Roman inhumation and cremation cemetery, in Fields 65-66, east of Newmarket Road, Great Chesterford (EHER 46232)

A Roman cemetery excavated by Lord Braybrooke (Hon. R.C. Neville) in 1846. At least 30 inhumation burials and 50 vessels (it is not clear if this represents 55 cremations or simply the total number including offertory vessels) were recorded.

1846. Antiquarian excavation. Braybrooke organised the excavation of a Fields 65 and 66 outside the town wall measuring 18 poles in area. It is not possible to precisely locate these, as he refers to them as being set at right-angles to the Newmarket Road and sited a few hundred yards south of Mr Barnard’s gravel-pit. The field numbers and the description cannot be correlated on any of the maps of the period; however, using just the description it would appear that the fields in question must have been sited to the east of the London-Newmarket Road, approximately where the modern recreation ground is. ‘Nothing could be more unpromising than the first aspect of the ground, not even exhibiting the blackened earth so usual on such occasions, but an early British coin … quickly presented itself’. This was a coin of Cunobelin, and he notes that a further two coins of this type had been found in Chesterford, but not on this site and not together. Excavation revealed ‘skeletons and bones in great numbers, accompanied by pots, urns; andc., of different shapes and sizes, and all in excellent condition; more than twenty were close to each other, including an amphora and poculum of peculiar form’. These included many cinerary urns containing burnt bones and ashes, as well as offering vessels, including a shallow red patera and several smaller black patera, a large black bowl containing a brooch and an amphora containing the bones of three moles. Braybrooke was unsure whether the latter were deliberately placed inside the amphora or had become trapped when digging. The bones of pigs, cattle and horses were ‘profusely scattered about a surface’. In total, 55 vessels were found, ‘succeeding each other in rows’. He noted that two of these vessels had been buried six inches (0.15m) below the surface and had been plough-damaged, while the rest ranged from two to three feet deep (0.6-0.9m). ‘With respect to the skeletons, no order seems to have been observed in their interment, except that an urn was generally in the vicinity of a body, thirty of which were discovered, including those of two children’. He noted that the inhumations and the cremations were intermingled, and that in his judgement one form of burial practice had not been superimposed on an earlier form as their was no signs of disturbance to either type of burial. Coins of Domitian, Urbs Roma, Nerva and Constantius were found, although Braybrooke noted that this was less coins than he had anticipated and speculated that it was a cemetery for ‘the lower classes of society’. The cemetery, both the inhumations and the cremations, seem to have taken up the centre of the field ‘as the vases and bodies were principally deposited in a strip in the middle of the ground’. When about two-thirds of the area had been excavated ‘the soil grew suddenly shallow, and every trace of a former occupation being obliterated, rendered it no longer worth while to proceed with the excavation, further than by sinking a hole or two in different parts to make sure of the quality of the ground’. This area had presumably been previously quarried. <1> <2> This excavation forms the basis of the evidence for an 'Eastern cemetery' at Great Chesterford (EHER 83360) and, along with the burials on the bowling green (see EHER 4946 and EHER 13916), has been interpreted as a discrete cemetery to the east of the Roman town. Note: The mapped location and extent of this record is conjectural given that Fields 65 and 66 cannot be precisely located. NRHE data transfer: no new information.