Romano-British remains: Topographical index

G. Topographical Index

Adderbury. (1) Building and paving stones, roofing slates, and burnt stones, with much pottery have been found on a ridge and the north slope of the hill (above a brook) in a field called 'The Ridgeway' on the NW. border of the parish, between Adderbury West and Milton. This suggests a small house, but the pottery picked up by Miss Blunt in 1922–7, mostly coarse cookingvessels of the 2nd century, is more like that found in village sites—possibly there was a small village here on a ridgeway (see p. 298), which can be traced running eastwards. One account mentions many cartloads of stones being removed to mend roads in 1916–17. [T. Beesley, N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 17; Gepp, Adderbury (1924), 2; information from Miss Janet Blunt, who has presented the pottery to the Ashm. Mus.]

(2) 'Considerable remains of burnt stones and Roman pottery' and skeletons suggest another settlement in fields called 'Court Field' (? Cotefield, Bodicote) and 'Nursery Ground', west of the Banbury road, about a mile north of Adderbury. The site seems to be distinguishable from that across the Sor brook in Bloxham Grove. [Potts's MS.; the site is marked on Manning's map, Arch. lxxi, 236 s.v. Bloxham, no. 4.]

(3) The bust of (?) Diana (Pl. XVII, d), 2¾ in. high, from a bronze statuette or from a box or piece of furniture, was found in a field NE. of the Aynho road before 1853; a coin (Æ 3) of Constantine (Beata Tranquillitas) was said to have been found with it. [N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 118; presented by Mrs. Fuller to Ashm. Mus.; wrongly described as a steelyard weight: Gepp, Adderbury, plate facing p. 2.] Another Æ of Constantine I was found in enlarging the churchyard in 1840, another on the Green, and other coins are occasionally found in the village. [Beesley, Banbury, 610; Gepp, Adderbury, 1.]

Alchester. Town site, see above, pp. 281 ff.

Ardley. 'Remains' are marked on the 1833 ed. of the 1-inch O.S. map (sheet 45) on the eastern edge of the parish at Chilgrove, which is called Ballard's Copse on the 6-inch O.S. map and mentioned by Beesley [Banbury, 38] as the site of 'extensive ancient remains' and connected with Portway. Their date is uncertain, but they are in line with Aves Ditch, which has been proved to be Roman. See p. 276. Roman coins occurred in a garden south of the point where the Bucknell road joins the Oxford-Brackley road. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 10.]

Asterleigh. See Kiddington.

Asthall. There are several sites in this parish. The more important are (nos. 1 and 2) in the Windrush valley where it is crossed by Akeman Street. (1) 300 yards south of the stream and east of Akeman Street and of the existing road leading south to Asthall barrow, lines of buildings are plainly visible in a dry summer in an arable field (8 acres), running apparently at right-angles to Akeman Street. The numerous coins include an inscribed silver coin of the Dobuni and an imitation Claudius I, and are unusually plentiful for the period Gratian, Valentinian, Theodosius. Among many metal objects are two brooches of the so-called Dolphin type (Collingwood, type 14) of the late 1st or early 2nd century, and an enamelled equal-ended brooch of continental type (Collingwood, type 7). The pottery includes Samian ware of Antonine types, a bowl of Paternus, and coarse ware of the 2nd and 3rd centuries; a 3rd-century Castor vessel with a scroll pattern. From a garden north of, and adjoining, the field pottery of the late 1st century and imitation Samian of the 4th. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 10; J.R.S. xii, 255; information from the farmer, Mr. Walker, who has put his collection on loan in the Ashm. Mus., and from G. R. Arnold, many of whose coins are also now in the Museum: see above, p. 324.]

(2) About 200 yds. west of no. 1 and on the west of Akeman Street, in a field south of Asthall church, fragmentary foundations and many tesserae were found before 1922 by Dr. A. E. Peake, together with coins from Trajan to the end of the 4th century and pottery of the same date. Here also were 15 inhumation burials [J.R.S. xi, 214 f.; xii, 255; information from Dr. Peake]. Lastly, a T-shaped fibula of the late 1st century (now in Ashm. Mus.) was found in a field near Asthall barrow (for which see p. 365).

(3) For the house east of Worsham Mill, see p. 319 (no. 19).

(4) For the road (Akeman Street) at Pool's Bottom, Asthally, and elsewhere in this parish, see p. 274 f., and for the coins, pp. 326, 328.

(5) A denarius of Caracalla, small Æ 3 of Tetricus II and Constantine I and II were found at Fordwells in the north corner of the parish, but are possibly the same as those from Roustage or South Lawn (see pp. 326, 328). [B.B.O.J. iv, 17.]

Asthally. For the bridge or ford at Pool's Bottom, see p. 275. See also Wychwood.

Aston Bampton. See Cote.

Aston Rowant. A cremation-burial, apparently of the late 2nd century, consisting of a narrownecked, wide-bodied urn, a small-footed beaker, and a Samian patera stamped SEXTVS . FE (cf. F. Oswald, Index of Potters' Stamps (1931), 290) was found in 1693 'in Kingston-field ... at the bottom of a small stream called Colebrook, about a furlong from the lower branch of the Ikenild-street way', thus not far from the foot of the north scarp of the Chilterns. [Kennett, Par. Antiq. (1818), i, 30 f., pl. 1.]

Aves Ditch. See p. 275 f.

Baldon. See Marsh Baldon.

Bampton. Pottery, &c., in the Ashmolean Museum, including one complete olla of coarse grey ware (1936.191–4), were found in 1893–4 in pits in a gravel-pit opposite Calais Farm on the Aston road together with animal and human bones. The evidence of the pottery, some of which is of Iron Age A 2 and 3 types (supra, pp. 254, 262) and some of the Romano-British period, together with the coins, shows that it is a British village occupied continuously from the Iron Age to the early 4th century. On the surface of the adjoining field much Romano-British pottery and numerous coins are found. [F. Ellis, in Antiquary, xxiii, 1891, 155, and Haverfield MSS.; B.B.O.J. iv, 11; Pointer, Britannia Romana (1724), 34. Some skulls from here are in the University Museum.] See also Cote.

Banbury. (1) Many coins found in the town and its immediate neighbourhood are recorded from the 17th century onwards; e.g. large brass of Pius and Lucilla, middle brass of Diocletian (High St., 1936), small brass of Tetricus, Licinius, and Constantine I, while those of 'Carausius and ... the lower empire are common' [Beesley, Banbury, 23; Ashm. Mus.; Peterborough Museum (Æ 3 Claudius Gothicus); Camden, Britannia (1607), 266, hence Stukeley, It. Cur. (1724), 46, who adds 'antiquity' and refers to an altar which stood in a niche under the sign of an inn, called 'The Altar stone', and 'had a ram and fire carv'd on it, as they say', which was, apparently, destroyed when the inn was pulled down in 1768 (Beesley, Banbury, 24); it is very doubtful if this was Roman and still more if it was found locally]. A 'Roman urn' was discovered near Banbury in making the railway [J.B.A.A. ii (1846), 352]. No structures have been recorded and no Roman remains were found when the sewerage system was put in in the 'fifties [T. Beesley, N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 19 n.], so it is not likely that there was a settled site here. We are thus not justified in regarding as Roman or an amphitheatre the earthwork in Berrymoor (south of the town, on the Bloxham road, later known as the Bear Garden: T. Beesley, ibid. 18; Beesley, Banbury, 25) nor in placing here 'Brinavis' of the anonymous Ravenna geographer (Pinder and Parthey, 1860, 428), the identification resting on false etymology. [Baxter, Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum (1719), 45, hence Stukeley and many others.]

(2) In 1851 a fragment of a coarse tessellated pavement, walls, and a 'beehive stone-vaulted oven', 3 ft. in diameter and paved with red tiles, were found in Wykham or Wickham Park, near the Sor brook, apparently between the house and the road. Close by, on the site of the kitchen garden, a circular steined well, 28 in. in diameter and 48 ft. deep, contained much pottery and 17 bronze coins from Claudius II to Valens, and one silver of Trebonianus Gallus; there was also 'a large vault filled with black earth', 7 or 8 skeletons, and many animal bones, &c. [N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 17, and Potts's MS. The site is marked on the 6-inch O.S. map, sheet ix NE.] The account suggests a house, the 'oven' probably forming part of a hypocaust, occupied in the 4th century, if not earlier, or the oven may be a kiln: see above, p. 307.

Barford St. Michael, or Great Barford. Beesley records 'coins, fibulae, pins, pottery, and burnt stones and bones and a stone coffin containing bones. It is also said a bronze image'—all found in black soil on the north slope of a hill rising from the River Swere on Blackgrove Farm, a mile east of the Barfords. Mr. Faulkner also found here between 1853 and 1863 coins, including a Constantinopolis (TRP), and Samian potsherds, the 1st-century potter's stamp VIRTVTIS (La Graufesenque), 'an urn 3½ in. high and 2¾ in. diam.' containing a tooth, and close by it a thin (?) lead plate 6¾ in. diam., and within a few yards a potsherd stamped DONATVS F (latter part of the 2nd century) and a skull with many other bones, in the same field as coins, pottery, tiles, and bones of bos longifrons. [N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 17, 118; Arch. Journ. viii, 1851, 423; P.S.A. ii, 1863, 174; Arch. Journ. xx, 1863, 172; Rolleston MSS. cited by Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus. The site is marked on the 6-inch O.S. map, sheet ix SE. A skull numbered E.11.8.321 is in the University Museum.] This evidence suggests a village settlement (p. 298), not a house. See Deddington. A 'third brass' of Gratian was found during the restoration of the church. [N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 115], and a first brass of Hadrian on Buttermilk Farm, ESE. of South Newington, and 'part of a gold chain, of Roman workmanship', apparently from Irondown in the same direction. [Beesley MS., Potts's copy of Beesley's Banbury.]

Beckley. For the house, see p. 320, no. 23. The unusual brooch, p. 259 f. (fig. 17 c), found about 1886 in a field in the village by the Roman road from Alchester to Dorchester, though made in the pre-Roman period, may have been lost in the Roman period. It is curious that one of a similar type but differently decorated was found at Wood Eaton close by. [(Sir) Arthur Evans, Arch. lxvi, 570 f., fig. 2; Leeds, Celtic Ornament, 50, fig. 19; Ashm. Mus.] The dome-shaped stud of the same period, found in 1895 on the allotments close by the Roman road, is also in Ashm. Mus. [O.A. and H. Soc. vi, 77; B.B.O.J. iv, 11; Leeds, Celtic Ornament, 44]. Quantities of pottery were found in a (?) gravel-pit here near some houses built about 1927, on the top of the hill east of the Roman road and about ¼ mile south of the villa.

Benson. (1) There seems to have been extensive settlement in the 3rd and 4th centuries, with indications of occupation in the late 1st century. Pits yielding pottery have been observed in gravel-pits and elsewhere over an area extending from a point NE. of the church and eastwards along the mill-stream to the old Henley road. The pottery includes much characteristic Sandford ware (May, Arch. lxxii, fig. 1, 10, 13), imitation Samian ware, and late 4th-century store-jars with heavy roll-rim. Coins date from Gallienus to Gratian. [Earlier references given by Field, B.B.O.J. ii, 44; O.A. and H. Soc. iv, 344 and Loan Exhib. 1894, p. 3; Reading Mus.; Ashm. Mus. 1934, 18; Manning MSS.] A cemetery possibly existed farther east to the south of Brook Street; Dr. L. H. D. Buxton observed a skull with negroid facial form (J.R.S. xv, 231; xxv, 43); other burials, possibly Roman, are noted on the 6-inch O.S. map, sheet xlix NE., to the north (west of Hale Farm) and south (north and south of Swan Inn, Crowmarsh Mill), where also 'Roman coin' and 'Roman rowels' are marked. There seems therefore to have been a riverside village here (p. 297). (2) Near Gould's Grove, about 2 miles south (exact spot unspecified), on the line of Icknield Way as it approaches the R. Thames, crop-marks (p. 298) were observed by Mr. H. J. Hewitt (P.S.A. xviii, 14). For a possible road from Dorchester, see p. 279 (f).

Berrick Salome. Hearne, on 30 March 1719, 'met with many Fragments of old Tiles, which were much like Roman Tiles' between Berrick and Brightwell Baldwin. It is doubtful, however, whether they were Roman. [Hearne's Collections (O.H.S. xliii), vi, 323.]

Bicester. Most of the objects said to have been found here or near here came from Alchester (pp. 281 ff.), 2 miles south, no doubt including the 'harp-shaped' fibula with a spring, found about 1850 [J.B.A.A. xi, 1855, p. 158], and a claw-headed pin set with white glass found about the same time in making the railway line near Bicester [P.S.A. ii (1853), 202, fig.]. The 'Roman villa' in Rifle Range Field, London Road, in 1934, was found by Mr. H. N. Savory to be of much later date. In Sept. 1937 (Oxfordshire Arch. Soc. Rep. 1937, no. 83, p. 239, and Oxoniensia, ii, 202) excavations undertaken in advance of road-making operations in the field forming the NW. angle between the Oxford road and the branch to Chesterton revealed ditches and pits of an occupation site (p. 283) inhabited continuously during the later Iron Age and early Romano-British times (1st and 2nd centuries A.D.). The finds, which included Samian and native pottery, brooches, and 12 coins (Marcus Aurelius-Magnentius) are in the Ashmolean Museum. In Chesterton parish, on the south side of the branch road, a section of Akeman Street was revealed (ibid. and p. 272, n. 9, above).

Black Bourton. A small quadrangular crop-mark, with a circular one on each side, is to be seen on Major Allen's air-photograph in the centre of three fields, called Black Lands, east of the road from Black Bourton to Clanfield, and half-way between them. Nothing is to be seen on the surface of the fields, and the only Roman finds from them are coins, including one of Carausius. It is very doubtful if the enclosures are of Roman date. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 12.]

Blackthorn. 'Holes in the rock filled with Roman' potsherds and Iron Age C ware, and bones were noted in quarries south of the 2nd milestone from Bicester on the Aylesbury road [B.B.O.J. iv, 11] and Dunkin (Bullingdon and Ploughley, i, 60, hence Blomfield, Bicester, i, 21) records '6 skeletons in a row without any vestige of coffins' found in 1775 nearly opposite the stone-pits, just north of the above. The former indicates an occupation-site (p. 297) of the overlap period (Iron Age-Roman); the latter may be Saxon or late Roman (cf. Crawley). Potsherds were also found in straightening the Aylesbury road at Heath Bridge (Oxoniensia, ii, 202).

Blenheim. A first brass of Vespasian, bronze of Gallienus, Tetricus I and II, Carausius and Constantinian family and Valentinian found in the Park [Ashm. Mus. 1893.206–12 and Coin Collection]. Coins were also found near the Old Palace in 1791 [Mavor, New Descr. of Blenheim, 1–111]. An occupation site (p. 297) was found on either side of Akeman Street where it crosses Grim's Dyke [Oxoniensia, ii, 80 ff.]. The object of almost transparent chalcedony (Pl. XVII, E), which was found by or on Akeman Street in the Park in 1810 and given by Sir Arthur Evans to the Ashmolean Museum, bears a Medusa mask in low relief treated in a very stylized manner. It is pierced with two holes, which meet in the centre at right-angles, and was therefore meant to be attached by thread to a garment or object. These ornaments are usually interpreted as phalerae or military decorations (as on the Caelius tombstone in Bonn Museum: Germania Romana, iii, pl. 1, 2; Bonner Jahrbücher, 114, 14 ff.), though this has been doubted [Walters, Catal. of Engraved Gems ... in the Brit. Mus., no. 3662]. They usually depict Medusa, Cupid, or lion-masks, and from their style are attributed to the 3rd century A.D. (Babelon, Catal. des Camées . . . de la Bib. Nat., 1897, p. lii, nos. 170–3; and 'not very late' by A. Furtwangler, Die antiken Gemmen, iii. 336). The Ashmolean Museum contains two almost precisely the same as the Blenheim example, one from Lyons and the other (Pl. XVII, F) from Crete; the last, indeed, is so like that it might have come from the same workshop. The sources of chalcedony in antiquity were, according to Babelon, Libya, Egypt, and Persia and, therefore, these objects were probably produced in the eastern or southern Mediterranean, possibly, to judge from style and technique, in Syria. See also Woodstock and Combe.

Bloxham. (1) Pits, quantities of bones and coarse ware, 23 or more inhumations (found in ironstone workings) indicate a village site (p. 297 f.) ½ mile west of the church. The pottery and coins date from the 2nd to the 4th century, the pottery of the second and third predominating. [J.R.S. xix, 195; xxiv, 206–7; xxv, 43; W. F. J. Knight in Oxfords. Arch. Soc. Rep., 1929, 229 ff.; Antiquity, vi, 359; viii, 229; The Bloxhamist, July 1933, July 1935; Oxoniensia, iii, 41 ff.] (2) About ¾ mile south of no. 1, north of the junction of the Milcombe-Chipping Norton roads, the 'crown of an arched brick flue or oven', 8½ ft. long, 2 ft. 7 in. deep, 1 ft. 11 in.-3 ft. broad, was found in 1841 with coins of Tetricus and Constantine I—possibly a drying-floor, or part of a house. [Beesley, Banbury, 609; see also Milcombe.] (3) Millstones, including the upper part of a cone-shaped quern, 9 in. high, 7–12 in. diameter, were found with bones, coarse potsherds, and a spindle-whorl in a claypit north of Bloxham and north of the Banbury road. [Potts's MSS.] (4) In 1866, about ¼ mile NE. of Bloxham Grove, burnt stones, numerous Roman potsherds, a bronze armilla, a pair of compasses, and bones found in black soil suggest a settlement by the Sor Brook. [Potts's MSS., which also mention 'a richly sculptured bone head', about the size of a marble, found in the same year near Grove Mill. The objects are now lost.] The 6-inch O.S. map marks in the park above the mill 'Roman remains found (1854)' and to the south nearer the house 'Roman coins found (1835)'. Beesley (Banbury, 45) records a 'large brass coin of Pius lately found', and T. Beesley rightly held that there was a settlement here, a village rather than a villa, perhaps. [N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 17; above, p. 298.]

Bodicote. See Adderbury, no. 2, and Bloxham, no. 4.

Bourton. See Great Bourton.

Brighthampton. A rubbish-pit containing bones, &c., found in the Saxon cemetery, was thought to belong to a settlement of the Roman period. Fragments of a scale urn and Castor ware as well as Roman coins were turned up in some of the Saxon graves. [Arch. xxxviii, 90, graves nos. 22 (10 silver Caracalla-Hostilian) and 54. Ashm. Mus. See also pp. 360 ff.]

Brightwell Baldwin. Plot (N.H. Oxf. (1705), 335, pl. xv, figs. 23–4) records '12 corded urns', apparently of the early 2nd century, surrounding a square glass jug, found at Bushy Leaze or Leas, which is on the south bank of a stream ¾ mile north of the village and ¼ mile NE. of Codwell Farm. They were then in the possession of the Stone family. This, except for the absence of ashes, sounds like a burial. For the coin-hoard, see p. 329 (xiv).

Britwell Salome. Four 'Roman urns' were found in digging gravel in a field immediately east of the church, west of the Watlington road, in 1849. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 12 f.]

Broughton. See North Newington.

Bullingdon. See Cowley (1).

Burcot. For the kilns in Allen's pit east of the Oxford-London road, see p. 303 f., and the settlementsite, pp. 298, 305. A house was excavated about 1876 by the Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck of Long Wittenham in a field called 'Tommy's Piece', SW. of Burcot farm and north of the Abingdon Road and of the river. No details are recorded. Urns were said to have been found also. [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus. Site marked on 6-inch O.S. map xlvi SW.] The Ashm. Mus. contains a third brass of Constantine I and an 'Urbs Roma' from Burcot.

Burford. A coffin of local freestone measuring externally 6 ft. 7 in. long, 2 ft. 9 in.–2 ft. 3 in. wide, and 2 ft. 11 in. deep, with a lid 6 in. thick fitting into a rabbet and fixed with reddish cement, was found on the south bank of the Windrush opposite Taynton in making a road in 1814. It contained a skeleton with head to north and a number of nails or conical-headed studs, some nearly an inch long, with and through remains of hide in several layers. Perhaps it should be connected with the house, the remains of which still exist in the valley just over the Gloucestershire border. Stone coffins are common in the Cotswold region. [Gent. Mag. 1814, ii, 597 f.; W. J. Monk, Burford (1891), 9, and Fisher, Hist. of Burford (1861), 32. The site is marked on the 6-inch O.S. sheet xxiv SE. and the coffin is in Burford churchyard.] The Ashm. Mus. possesses Æ 2 of Vespasian and Trajan, and a small bronze key with 3 teeth transverse to the handle and operating a tumbler lock (cf. Ward, Roman Era in Britain, fig. 66 N). Stukeley (Letters and Diaries, iii, 159, 18 Sept. 1736 (Surtees Soc. 1887)) says that 'they often find coyns under old foundations. I got one of Tiberius' (Cohen 22, A.D. 35); and Plot mentions coins found at Signet [N.H. Oxf. (1705), 341, hence Monk, Walks and Drives round Burford (1902), 42]. See also Widford.

Cassington. Crop-marks in fields near the R. Evenlode west of the village and south of the junction of the Oxford Northern by-pass and Eynsham road mark the pits and ditches of an extensive prehistoric and Romano-British settlement; some of them are inclosed within a curved ditch; at least one cremation-burial has been found. On the opposite side of the road gravel-digging has revealed the late Roman inhumation graves and occupation-pits mentioned above (p. 297). Fifteen of the skeletons had been decapitated. Gravel-pits east of Cassington have also produced Roman potsherds. [Oxoniensia, i, 201; ii, 201; J.R.S. xxvii, 237.]

Caversham. On Caversham Hill have been found coins of Constantine I and Valens (Arch. lxxi, 237] and in a gravel-pit SW. of it a hearth and coarse sherds were turned up in 1930–6. Abronze bracelet was found at Rosehill Cottage, Emmer Green, and potsherds north of Mill Lane, Kidmore End. [Information from Reading Museum.] A cremation group dated to the 1st century was found in the new cemetery, Henley Road, in 1924 (J.R.S. xxiv, 229, now in Reading Museum), and a silvered bronze spoon with circular bowl connected with the tapering and pointed handle by a neck with a drop at the junction, and probably of late date, was found in cable-laying in South View Avenue in 1936. First-and 2nd-century coins were turned up in the reconstruction of Caversham Bridge. [Information from Reading Museum.] This indicates slight occupation on the southern slope of the Chilterns above the river. See also Mapledurham.

Chadlington. For the probable farm-site, see p. 313 (11).

Charlbury. For the farm at Lee's Rest, see p. 313 (10). In Charlbury itself a fibula was found at a depth of 6 ft. in the churchyard; it was said to be of gold and in the British Museum, but neither there nor at the Victoria and Albert Museum is anything known about it. [Information from F. Ellis 1922 in Manning MSS., Ashm. Mus.] Numerous potsherds in a field west of the road to Spelsbury, about ¼ mile north of Rook's Nest Inn, where there are springs, suggest settlement. [Information from J. Kibble 1921 in Manning MSS.] This is possibly the same discovery as that of 'potsherds, brooch and millstone' found in breaking up new lands on Charlbury Commons, 1915 [Haverfield MSS.]. A coin of Constantine II (? Cohen 122, TRP) was found in a gravel-pit in 1907. [O. J. Watney, Cornbury and the Forest of Wychwood (1910), p. 8, n.] See also Stonesfield.

Charlton-on-Otmoor. See Fencot, Oddington.

Chastleton. A coin of Aurelian and some coarse potsherds with a fragment of Samian found in a field north of Hill Farm, ¾ mile east of the village, are in the possession of Mrs. Whitmore Jones, of the Manor. [J.R.S. xvi, 225.] 'Roman things' are said to have been found in the earthwork. [Journ. of Anthrop. Inst. x (1887), 124 ff.]

Checkendon. 'First brass' coins of the 1st century are reported from the grounds of Wyfold Court. [Information from Reading Museum.]

Chesterton. See Alchester and Bicester. For Akeman Street, see p. 272.

Chilgrove. See Ardley.

Chipping Norton. Coins of Trajan (Æ 1), Constantine (Æ 3), and Valens (Æ 3) have been dug up in the Market Place, some in 1895 [Manning MSS., Ashm. Mus., and Plot, N.H. Oxf. (1705), 341] and others on the south side at four places within the radius of a mile: (a) west of the railway station; (b) the Poor's Allotments at the back of Burford Terrace, Æ 3 of Tetricus and Postumus (8), Theodora (1), Constantine (1), Constantinopolis (1), Constantine II (1), Constantius II (1), Valens (2), Valentinian (2), Gratian (1), and 20 other illegible; (c) a field called The Hoe, Oldner Farm, Æ 3 of Victorinus (1), Theodora (1), Valens (1), Valentinian (1), 5 illegible Constantinian; and (d) south of Walterbush Farm, Æ 3 of Constantine II. [Manning and Haverfield MSS., Ashm. Mus.]. (b) may have formed part of a hoard, see p. 325.

Cholsey. Æ 3 of Gallienus was found in 1879 and of Postumus at Winterbrook in 1881. [Manning MSS.]

Churchill. Roman coins have been found in a field on the north side of Sars Brook, due north of Sarsden Rectory. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 14.]

Clifton Hampden. A possible Thames-side Romano-British settlement is indicated by crop-marks showing 'rectangles, circles, and lines in the fields immediately east' of Fullamoor Farm. [Haverfield, P.S.A. xviii, 15 and B.B.O.J. iv, 14. See also Culham and p. 298.]

Cogges. Several urns, said to be of Upchurch ware, i.e. black and well made, were found on 'Cage Hill' (? Cogges Hill), Northfield Farm, Witney. [Rolleston MSS. in Dept. of Comparative Anatomy, University Museum, Oxford.] Cf. Eynsham.

Cokethorpe. See Ducklington.

Combe. For the hoard see p. 329 (xv). Coins of Trajan (AR), Severus (AR), and Valentinian (Æ) have been found in the village, Aurelius under Pius (Æ) at Dog Kennel Hill in 1911, Gallienus, Constantine II in Bury Field 1902. [Manning MSS. and local collections in Ashm. Mus., Sir Charles Oman's Collection. See also Blenheim.]

Cote. Coins (Æ 1) of Trajan and Hadrian were found apparently with a bronze spear-head about 3 ft. beneath the surface in this parish. [P.S.A. iii, 1856, 54.]

Cowley. (1) Traces of a poor and early settlement are shown by urns and coarse potsherds, mostly cooking-pots, including a few of early date (furrowed-ware and debased bead-rims), found by Parker in 1867–8 in 'Castle Pit', Bullingdon, between Cowley Marsh and the Barracks (p. 298), about ¾ mile west of the Roman road. [The pottery is in the Ashm. Mus. Parker, Early Hist. of Oxford (O.H.S. iii, 1885), 64, hence B.B.O.J. iv, 20, where the discovery is described as 'human skeletons with pottery' and a 'bronze spiked mace-head' found in a quarry immediately north of the playground of the Military College.] (2) Much pottery, including vases of white and grey coarse ware, butt beakers, pie-dishes with criss-cross burnishing, beakers with barbotine dots in squares, mostly of the 2nd century, and one distorted waster, discovered in 1934, denote a settlement-site on the site of the new Conservative Club, Between Towns Road. [Ashm. Mus. 1936. 151–3, 221–2.] (3) For the kilns at Rose Hill and the settlement-site there, see p. 305.

Crawley. The remaining half, 107 ft. long and 83 ft. wide, later destroyed, of a barrow on high ground west of the road to Crawley from the Witney-Burford road, was examined in 1857 and 1864 by Akerman, Rolleston, and Thurnam. It was mainly built of stone and contained a number of skeletons ranging east and west (mostly feet to the east); the only objects found with the three, which are carefully reported, were a bronze buckle of indeterminate date, an iron buckle, and a few scattered Romano-British potsherds, now lost. [Arch. xxxvii, 432; xlii, 175; the bronze buckle is in Ashm. Mus.] The crania, now in Oxford University Museum, are said by Dr. Buxton to be very brachycephalous and of Romano-British date. [J.R.S. xxv, 43.] Human bones and Romano-British coins have been found in the fields to the south and east. Possibly, therefore, there was a late Romano-British cemetery here. The barrow, if such it was, was not a barrow of the ordinary type, though it probably contained Roman burials. Mr. Leeds suggests that possibly it was a bank containing rows of burials (cf. Blackthorn).

Cuddesdon. For the house, see p. 322 (25).

Culham. (1) A rubbish-pit, indicating habitation, 4 ft. wide, containing a bronze spiral finger-ring and iron wire, with much coarse pottery of a period not later than A.D. 200 and much of it of the gritted type, probably of the Iron Age, was found by the river on Zouch Farm, opposite Culham College, and about ½ mile west of Fullamoor Farm, Clifton Hampden. [Haverfield MSS.] (2) An interment with a late-3rd- or 4th-century cylindrical beaker, 5 in. high, ornamented in cream paint and obviously imitating a Samian shape (Ludowici type 52) (Pl. XVIII, B) was found 4 ft. deep in making a railway cutting in 1844, near the SW. corner of Nuneham Park. The pot is in the British Museum (B.M. Register, 1862, 7-19, 15). [J.B.A.A. iii, 1847, 328, fig. Information from Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes, who points out that in Brit. Mus. Catal. of Roman Pottery, 406, M.2565, fig. 254, it is wrongly said to come from Long Wittenham, the latter further quoting (in error) J.B.A.A. i, 309, hence V.C.H. Berks. i, 210, which puts it under Little Wittenham.] (3) A small pot of grey ware, 3 in. high and 3½ in. in diameter, was found in the same cutting apparently, but farther north by the river, in Nuneham parish. (B.B.O.J. iv, 45, hence V.C.H. Berks, i, 222, and misquotes J.B.A.A. iii, 329, putting the site under Long Wittenham.] See also Clifton Hampden.

Cutslow. In September 1933, 6 or 7 occupation-pits about 9 ft. in diam. and 6 ft. deep (4½ ft. into the gravel subsoil) were found containing pottery, animal bones, pot-boilers, &c. The pottery, chiefly ollae, was of 1st- and early 2nd-century types and there were one or two fragments of Castor ware. [Wilmot, J.B.A.A. xl, 1935, 203–5. The pottery is in Ashm. Mus. See p. 297.]

Cuxham. Pottery, including two pieces of late Samian ware, grey cooking ware of the late 2nd-3rd century, a fragment of 3rd–4th-century colour-coated ware, was found about 2 ft. below the surface, with a fragment of wall and part of a roof tile, about 1935, in making a drain from a spring near the Old Rectory to a stream in the village street.

Deddington. (1) 'The foundations of a large building were found in the rickyard and the field adjoining' about 1867 during drainage operations at Hazelhedge Farm, about ½ mile west of the River Cherwell (near the foot of the steps) and within the angle formed by its junction with the River Swere—possibly the site of a house. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 15.] (2) 'A number of holes filled with broken pottery, ashes and charred bones', a few coins, and a human skeleton were discovered about 1877 in the 'Parish pit', north of the road from Deddington to Clifton, c. ¼ mile east of the Gas Works—possibly a village site (p. 298). [Manning, ibid. Possibly the skeleton is in Oxford Univ. Mus. See J.R.S. xxv, 43.] An aureus of Florian (CONSERVATOR AVG, Cohen 16, A.D. 276) 'said to have been found recently at Deddington'. [Num. Chron. xv, 1852–3, 79.] For Blackingrove, see Barford S. Michael. The 'many interments, sepulchral urns and ornaments' mentioned by T. Beesley (N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 17) from Hempton in this parish are of uncertain date and may be those from Blackingrove.

Ditchley. See Enstone, Kiddington, Spelsbury, and Stonesfield. For the house in Watts Wells Field, see p. 311 (9).

Dorchester. (1) Town site, see pp. 288 ff. (2) Excavations by Mr. J. N. L. Myres in 1933 revealed a village site consisting of a pre-Iron Age ring-ditch and Iron Age pits and ditches in a field nearly ½ mile NNE. of Mount Farm. These contained pottery of Iron Age A types (see supra, p. 297), but Romano-British pottery was found in the surface soil and in some of the ditches, especially the upper levels. The site was occupied, perhaps continuously, from the late Bronze Age to at least the 2nd–3rd century A.D. In the Early Iron Age it was possibly a homestead (supra, p. 252). [Antiquity, vii, 486; Oxoniensia, i, 84, fig. 13; ii, 12. The finds are in Ashm. Mus.] For other crop-mark sites in the neighbourhood, see p. 298; for the kilns, where there is also a habitationsite, see pp. 303 ff.

Drayton, near Banbury. 'It is locally said that a pavement of "fine coloured tiles", and a bath, were discovered about 30 years back [i.e. c. 1781], in the vicinity of the former seat of the Greviles.' Roman coins of the later empire were also found. [Brewer, Topog. Oxfordshire (Brayley and Britton, Beauties of England, xii, pt. ii, 1873), 518.] Beesley (Banbury, 44) says that the Grevill's house was SE. of the churchyard and that 'a great number of Roman coins, of the middle and smaller brass, from the time of Maximin to that of Julian . . . were found in perfect preservation' about 1790, and figures (pl. vi, 6 and 9) Æ of Constantine I (Cohen 208) and Constantius II (Cohen 31)—possibly a hoard, see p. 329 (xvi). The pavement may be medieval, but the bath sounds Roman and may indicate a house.

Drayton St. Leonard. It is impossible to date the 'two flower pots and several human bones' found in a gravel-pit, just west of a bridge over the River Thame in a fieldroad from Drayton to Brookhampton—probably pre-Roman. [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 16]

Ducklington. Crop-marks are visible in air-photographs in fields SW. of Cokethorpe Home Wood (see p. 298) and north of a lane to Brighthampton in a detached part of the parish: here potsherds in quantities, mostly coarse ware, found in gravel-working about 1923 were collected by the Rev. C. Overy; the specimens he gave to the Ashm. Mus. (1933, 1716) include beadrim types of the 1st century, a pink bowl copying the Samian shape 30 with a rectangular pattern printed in white, probably early 2nd century, and some later ware. Probably a villagesite (p. 298). See also Standlake.

Duns Tew. A much-weathered stone slab (Fig. 41), 16 in. high and 9 in. wide with a rounded top, carved on one side with a figure in relief wearing a tunic and conical cap, and holding in the right hand a hammer, and in the left possibly a chisel or tongs, and behind, on the left, a small figure, was found in 1861 or 1862, 18 in. below the surface in meadow-lands in this parish, just 'below Ilbury Camp' (see V.C.H. Oxon. ii, 311). The dress and hammer suggest Vulcan and the sculpture seems to resemble the reliefs or altars from Kings Stanley, Bisley, and Withington, Glos., now in the British Museum, and suggests a temple or shrine in the neighbourhood—even perhaps within the earthwork on the hill-top. With it were 'stones and pottery' and, near it, a coin, two jars, one Roman and the 'other sun-baked and apparently British'. The base of the Roman urn is in the Ashm. Mus. [Gent. Mag. 1862, i, 568, 709, with illustration here reproduced (fig. 41); O.A and H.S. i, 1862, 80; P.S.A. ii, 1862, 85. It was then the property of Sir Harry Dashwood, but the present owner of the property, Sir Robert Dashwood, Bart., has no knowledge of it. A first brass of ? Aurelius from below Ilbury Camp, perhaps the coin mentioned, is noted in Potts's MSS.] A denarius of Caracalla found in the Vicarage garden is in the Manning collection, Ashm. Mus. Warton (Kiddington, 2nd ed. 1783, p. 59) says that a Roman pavement was dug up here c. 100 years ago', but probably it is that mentioned by Plot as found at Great Tew, q.v.

Elsfield. Wood (Life and Times, O.H.S. i, 463) records in November 1662 three coins of Allectus, Constantine, and Theodosius, found about 40 years previously in Stow Wood, and gave information of them and perhaps the coins to Plot (Keeper of the Ashm. Mus.), because in the Ashmolean Museum are Æ 3 of Carausius (1), Allectus (1), Constantine I (1), and House of Valentinian (1) all from here. The inscribed altar still in the garden of Elsfield Manor is not ancient. [Haverfield, Arch. Journ. xlix, 1892, 187; Ephemeris Epigraphica ix, 1365.] For the house partly in this parish and partly in Headington, see p. 320 (24).

Emington. Several Roman coins were found about 1875 in Down Covert, north of the village and on the county boundary. Others were said to have been found to the west between Emington and Sydenham. [Manning B.B.O.J. iv, 16.]

Enstone. For the house in Watts Wells Field, Ditchley, see p. 311. For the hoards of coins at Kiddington, see p. 329 (xiii, xviii, xix). See also Spelsbury and Stonesfield.

Ewelme. For the hoard of coins, see p. 327 (vii). Æ of Hadrian, Quintillus, Probus, and Constantinopolis type have been found in the field east of Tidmarsh Lane and north of Cottesmore Farm; Æ of Claudius (imitation), Vespasian, Constantius I, Allectus, and Magnentius, north of the main street between Eyre's Lane and Cat Lane; Æ of Claudius II (Alexandrian) from the manor house; and others, including an Æ 2 of Constantius II, in the Rectory grounds. [B.B.O.J. iv, 16; Ashm. Mus.; 6-inch O.S. map, sheet xlix NE.] Reading Museum contains a small Æ of Crispus in good condition from Cow Common.

Eynsham. (1) Crop-marks north of Foxley Farm, between it and Limb Brook, and (2) ditches in gravel-pits slightly to the NE. (p. 298) with local coarse ware of the 2nd-4th centuries noted in 1930 and later, indicate 2 villages. [Haverfield, P.S.A. xviii, 15, hence B.B.O.J. iv, 17; airphotographs.] (3) Another village north of the Oxford northern by-pass road, between Cuckoo Lane and Mill Lane, was indicated by 3 equidistant pits or trenches containing potsherds dating from the late 1st century to the late 3rd century and including Iron Age B and debased beadrims found in 1931. [Ashm. Mus.] (4) The neck of a 3rd–4th-century jug was found at the Gables, Cassington Road, c. 1905–6, and a coin of? Tetricus II just outside the church in 1895; a Constans I, ? Valentinian I, and 2 barbarous copies of Constantius II in garden of Fruitlands, c. 1932. [Manning MSS. and collections in Ashm. Mus.] For the hoard, see p. 327 (ix).

Fawler. For the two houses in this parish, see p. 318 f., nos. 15 and 16. For the hoard, see p. 327 (xvii).

Fawley. Roman pottery from an interment in this parish is in Reading Museum.

Fencot. H. W. in Gent. Mag. 1817, ii, 310, reports from Otmoor in drainage works 'several fragments of Roman pottery . . . some plain, some decorated: on the bottom of one IVREVRO' from two plots of reed ground called Fencot and Murcot Fleets. Hussey (Roman Road, 33 ff.) identified the spot as between Fencot and the Roman road, three fields south of the Charlton lane, but wrongly calls it a 'pottery'. In cutting a ditch across the Roman road, two coins, apparently of Constantine II, and a bronze fibula were found about the same time. [Ibid.] For 'Joseph's stone', see p. 277, n. 7.

Filkins. For pre-Saxon brooch, pin, and bead in a Saxon grave, see above, p. 260, and below, p. 364.

Finstock. Roman coins were found many years before 1921 in the garden of the school-house. [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus.; Arch. lxxi, 243.]

Forest Hill. See Shotover.

Fordwells. See Asthall and Wychwood.

Fringford. For the house, see p. 320, no. 21. See also Stratton Audley and Tusmore.

Fritwell. The 6-inch O.S. map, sheet xvi NE., marks 'Roman coins' in a field immediately east of Crooks Firs, 1½ mile NE. of the village and south of the Ockley brook, which here forms the county boundary. Cf. Souldern.

Garsington. The following coins were found between Northfield Farm and Brook (west of it): Æ 2 Vespasian (1); AR Trajan (1) and Faustina I (1); Æ 2 Verus (2) Æ 3 Salonina (1), Claudius II (3), Constantine I (1); Æ 2 Crispus (2); Æ 3 Constans (2), 'Urbs Roma' (1), Constantius II or Constans (1), Valentinian I (1), Valens (2), Gratian (1). [B.B.O.J. iv, 18; Manning Coll. Ashm. Mus.] For a possible road running NW. on east of parish, see p. 279 (c).

Glympton. See Kiddington and Stonesfield.

Goring. A denarius of M. Aurelius found on Goring Heath is in Reading Museum. Two bronze brooches found with a 2nd-century hoard in a pot in the R. Thames are in Reading Museum. See p. 326 (4).

Great Rollright. The following coins were found on Church End Farm before 1919: Æ 3 of Tetricus II (1), Carausius (1), Constantine I (1), Constantine II (1), Constans (1), Magnentius (1), Julian (?), and Valens (?), and Æ of? Valentinian II. [Haverfield MSS.] Cf. Swerford.

Great Bourton. An Æ 3 of Maximinus Daza was found in the parish in 1863. [Potts's MSS.]

Great Tew. For the house, see p. 310 (7).

Hanwell. For the house, see p. 308 (1). For the hoard, see p. 327 (vi). About 1892 'an oven' with coarse pottery 'marked in squares' in it and burnt soil around it was found and covered in again in a field called 'Camp Spinney' immediately north of Spring Farm on the north of the village, possibly a kiln (p. 306). [Manning, B.B.O.J. iv, 18.] In digging a grave in the churchyard in 1863 a silver coin of Philip II (Cohen 50) was found. [Potts's MSS.] See also Horley.

Harpsden. For the house, see p. 323 (29).

Headington. (1) In building houses in 1935 in Cemetery Road, Headington, many potsherds, mostly mortaria of pinkish-white and buff clay, and other kitchen vessels of coarse ware of the late 3rd and 4th centuries were found; they are now in Ashm. Mus. (2) Fragments of pottery, decorated and plain Samian and coarse ware, were found in large quantities, a foot or so deep, in black soil, in 1933 at the corner of Ridgeway and Forest Roads, New Headington. Among them was an interesting triple vase in brown paint on white slip ware, probably of the 4th century (Ashm. Mus. 1934. 105). The coins found with them range from Trajan (Æ 1) and Gallienus to Constantine II (16, Æ 3), and are also in Ashm. Mus. (1937, Coin Room; cf. J.R.S. xxiv, 1934, 207). (3) In the garden of no. 45 Green Road, 1st-century coarse potsherds mingled with non-local stones were found 2 ft. below the surface in an amorphous pit and may indicate a settlement-site (p. 297). [Ashm. Mus.] For the kiln at Harry Bears's pit, see p. 304. Discoveries made at Warren Cottages, and by the stream in the extreme south corner of the parish, may also be remains of kilns [B.B.O.J. iv, 19–20; above, p. 304]. For the house and possible kiln-site on Wick Farm, see pp. 321 f., 304. See also Cowley, Shotover, and Littlemore.

Hempton. See Barford St. Michael and Deddington.

Henley. Plot (N.H. Oxf., 2nd ed., p. 337) mentions three urns found in 'Mr. Finche's House at the Market-place . . . and one in the High-way that leads towards the North at the Town's-End, not far from Ancastle'. This is on the east, near a windmill, a site now occupied by 'Rotherfield Court' and 'Westfield', in building which, c. 1860–70, 'several coins' were found, but whether they or the urns were Roman is quite uncertain. [E. J. Climenson, A Guide to Henley-on-Thames, 1896, 5. Gale, Antonini Iter Britanniarum, 1709, 106, mentions coins found in the marketplace and elsewhere, perhaps quoting Plot.] For the house at Harpsden, see p. 323 (29).

Hensington. For the ditched inclosure by Sansom's Lane, possibly a farm, with other traces close by, at Beech Hill Clump, Tackley, see pp. 298, 310 (5).

Holton. Half of a small altar of local stone, about 2 ft. high and 9½ in. wide, was found in 1906 in a field called 'Hampstead', east of Old Park Farm, which slopes down to the Holton brook. A few trenches dug here in 1909 by the late Mr. Philip Newbold revealed 4 pits, 6 ft. in diameter and 3 ft. deep, filled with pottery, bones, a few nails, some stones, and a heavy mass of slag. The pottery was mostly coarse, some apparently late, but there was also some Samian. [Haverfield MSS.; altar and some pottery in Ashm. Mus. (1909. 1213). There is also some 1st-century pottery labelled '1885'.] A late indented beaker was found about 1847 in digging the foundation of Holton Cottage [Arch. Journ. iv, 74,) and about ½ mile west, in a field called 'The Racks' between Holton Park and Lye Hill Quarry, urns containing ashes were found about 1830 and later another urn and coins of Julia Moesa, Gordian III, Gallienus, and Constans were seen at Holton House in 1894 by Mr. Manning. [B.B.O.J. iv, 21 ff.]

Hook Norton. The most important discovery is the brooch (Fig. 42) decorated with a pattern in repousse work on thin plates applied to the surface of the fibula which is to be dated to the first half of the 2nd century A.D. It is ultimately derived from a 'Gallo-Roman', or thistle brooch, the finest example of which type was found at Aesica on Hadrian's Wall. There was also found here, but not certainly with it, 'a skeleton in a jar', the spring of a fibula, a small bronze scarifier, and a small double ring of iron, red ware imitating Samian ware (? 4th century), coarser ware, and part of a hand-made pot. They were all discovered in digging for ironstone in a field called 'Goosacre'. [Leeds, P.S.A. xxiii, 1911, 406, fig. The brooch is in the Ashm. Mus.; for it see Collingwood, Archaeology of Roman Britain, p. 257, Group x, no. 92; Manning MSS.] Coins of Valerian, Postumus, Claudius II, Maximinus, Constantine I and II, and Magnus Maximus have been found in the village; skeletons with coins found in a garden at Southrop, south of the village, by the bridge, may or may not be Roman. [Manning MSS., Ashm. Mus.] A denarius of Claudius was found ½ mile south of the village [Potts's MSS.]

Horley. Plot (N.H. Oxf. 1705, 341) mentions 'Roman money dug up . . . about Horley', and a gold coin of Valens (68 grs.) with reverse RESTITVTOR REIPVBLICAE was found here. [Potts's MSS.] Cf. Hanwell.

Horsepath. A coin (Æ 3) of Probus in Ashm. Coll. Much pottery is picked up on the allotments and Common to the north of the village. Cf. Shotover. It is uncertain whether the two skeletons found in the top-soil of the quarry immediately east of the Roman road, north of the Temple Cowley road, west of the village, are Roman. [B.B.O.J. iv, 22.]

Horton-cum-Studley. 'A sort of pitching of rough stones set edgewise, about 2½ ft. in width', running NNW. and SSE., was traced 'to a point from which the pitching diverged nearly at rightangles (east by north) . . . with much pottery and other relics . . . in part upon, or near, the pitching, but principally in a line of black mould adjacent to it (on the eastern side)'—all found in 1839 in Studley New Wood, below the brow of the hill on the slope facing SW., 'about 97 yds. from the outside of the wood, on the north side, being that next to the mansion of Studley Priory'. The remains were covered in and marked by a spruce fir and 3 elms. The relics included some decorated Samian ware of the 1st century A.D. and some a little later, glass, and Hertfordshire pudding-stone querns. This seems to be the same site as that of the Samian ware and traces of buildings 'faint and inconsiderable' found in the centre of the New Wood, 1839–41. [Dr. Wilson, President of Trinity, in Arch. Journ. iii, 123; viii, 1851, 313. Some of the Samian ware is now in Ashm. Mus. labelled 'Dr. Wilson's Collection 1873'.] A silver coin of Arcadius was found about ⅓ mile east, on the allotments east of the wood, and other coins to the north immediately west of the Park. [B.B.O.J. iv, 42.] The pitching may be the foundations or core of walls. The remains indicate an occupation-site.

Idbury. Plot (N.H. Oxf., 1705, 341) mentions a 'parcel' of Roman 'money' found 'near the fortification', meaning the earthwork [V.C.H. Oxon. ii, 315).

Iffley. A sandstone quern and a coin of Titus from Iffley should perhaps be connected with the pottery site at Rose Hill (p. 305). [Ashm. Mus., 1928. 528; 1913. 308 (hence Arch. lxxi, 246); 1912. 1133.] For the kilns at Mount Pleasant, see p. 304.

Ilbury. See Duns Tew.

Ipsden. The 6-inch O.S. map (lii NE.) records before 1872 'Roman coins' north of Hailey Farm, north of Wilders Barn to the south, farther down the slope, and also to the SE. at the junction of Icknield Way and Portway; the last included a silver Diadumenianus. Apparently also a coin of Pupienus was found in digging the inclosure around the Maharajah's well and 'large quantities' of Roman potsherds have been found near Stoke Row—possibly a habitation-site. [O.A. and H. S. iii, 4.] Other discoveries are less certainly Roman—a shaft cut in the chalk with rude steps beginning 20 ft. from the top, called a well, at the western end of Berinshill Wood, south of Headlams, and a skeleton in a chalk-pit found about 1875 about 250 yds. west. [The Times, 5 Oct. 1860, hence J. E. Price, Roman Antiquities . . . on site of the National Safe Deposit Co.'s premises (1873), 37; O.S. Map Name Books cited by Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus.]

Islip. An urn with coins (? Roman) was found in digging for the railway between Bicester and Islip, possibly near Alchester or the Roman road. [MS. note in Potts's copy of Beesley's Banbury; see also pp. 276, 281.] The Ashm. Mus. Collections contain an Æ 1 of Gordian III. For Wood Eaton, see p. 299.

Kelmscott. Crop-marks of a settlement (p. 298) by the river-side were noted, but were not located precisely, by Haverfield. [P.S.A. xviii, 15.]

Kencot. A coin of Constantine I was found in 1901 at the Manor House with late Anglo-Saxon and medieval objects. [Ashm. Mus. 1920. 246; Arch. lxxi, 247.]

Kiddington. Pottery and coins of Caracalla, with those of the House of Constantine and Arcadius, were found before 1923 by Mr. Grimmett in the fields north of his farm, Kiddington Assarts (=Wood Farm), possibly the coins marked on the 6-inch O.S. map, xxi SW., west of Out Wood. For the hoard dating to A.D. 395 found between Box Wood and Out Wood, see p. 329 (xiii); for that of silver, undated, found c. 1870 at Kiddington Assarts near Hill Wood, see p. 329 (xviii); for a third, dating to Honorius, found in 1785, see p. 329 (xix). For the ditched inclosure in Pump Copse, see p. 311 (8). Cf. also Spelsbury and Stonesfield.

Kidlington. A 'small Roman urn' was found in quarrying in 1840 under a stone at the bottom of a steined well, NE. of the church; the well was filled with 'bones and broken red and white crockery, and abundance of coins was found all around'. The quarry seems to be about ½ mile from the station and NW. of the village, where 'many traces of dwellings, flues and cells' were found, and earthen ramparts were still evident. [Stapleton, Three Oxfordshire Parishes (O.H.S. xxiv), p. xvii; possibly Parker refers to these in Early History of Oxford (O.H.S. iii), 76, note 2; a small red flagon, probably late 1st-early 2nd-century, found in 1860, is now in the Ashm. Mus. The Manning Collection, Ashm. Mus., has coins found north of Campsfield Farm.]

Kingham. Romano-British potsherds, bronze fragments, a few bits of glass, and a few coins, 'the latest of which are of Allectus and Constantine', were found some years before 1913 on the hill north of Kingham, 'just below Kingham Hill Homes', i.e. about ½ mile east of the River Evenlode; no doubt an occupation-site. [W. Warde Fowler, Kingham Old and New, 1913, p. 7. The Ashm. Mus. (1886. 1652) contains some good 2nd- and 3rd-century pottery from Kingham, given by the Rev. J. Lockwood, possibly from the above site.]

Kirtlington. Coins, including 2 Æ 2 of Domitian and Lucius Verus, were found in 1895 in allotments immediately south of Akeman Street on the east bank of the River Cherwell, west of Crowcastle Lane, and 'coins' are also said to have been found in 'Blacklands' field, east of Slade Farm. [B.B.O.J. iv, 22.] Potsherds of native and imported coarse ware were discovered in 1936 with two skeletons near the allotments south of Akeman Street and west of the Portway. [Skeletons in University Museum, potsherds in Ashm. Mus.] See also Aves Ditch. For Portway, see p. 275.

Langtree. See Goring Heath.

Launton. Roman coins, unspecified, were found close to the hedge which divides 'Towlands' (? Townlands) and 'Marlins' fields, between the Rectory and the L.M. and S.R. Station, north of the village. The date of the skeletons found by the Roman road opposite Skimming Dish Lane (the Caversfield road) at the north end of the parish in 1813 is uncertain. [Blomfield, Bicester, i, pp. 18, 20 f.]

Little Milton. An Æ 3 of Constantius II (Cohen 104), 330–3, was found on the surface in October 1933.

Littlemore. Fragments of Roman mortaria were found within the grounds of Littlemore Asylum in 1864 [Ashm. Mus. 1875, 117], coins and objects just north of the railway line, between it and the village [Manning's notes on 6-inch O.S. maps, sheet xxxix SE., in Ashm. Mus.], and Manning records about 1903 some '20 holes about the diameter of a bucket reaching down . . . to the top of the ragstone, full of burnt earth, ashes, and charred bones' on the west of the Roman road, where it is crossed by the Cowley-Garsington road, but there is no proof that these are Roman. [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus.]

Lower Heyford. 'Silver and other Roman coins found' close to the junction of the road to the village and the Bicester-Enstone road, about ¼ mile east of the railway station and less than that south of the River Cherwell. [Manning MSS. in the Ashm. Mus.] A silver coin of Valentinian I (Cohen 18) was found in a field about a mile south of the above at the base of the railway embankment and possibly, therefore, not in situ. [Ibid.; now in Ashm. Mus.]

Madmarston. See Swalcliffe.

Mapledurham. (1) Traces of a building—a fragment of an uncemented flint wall, 3 ft. wide and 1 ft. thick—were found laid on the gravel in March 1934 in the garden of a bungalow ('Hillingdon'), Upper Woodcote Road, just east of Blagrave's Farm, on high ground facing SW. towards the Thames. Tiles, a mortarium, and potsherds were turned up in 1933 and in 1921 numerous coins, including a mid-3rd-century coin, with potsherds of the same date, were discovered in a pit on the Farm. Reading Museum contains potsherds, Æ 2 of Carausius, and Æ 3 of Allectus, and 4th-century coins from here, and also pottery from Farthingworth Green gravel-pit to the NE. [Berks. Arch. Journ. xxxviii, 1934, 95; xxxix, 201, hence J.R.S. xxiv, 207. Reading Museum]. (2) Potsherds and 4th-century coins found in 1927–8 a little north and west of West Dene are now in Reading Museum.

Marsh Baldon. Coins, including some of Claudius II, Constantine, and Magnentius, were found in 1796–7 in an old hop-garden, near Baldon Heath, apparently west of the village and north of the road to Nuneham Courtenay. [Hussey, Roman Road, 41.]

Merton. Numerous Roman coins have been found in the parish: in fields to the north, west of Langford lane, AR of Vespasian and Hadrian, Æ 2 of Constantine, Crispus, and Valens; at the Manor House, Æ 2 of Commodus and Julia Sabina; east of the village, Æ 2, 'consecrationary', of Augustus [B.B.O.J. iv, 23]. There is no reason for thinking Langford Lane a Roman road. For the road across Otmoor, see p. 277.

Middleton Stoney. Blomfield (Bicester, i, 18) cites 'remains of Roman brickwork found some years ago at Middleton, on a spot of ground opposite the village inn, which seemed to be parts of a bath', giving Dunkin, Hist. of Middleton [sic], as reference, but Manning (MSS. in Ashm. Mus.) says that Blomfield 'acknowledged in 1895 that his reference was wrong, and that he had lost his notes of the site'.

Milcombe. The remains indicating a house, mentioned by Thos. Beesley (N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 17), are possibly the same as Bloxham no. 2 (q.v.). Coins, Æ 3 of Claudius II, Constantine II, and Magnentius, and Æ 2 of Domitian and Maximinus have been found in the parish. [Potts's MSS.]

Milton. See Adderbury and Little Milton.

Minster Lovell. A fibula, apparently of simple bow type, 2 in. long, found here, was presented to the British Museum in 1845 ('45, 10–21, 31), but is now lost. Roman potsherds are said to occur in the churchyard, and in Ashm. Mus. is an Æ 3 of Constantine II. For the hoard of Claudian coins, see p. 325 (i).

Newington. See North and South Newington.

North Newington. Æ 2 of Faustina and Æ 3 of Constantius were found in 1865 near Tythe Farmhouse, ¾ mile SW. of Castle Banks and near the Swalcliffe site, q.v. [Potts's MSS.]

Noke. An AR of Postumus was found in 1841 [Hussey, Roman Road, 37], and the Ashm. Mus. contains Æ 3 of Carausius (1), House of Constantine (1), and Valens (1).

North Leigh. An oval enamelled seal-box, three intaglios, and a denarius of Faustina found on Bridewell Farm in 1910 are in the possession of Miss Gask, Church Mead. One of the intaglios in chalcedony (Pl. XVII, A) represents a type of Fides Publica (with ears of corn in the right hand and a dish or basket in the left) common on Roman imperial coins (Brit. Mus. Catal. of Engraved Gems, no. 1704, pl. xxiii); on the other is a Cupid as a kneeling gladiator; these should be connected with the house at Wilcote (p. 319, no. 17). For the house at East End, see p. 316 (14).

Northmoor. The Ashm. Mus. contains Æ 3 of Claudius II (1), ? Tetricus (1), Constantine I (1), Constantinopolis (1), found in fields to the south and east of the village, between it and Ramsey Farm, and Æ 2 of Nero (1), Vespasian (2), Æ 3 of Constantine I (1), and perhaps Magnentius were found in 1895 in making the new lock on the Thames, as well as AR and Æ 2 of Titus. [B.B.O.J. iv, 23, also mentioning a small pot from the Thames near here in the Brit. Mus.]

North Stoke. Æ 1 and 3 and billon coins of Postumus and several Æ 3 of Numerian were found here between 1863 and 1881. [Davies Collection, recorded by Hedges, Hist. of Wallingford (1881), i, 142 f.]

Nuffield. For the hoard at Harcourt Hill, see Ewelme.

Nuneham. See Culham.

Oddington. The 'considerable quantity of Roman remains . . . found . . . in the immediate vicinity of the parsonage . . . in 1824 on a spot named Brismere' are apparently not of Roman date. [Skelton, Oxfordshire, Ploughley Hund. 7, note; Hussey, Roman Road, 37, p. 254.] The only certain Roman discovery is a coin of Constantine found in 1889 between Oddington and Charlton. [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus.]

Otmoor. See Fencot, Oddington, and roads, p. 277.

Oxford. For settlements on the site of Oxford, see p. 301, and also Cowley, Cutslow, Headington, Shotover, Wolvercote.

Preston Crowmarsh. See Benson.

Ramsden. Coins have been found ½ mile north of Akeman Street in ploughing Ramsden Heath. The Ashm. Mus. possesses Æ 3 of Constantine II and 'Constantinopolis' and a silver of Julian. [B.B.O.J. iv, 26.] See also Wilcote.

Rollright. See Great Rollright.

Rotherfield Greys. A burial urn was found SE. of Herne's farm in 1932. [Information from Reading Museum.]

Rotherfield Peppard. Plot records the discovery in 1675, in clearing out a pond near Blounts Court, of 'two Roman urns', broken, with a stag's head, fragments of white and blue substance, hazel nuts, and many whole oak trunks at a depth of 50–60 ft. in a pit, but whether they are really Roman is uncertain. [N.H. Oxf. (1705), 163 ff.]

Rousham. 'Coins of the late Roman emperors have frequently been found in and near Rousham.' [W. Wing, Annals of Rousham (1877), 11.] For the graves, see above, p. 266.

Roustage. See Wychwood; for the hoard, see p. 326 (iii).

Sandford-on-Thames. Two Æ 3 coins of Constantine II are in the Ashm. Mus. For the kilns at Mynchery Farm, see p. 304.

Sarsden. See Churchill.

Shipton-on-Cherwell. Traces of a settlement (p. 297), probably a village, occupied from the 2nd to the 4th century, were found on the heights above the River Cherwell at the Shipton Cement Works, north of the village, in 1928–9. Pottery, mostly coarse ware of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, some very coarse, showing Early Iron Age technique, with a few fragments of Samian ware, one of form 36 (Drag.), and one late red bowl with a pattern in white on the rim, occurred in numerous pits and ditches. [J.R.S. xix (1929), 195. The pottery is in Ashm. Mus.] For a ridgeway, see p. 280 (d).

Shirburn. Stukeley, Itinerarium Curiosum (1724), 41, records that 'a pot of Roman money was found at Sherburn . . . last year', but gives no details (see p. 330 (xx)).

Shotover. (1) In digging clay on the west slope of Shotover Hill, immediately east of the NorthSouth Roman road, traces of a settlement have been observed for a considerable time. In addition to occupation earth, floors, and building stone, the site has yielded much pottery. It is mostly coarse cooking ware of the 3rd and 4th centuries, probably from local kilns (see above, p. 303 f.), but there is also Samian ware of the second half of the 2nd century, including a dish of form 31 (Drag.) stamped PVGNIM, and a slightly earlier mortarium rim. The coins are of Tiberius (Æ 2), Pius (Æ 1), and Æ 3 of Victorinus (2, one an imitation), Tetricus (6), Claudius II (1), Constantius II (1), and Valentinian I (1), and Æ 4 of Theodosius (1). It is unusual to find a village settlement on the clay and the inhabitants may therefore have dug the clay for the kilns close by. Or they may have been stone-quarriers, for Headington stone is said to have been found at Silchester. (2) Slightly east of the above and by the quarry face a thick Roman occupation-layer containing coarse ware was observed in 1929 beneath paving, on the top of the clay [Haverfield and Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus. Manning in O.A. and H. Soc. vi, 50 and 158; and B.B.O.J. iv, 27. The pottery and coins are in Ashm. Mus. 1936. 230, &c.].

(3) There may be yet another village on the south slope of the Hill, to judge by pottery noticed there in 1912. [Manning MSS., Ashm. Mus.]

For a possible kiln, see p. 306. For a hoard of coins in Thornhill Lane, see p. 327 (vii). Cf. Horsepath.

Two rims of large grey storage jars found about a mile north of the claypit site along the Roman road at Bayswater Mill in 1910 are in Ashm. Mus.

Signet. See Burford.

Sonning. In Reading Museum is a coarse pot found in the River Thames.

Souldern. J. H. Gough (N.O. Arch. Soc. 1887, no. xxii, 3) says that 'about 70 years ago, in the carpenter's yard at the western extremity of our village, some Roman coins and a bead necklace were dug up, possibly from the Saxon cemetery (p. 355); and more recently upon a farm, the property of Mr. J. R. Crook, were discovered' coins of Carausius, Valens, Claudius II, and Tetricus, 'as well as some tesserae, and a small bronze figure'. 'There has also been found in the parish a bronze coin of the second size of the Emperor Probus.' [The above work was also published separately and on p. 8 of this edition the author says that the coins and necklace were bought by the late P. Pigott Conand.] Cf. Fritwell.

South Lawn. For the hoard, see p. 328 (xii). See Wychwood.

South Leigh. Two lead coffins were found in drainage work in 1865 and 1878 respectively, just north of Tar Farm, by the side of the River Windrush. The second measured 7 ft. by 2½ ft., contained lime and very fragmentary remains of a skeleton laid with feet 'towards the sun', and remains of a glass vessel and of outer wooden casing. Other skeletons are said to have been found at the same time. Æ 3 of Constantius II is in the Ashm. Mus. [Manning MSS; B.B.O.J. iv, 39. The skeleton was removed to the University Museum by Professor Rolleston.]

South Newington. See Barford St. Michael.

South Stoke. Coins of Valerian and many of Gallienus were found here between 1863 and 1881 by Mr. W. R. Davies. [Hedges, Hist. of Wallingford (1881), i, 142.]

Spelsbury. Hakewill (Roman Remains in North Leigh and Stonesfield (Oxford, 1836) from Skelton, Oxfordshire, Wootton Hund., p. 9) marks on a map at B 'supposed Roman remains in Ditchley township' within the park at its SW. corner near Spurnell's Well: possibly an error for the site in Watts Wells Field (see p. 311 (9)). The small rectangular earthwork, c. 130 ft. square, at Ash Copse west of Lodge Farm, shown in V.C.H. Oxon. ii, 319, is of unknown date. It may be compared with two others in Cornbury Park (ibid. 318; Antiquity, 1930, 311). The 1833 ed. of the 1-inch O.S. map, sheet xlv, marks a 'camp' south of Grim's Dyke and by the Home or Model Farm, west of Ditchley. [Hence Akerman in Arch. xxxvii, 425, pl. xii. O. G. S. Crawford, Antiquity, 1930, 311, calls it rectangular and thinks it was destroyed when the Model Farm was built.]

Standlake. A good disk brooch with zigzag ornament, found in 1874, is in the Ashm. Mus. See also Ducklington.

Stanton Harcourt. Crop-marks of pit- and hut-sites and drainage ditches, indicating a large village site (p. 298), are shown in Major Allen's air-photograph in the fields south of the modern village, east of the Devil's Quoits on Barrow Hill; they seem to be a continuation northwards of the Early Iron Age village site on Linch Hill (Pl. XIV, b). Much pottery, coarse cooking jars, some of it of the late 1st century a.d., from Stanton Harcourt, is in the Ashmolean Museum, where also is part of a mid-2nd-century central Gaulish patera (form 18/31), with the potter's stamp GENETI . M, found with an imitation Samian vessel of the 3rd century in a gravel pit immediately east of Great Grounds, ½ mile south of the modern village. Manning MSS. (in Ashm. Mus.) mention an early bronze fibula from Barrow Field. More crop marks are also visible in Spring Grounds, east of the village.

Stanton St. John. At Woodperry, or Woodbury, about ½ mile north of the village, 'potsherds, trinkets', and 'very great quantities of coins' were found shortly before 1846 among the foundations of a medieval church and village, mostly in the latter, which was 'lower down in the field' than the church, and 'in a little close below, which itself reaches up to the Horton road', close to the stream and apparently west of the brook. Some of the pottery, tiles with stamped patterns (one like a Beckley one), and small bronze objects were given in 1873 to the Ashm. Mus. by the finder, Dr. John Wilson (once President of Trinity College, Oxford). The pottery includes late 1st- and 2nd-century Samian ware (stamps of Cracino and Cinnamus), a fragment of black Samian (form 37) from the East Gaulish kilns, much imitation Samian of a late date, and the 4th-century red stamped ware and a white bowl painted in red, both probably from the Oxfordshire kilns (see p. 304); there was also 3rd- and 4th-century Castor ware and mortarium rims, as well as one 1st-century mortarium rim, and coarse kitchen ware of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Among the metal objects were two brooches, one an early La Tène III type, the other a somewhat unusual 2nd-century shield-shape, a La Tène III pin (supra, p. 260), and coins, mostly Æ 2 of Domitian, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Diocletian, Maximian, Claudius II, and Constantine. The only signs of construction noted were 'traces of a circular furnace or fire-place, about 4 ft. in diameter, . . . a well 20 ft. deep', many tiles, some with mortar on them, and a few large stone tesserae. It may have been a small house like that at Beckley, but it is in rather a low position. Surface marks are visible. [Wilson's account in Arch. Journ. iii, 116 ff., figs. 11 and 12 especially; a précis is in P.S.A., ser. 1, i, 107, hence B.B.O.J. iv, 43, and O.A. and H. Soc. Proc. 1900; Hussey, Roman Road (1841), 40 f. Hearne (Diaries, 31 March 1716 and 15 Nov. 1732, O.H.S. xlii, 192 and lxxii, 128) refers to burials and pottery, but these are not necessarily Roman.] Wood records 'an urne of coines' found in 1647 in Stockherst Wood near Stanton St. John. He gives no details, but says that one was of Romulus and Remus, and therefore presumably it was of the 4th century. [Wood's Life and Times (O.H.S. xix, 1891), i, 266.] An inhumation-burial and near it an Æ 2 of Nero was found in 1842 in Upper Stafford Grove, the field crossed by the Roman road close to the modern Studley-Headington road. [Arch. Journ. iii, 125.] For the hoard, see p. 330 (xxi).

Steeple Aston. For the house, see p. 309 (4).

Steeple Barton. An Æ of Vespasian (COS IIII, Rev. AEQUITAS AVGVST SC) with another illegible one was found beneath the foundations of the church. [N.O. Arch. Soc. 1853–5, 113.] The gold ring found here, now in the Ashm. Mus., is not Roman. [Arch. Journ. vi, 289; Oxf. Univ. Gazette, lxiv (1933–4), 448 = Ashm. Mus. Rep. 1933, 17.]

Stoke Row. See Ipsden.

Stonesfield. For the houses at Callow Hill and in Chesthill Acres, see pp. 313 ff. (12, 13).

Stonelands. See Swinbrook.

Stow Wood. See Elsfield.

Stratton Audley. Plot and Hearne mention coins frequently found in Stratton Audley Fields. Others have been found in the Park in cutting drains, apparently on the slope of Fringford Hill. [Plot, N.H. Oxf. (1705), 341; Hearne's Diaries, 7 Feb. 1707–8 (O.H.S. vii, 92), hence Blomfield, Bicester, 18.] See also Fringford and Tusmore.

Studley. See Horton.

Swalcliffe. For the house or village site on Lower Leas Farm, see pp. 299, 308 (2); for the hoard, see p. 330 (xxii).

Swerford. Plot records coins from here, and a denarius of Albinus (Cohen 58) was found in the Park. [Plot, N.H. Oxf. (1705), 341; Potts's MSS.] Cf. Great Rollright.

Swinbrook. Twelve or thirteen skeletons, together with Roman coins, were found in 1893–4 to the NW. of Akeman Street, SE. of Sturt Farm, near Stonelands, and south of the Burford road. More skeletons were discovered about 1935 on this road. [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus.; B.B.O.J. iv, 41]. For the coins in the barrows at South Lawn near the detached part of Taynton, see p. 328 (xii). See also Wychwood.

Sydenham. See Emington.

Tackley. An occupation-site occurs on the line of Akeman Street on the hill-top south of the village (see p. 298). Pottery and 138 coins ranging from Claudius to Arcadius were collected by Mr. Evetts and have been presented to the Ashm. Mus. [J.R.S. xvi, 226; Oxoniensia, ii (1937).] For the site on Beech Hill Clump near Sansom's Farm, see p. 310 (5). For Akeman Street, p. 274.

Tadmarton. Between the Early Iron Age hill fort (E. of it) and Holywell Farm House, now the Tadmarton Heath Golf Club, foundation-stones and potsherds found in black soil indicate a settlement or perhaps a house. In 1849 12 well-preserved coins of Carausius were found, and in 1864 a silver Constantine I (VOTIS XXX, MVLTIS XXX, minted at Lyons). [Potts's MSS. The site is marked on the 6-in. O.S. map ix NW.] For the coffins, see p. 309 f. See also Swalcliffe.

Taynton. Plot (N.H. Oxf. (1705), 341) records coins found here. See also Burford and Swinbrook.

Tew. See Duns Tew and Great Tew.

Thame. Roman potsherds and coins, including a gold Honorius, were found in Lupton's Land and a cinerary urn at Lashlake. [Brown and Guest, Hist. of Thame (1935), 3.]

Thames (R.). The Thames Conservancy Collection in Reading Museum contains an iron axe and key, two spear-heads, and many potsherds found in the river. See also Caversham, Goring, Sonning, and Whitchurch.

Tusmore. Plot (N.H. Oxf. (1705), 341) mentions coins, but probably there is confusion with Stratton Audley or Fringford.

Warborough. A stone coffin, perhaps Roman, formed out of a solid block of stone and containing human remains, was found 18 in. below the surface in 1780 by the side of the River Thame near Priest's Moor (6-inch. O.S. map, sheet xlvi SW.]. A small brass coin of Valens was found in 1889 on Warborough Green [Manning MSS.] and another of Magnentius was brought to the Ashm. Mus. in 1932. Two crucibles, possibly used for metal working, potsherds, bone pins, &c., were found near the Dorchester-Benson road, on the site of the Council houses, about ½ mile from Dorchester, between 1920 and 1930, and some of them were given by Mr. S. Gibson to the Ashm. Mus. For the Early Iron Age sites here, see p. 266, and for Mount Farm (Dorchester), see pp. 296, 297, 298.

Water Eaton. Sir Arthur Evans mentions 'evidence of the former existence of a Roman villa here', but there seems to be a confusion with Wood Eaton. Coins have been found in the fields but never remains of buildings. [O.A. and H. Soc. iii (1874), 174. The two brooches in the British Museum said to come from Water Eaton probably were found at Wood Eaton. J.R.S. vii, 1917, 104–8.] For the potsherds at Pear Tree Hill brickyard, which is just in this parish, see Wolvercote.

Waterperry. Ashm. Mus. contains a coin of Claudius II. See also Holton.

Wendlebury. For the town at Alchester in this parish, see p. 281.

Wheatley. (1) An inhumation (without grave-goods) in a rough coffin of non-local oolite with a slightly gabled lid was found in 1933 on the hill-top, east of the Cuddesdon road and about ½-mile NE. of the Roman house (3). [Ox. Univ. Gazette, lxiv, 1933–4,447 = Ashm. Mus. Rep. 1933, p. 17.] (2) Close to the top of Ladder Hill, south of the station and east of the windmill, some potsherds, including flagons of the late second century, possibly a burial, were found in making a tennis lawn at 'Windmills' about 1913. [Information from Mr. J. A. Brown, the owner.] (3) For the house on Castle Hill, see p. 322, no. 26.

Whitchurch. For the hoard in Whitchurch Weir Pool, see p. 327 (v); for a possible Roman burial, p. 372.

Widford. For the house, see p. 320, no. 20.

Wigginton. For the house, see p. 309, no. 3.

Wilcote. (1) Traces of stone work, pottery, and coins in quantity have been found by farm labourers in fields immediately south of Akeman Street, NW. of Wilcote and immediately east of the wood in which lies Hayes Barn. Other remains—quantities of potsherds, animal remains, and coins of all periods—were found north of the Manor. The extent of these remains seem to suggest a village rather than a house (above, pp. 298, 319 (2)). The coins are curious, and Mr. Sutherland thinks that those of Claudius were a hoard (see p. 326 (ii)). They included also many Constantinian, and a denarius of Arcadius. [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus. Notes from Mr. Ellis, of Witney. Local information.] (2) Other remains have been found on the Wilcote farms including possibly a house (p. 319, no. 17 (1), and also p. 341, s.v. North Leigh). (3) A fragment of copper inscribed in Greek with the letters [ptolemoisin] and parts of four other letters, including [e (or i)ts], found in 1892 in building a new cowshed near the Manor may or may not be local. [P.S.A. xviii, 9 ff., hence pl. xvii, b; Eph. Ep. ix, 1003.] B.A.A.J. xii, 177, refers to a kiln at Wilcote, but evidence is lacking (p. 306). Cf. Ramsden.

Witney. Roman coins from Witney were seen by Hearne. [Diaries, July 4th and October 7th 1709. (O.H.S. vii, 220, 282 f.).] See Cogges.

Wolvercote. Potsherds, chiefly mortaria, are found in the brickfields, especially that at Pear Tree Hill, east of the Woodstock Road and south of the railway line, and may indicate a village (p. 298). [Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus.; Ashm. Mus. 1886. 1633.] The Rev. E. A. Sydenham had a coin of Constantine II found in Davenant Road and one of Gratian from Lower Wolvercote. For the village site in St. Edward's School playing-fields, see p. 302 (d).

Woodcote. For the probable house site, see Mapledurham. A small inclosure in Friarhampstead Wood, marked on the 6-inch O.S. map, lii SE., may possibly indicate a small farm.

Wood Eaton. For the site on Middle Hill, Islip, see p. 299. For the hoards, see p. 328 (x, xi). For possible roads see p. 278. Drun's Hill, a disused stone quarry about 250 yds. SE. of Pegtop Farm, has been known as a Roman site since the 17th century. Hussey (Roman Road, 38 f.) remarks that the surface is strewed with worn pieces of coarse pottery and with pieces of iron slag more plentiful than the sherds. Dr. Buckland judged the slag to come 'probably from a Roman smelting work supplied with ore from the ironstone of the lower green-sand or shanklin formation on the top of Shotover'. Further, a coin of Vespasian (Num. Chron. vii, 1844, 43), two brooches (Arch. Journ. xii, 279), one of Pannonian type (J.R.S. vii, 110 f., fig. 8) and one of trumpet form (ibid. 112 f., fig. 10), are now in the Ashm. Mus. (Gordon Collection). Manning (B.B.O.J. iv, 42) mentions 'a quantity of bones and ashes and . . . two "golden images"', one of which went to Canon Gordon of Elsfield, the other to London. The former may be the bronze staple in the form of a female head in the Gordon Collection; the other is lost. Manning (MSS.) suggests its identification with a 'small bronze bust of Antinöus found near Oxford' exhibited by C. R. Smith but not now traceable (P.S.A., ser. 1, ii (1850), 68). [Plot, N.H. Oxf. (1705), 337, hence Kennett, Par. Antiq. (1818), i, 14, and Cox, Magna Britannia, iv, 400. Warton, Kiddington (1783), 57 n. seems to confuse this site with Middle Hill, Islip.]

Woodperry. See Stanton St. John.

Woodstock. Roman coins, including two of Vespasian (IVDAEA CAPTA), were found in 1755 in pulling down some houses called King John's Cottages. [Warton, Kiddington (1783), 58, note, and Jackson's Oxford Journal, 3 May 1755.] A small urn, said to be Roman, was found 'in a bed of ashes' 2 or 3 ft. below the surface in Back Acre, behind premises in Oxford Street, in 1810. [Mavor, New Description of Blenheim, 10th ed., p. 140.] Hearne records a coin of Tetricus found at 'Stanbury' near Woodstock [Diaries, 27 Sept. 1711 (O.H.S. xiii, 236)]. The Ashm. Mus. contains an Æ of Constantine I. There seem no grounds for the statement that Woodstock Manor House was built on the site of a Roman villa. [Godwin, English Archaeologist's Handbook (1867), 231, hence Marshall, Hist. of Woodstock, 13.] See also Blenheim.

Wootton-by-Woodstock. For the farm at New Inn, see p. 310 (6). Coins of Tetricus I and II, Constantine and Constantine family have been found in a field east of Milford Bridge. [Manning MSS. in the Ashm. Mus.]

Worsham. For the house, see p. 319 (19).

Wroxton. A base silver coin of Gallienus (Cohen no. 397) was found in the new Vicarage garden in 1868. [Potts's MSS.]

Wychwood. In 1858 Dryden excavated in Wychwood, south of the E.-W. riding, on top of a hill near a spring in Slate Pit Copse, WSW. of Churchill Plain, a stone-lined pit 11 ft. 2 in. in diameter but, at a depth of 10 ft., narrowing to 6 ft. It contained stones tumbled in from a wall, bones and horns of bos longifrons, sheep and boar, oyster-shells, and half-a-bushel of potsherds, chiefly grey, but also white, red, and Samian ware, iron nails, and a bill-hook. This is probably a small village site (p. 298). [Dryden MSS. in Northampton Museum quoted by Manning MSS. in Ashm. Mus. and 1934. 376]. For the possible hoards found at South Lawn and Roustage, see pp. 326 (iii), 328 (xii). Fragments of coarse grey and red ware from Wastage and Roustage Barrows are now in Ashm. Mus. See also Asthall (5) and Charlbury.

Wykham Park. See Banbury (2).

Yarnton. Traces of one or two small village sites have been found near the G.W.R. Line: (1) potsherds in the ballast pit dug out in 1854 for the embankment of the loop line and in a field called the Park (Manor Farm); two pots, one inside the other, but with no ashes, were discovered in 1856. (2) In a gravel-pit at Sandy Lane crossing, west of the railway line, ditches and pits containing much pottery of the Early Iron Age and Early Romano-British types, as well as an early 1st-century Roman bronze brooch (Collingwood, Archaeology, type 22), were found in 1936; they indicate a British village of the overlap period (p. 297 and below, p. 356) which had a brief existence. [Some account of Yarnton Church and Parish, Yarnton and Oxford, n.d., p. 33; Oxoniensia, i, 201. Ox. Univ. Gazette, lxvi (1935–6), 458 = Ashm. Mus. Rep. 1935, 13. Finds in Ashm. Mus. 1935. 508, 1936. 136].

Oxfordshire. Place unknown, but probably in the northern part of the county. In Northampton Mus. (Dryden Collection) were fragments of a pewter dish, 12 in. diameter, faintly inscribed VIVAS . . B DO CILINLIS: Professor Haverfield, who appears never to have published it, suggested Vivas sub D(e)o Cil . . . as a possible reading. The metal and the first word make probable a 4th-century date and 'vivas' frequently occurs on late objects of Christian use. [Haverfield MSS. It is not now known in Northampton Museum.]