Digging Into The Past - Against The Clock (21 May 1976)

On a recent Sunday afternoon I was taken for a ride round the district, during which, at Cosgrove, we came upon a number of young people who were on their hands and knees scratching a small piece of ground by the roadside.

I guessed that this was an archaeological “dig.”  And I should say, in passing, that such a dig is not so much a matter of spadework as of trowel-work, brushwork and even finger-nail work.

Folks who normally wouldn’t be seen with their hands dirty are happy to become grubbed up to the eyeballs for archaeology’s sake.

Their reward may be only a coin, wafer-thin and less that the the size of the end of a cigarette tip.  Or a piece of tile or earthenware no bigger than an egg-cup.  But it is enough to excite them.  For such is the expertise in identifying and dating such material nowadays that every fragment contributes to our knowledge of dim and distant Roman and pre-Roman times.

Interest in this kind of exploration has grown rapidly in recent years.  Not so long ago the only known Roman sites were Magiovinium near the junction of the Ouzel and the Watling Street, and a wayside shrine at Stony Stratford.

Unfortunately, Magiovinium has always been too obvious.  It is mentioned in what is known as the Antonine Itinerary.  Only scholars would know that.  But it did not take a scholar to realise that there was something strange about the material, including human bones, that were constantly coming to the surface down there.

Consequently, for most of this century up to the formation of the present Bletchley Archaeological and Historical Society it was subject to random and sporadic exploration by people informed and uninformed and was a continual happy hunting ground for small boys.

Some items have found their way to county and national museums, but the whereabouts of many others has been lost.

Since the society took the site in hand some interesting discoveries have been made.  Like that Magiovinium was both larger and older than was previously thought; that it was not just a posting station but a fort; and that it was approached by another Roman road as well as by the Watling Street.

With the possibility that the site might soon be covered for ever by a new road junction, the society are likely to be busier than ever before in trying to retrieve and discover what they can.

Archaeology in this district now is largely a race against the bulldozer and the clock.  Many other sites, which in some instances have been revealed by the bulldozer itself, have come to light in Bletchley and are now built over.

For instance, there is a whole string of Romano-Celtic farmsteads (called “villas” by the Romans) along the high ground from Sherwood Drive to Windmill Hill which were hardly identified before they were built upon.

It is to be hoped the villa found at Old Bradwell will have a better fate.  Just one villa site left permanently open might be enough to give future Milton Keynesians the general idea of what went on hereabouts in ancient times.

I see that an attempt is being made at Bradwell to discover the religion of the Romano-Celtic inhabitants, in the hope that this might give a clue to the cult of the area in general.  There are one or two indications that the cult at Bradwell might have been Mercury, but the household shrine, if there was one, has yet to be found.

A difficulty is that the old households seem to have had gods and godlings in abundance.  Emperor worship was the overall Roman consideration.  But the legionaries brought other gods with them and the natives could either adopt those or have what gods they liked in practice.

Thus the wayside shrine at Stony Stratford is described as that of Jupiter and Vulcan, two Roman gods, but it is also said to have been dedicated to Toutates, a Celtic god also known across the channel.  No building was discovered.  The knowledge comes from some beautiful silver plaques and a chain head-dress which were found there and are now in the British Museum.