Time Team - Friars Wash, Redbourn, Hertfordshire - Archaeological Evaluation and Assessment of Results

Wessex Archaeology

The fieldwork comprised geophysical survey and four evaluation trenches. Geophysical survey identified several anomalies that coincided with the features visible on the aerial photograph, and the four evaluation trenches were targeted on the various possible masonry structures and ditches identified. The earliest deposits encountered comprise possible buried soils recorded in
Trenches 1 and 2, both of which pre-dated the construction of the masonry structures. Although no dating evidence was recovered from either of these deposits, finds recovered from the metalled surface (108) directly overlying the possible buried soil in Trench 1 suggest a late 1st or 2nd century AD construction date for structure (109), and presumably also the surrounding ambulatory walls, with activity on the site continuing into the late 4th century AD.

The ground plans of the two structures in Trench 1 identifies them as a pair of Romano-British temples of quite an unusual form, the two central cellae (square buildings) being surrounded in each case by an outer ambulatory wall, with the ambulatories separated by a common dividing wall. The small, approximately square building recorded in Trench 3 could represent a third temple cella, but its small size is perhaps more suggestive of an ancillary building. The circular structure in Trench 2 is similar in form to other known Romano-British religious buildings and may be either a temple or a shrine. The approximately square flint and chalk footing in the centre of the circular building was probably for a plinth, which, from the presence of a small slot around two of its sides, may have been clad in higher quality stone or timber.

The evaluation trenching demonstrated that, although to an extent plough-damaged, the sub-surface archaeological remains were generally well-preserved. The confirmation of the ground plan and date of the temple structures first observed on an aerial photograph is significant, although only a small part of the Site was investigated, and dating evidence was largely confined to post-demolition contexts.