2008 (see CA 227, and SF-65D096 on the PAS database). Collectively, the coins of the Great Baddow Hoard weigh 5.8kg (12.8lbs), a significant amount of gold that was surely brought together, and buried together, for a specific purpose. Could the coins, in their ornate container, have been a war chest that was amassed during the upheaval of the mid-1st century BC and buried for safekeeping? Alternatively, could it represent a magnificent sacrifice intended to ensure the gods’ help in these exceptional circumstances? Prior to the excavation in 2025 that recovered the two additional staters, Dr Kris Lockyear led the Community Archaeology Geophysics Group in carrying out a magnetometer survey of the field, but this revealed no significant features that could be associated with the hoard’s burial. Might this lack of evidence be a clue in itself? Perhaps the coins had been deliberately secreted in an isolated spot, far from any settlement, with the intention of later recovery, or perhaps this was a votive offering in a place that was regarded as special or sacred because of a natural feature that is not obvious today.
There is, of course, another possibility: the annual tribute that Julius Caesar demanded in the aftermath of his first invasion. As the hoard contains so many coins of the same type, might they have been struck at the same time to provide this kind of payment? As mentioned above, though, the coins are not all Whaddon Chase types. There are three outliers: another kind of eastern stater, an Iceni ‘Norfolk wolf’ coin, and a Gallo Belgic coin from the Continent. Perhaps these had been added to make up the required numbers or weight, but for now their presence in an otherwise fairly uniform hoard remains a mystery.
Elite burials
Enigmatic burials of a rather different kind, recently discovered on the opposite side of Chelmsford, also feature in the exhibition, and add further insights into elite Iron Age activities in this area. Further excavations by Archaeology South-East, led by Angus Forshaw, have uncovered a large Late Iron Age cemetery and extensive evidence of occupation north of Chelmsford, greatly expanding the picture that first emerged during the 1970s bypass work. A large, square enclosure containing a total area of c.2,050m2 (0.5 acres) was found to contain over 100 cremations (mostly in urns) and a handful of inhumations (mostly poorly preserved), while a small number of un-urned cremations also lay outside the boundary ditch. The most surprising find, though, lay at the heart of the enclosed space: five large pits, each containing a pile of cremated bone surrounded by an extensive array of objects. These richly furnished graves seem to have formed a focus for the cemetery; four lay in a widely spaced line, running north–south, with the pits positioned between 3.8m and 8.7m (12.5-28.5ft) apart, while the fifth was further west but still aligned on the southernmost of the other four.
Initial pottery analysis suggests that the large graves date to the decades around the Claudian conquest, c.AD 1-50 (forthcoming radiocarbon analysis should refine this dating further), and some of the grave goods speak of early contact with the Roman world. They include imported pottery like a platter from Central Gaul and amphorae of a type associated with Italian wine, as well as copper-alloy vessels – one of which has an elegant handle depicting a swan’s head and neck – and a pillar-moulded glass bowl. Some of these items have already been conserved and can be seen in the exhibition, highlighting the strength of commercial and diplomatic connections between local elites and Rome during the Late Iron Age.
Such elaborate cremation burials are known to have formed part of high status funerary traditions within the Trinovantes’ territories. Impressive arrangements have been found at a number of other sites in Essex, including at Stanway, where excavations between 1987 and 2004 revealed rectangular ditched enclosures which contained central, timber-lined burial chambers surrounded by a number of other extravagantly furnished cremations. These include the ‘Warrior’s Grave’, found in 1992 and thought to date to the AD 50s, which had over 20 pots, copper-alloy vessels and glassware, weapons, and a wooden gaming board (CA 132), and the broadly contemporary ‘Doctor’s Grave’, found in 1996, whose name stems from a set of iron and copper-alloy medical instruments that featured among its similarly rich grave goods (CA 153). Investigations at Stansted Airport have also found un-urned cremations with multiple pottery vessels and, in one case, a pillar-moulded glass bowl like the example found north of Chelmsford. Meanwhile, lavish graves are also seen in Hertfordshire, where they are known as Welwyn-type burials after the Welwyn Garden City Burial found in 1965. This was a large pit whose central cremation was accompanied by 36 ceramics; silver, bronze, and wooden vessels; and other items including glass gaming pieces and bear bones.
Were such burials simply intended as expressions of social status, or do they signify something more? Could we interpret them as a statement of identity in the face of increasing Roman interference, or might their grave goods signal allegiance to the Empire and an appreciation of its material culture? Significantly, some of the other cremations within the enclosure near Chelmsford are much later in date than the large pits, stretching into the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Long after the British resistance to, and rebellion against, Rome had been defeated and imperial authority firmly established, it seems that this place was allowed to continue in use, despite its elite associations.
The long-lived funerary enclosure formed just part of an intensively used Iron Age landscape, with activity stretching back long before Essex’s first contact with Rome. Archaeology South-East’s 11ha (27-acre) excavation revealed the remains of at least three previously unknown settlements made up of multiple roundhouses enclosed by ditches, with associated field systems, waterholes, and smaller agricultural enclosures. Early Iron Age activity was found in the easternmost area of the site, with occupation then gradually shifting towards the west, culminating in a large, Late Iron Age double enclosure. Together, these finds represent a busy, well-connected landscape, worlds away from the sleepy stereotypes that previously clung to this area. The impressive coin hoard and the imported grave goods that feature in the exhibition likewise present a much more nuanced image of communities whose stories are otherwise only written by the Roman victors, highlighting their beliefs, skills, artistic ideas, aspirations, and sense of who they were.
Further information:
Timeless Treasures: Unlocking the Great Baddow Coin Hoard will run at the Museum of Chelmsford from 18 July 2026 until 11 April 2027. See http://www.museumofchelmsford.co.uk/exhibitions/collections/the-great-baddow-hoard for more details.
The museum will also host a talk by Angus Forshaw about the elite burials on 7 November, while Dr Eleanor Ghey, a Curator in the Department of Money and Medals at the British Museum, will discuss the Great Baddow Hoard on 23 January 2027; see http://www.museumofchelmsford.co.uk/events for more information.
All Images: Archaeology South-East, unless otherwise stated
