Page:VCH Berkshire 1.djvu/293

ROMANO-BRITISH BERKSHIRE RUSCOMBE. Fragments of Roman British pottery and an iron knife, now in Reading Museum [Desc. Cat. Reading Mus. pt. i. 47]. SANDHURST. Two silver medals, one of Mark Antony the other a consular medal of the Papia family, found in digging behind the Royal Military College [Arch. xix. 98]. SHAW CUM DONNINGTON. A large quantity of fragments of Roman pottery, chiefly domestic, were found on a hill at Donnington in the course of excavations to make a garden. Two circles of flint stones with nearly 6 inches of wood ash within them, were uncovered on the same site at a depth of 4 feet from the surface, and were supposed to have been the remains of watch fires or cooking-fires Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli. 227; Newbury Dist. Field Club Trans, iv. 189]. It is said that there are Roman tiles in Shaw church [Cooper- King, Hist, of Berks, 48]. SINODUN HILL. See Little Wittenham. SPEEN. Archaeologists are almost unanimous in identifying the Spinae of the Itinerarium with the village of Speen. Besides the unequivocal evidence of the names, the situation of Speen approximately at the junction of the great Roman roads from Gloucester and Bath, and the close correspondence of its distance from Silchester, 13^ statute miles, with the 15 Roman miles of the Itinerarium between Calleva and Spinae, go far to fix this station within its boundaries. Camden was the first to express this opinion. Tracing the course of the Kennet he says, ' It comes next to Spinae, an old town, mentioned by Antoninus, which still retains its name and is called Spene ; but instead of a town is reduced to a very small village, scarce a mile from Newbury ' [Cough's Camden i. 149]. The majority of his successors have adopted the same view, though two later writers, Dr. Beke [Arch. xv. 179] and Mr. Hedges [Hist, of Wallingford i. 100], have declared themselves against it. In both cases, however, it may be observed that the identification of Spinas was subordinate to another purpose. Dr. Beke, writing to prove that the manor of Coley, Reading, was Calleva, placed Spinae at Thatcham ; whilst Mr. Hedges endeavoured to strengthen his arguments in support of his identification of Calleva with Wallingford by finding it at ' The Slad,' in the parish of Compton, where many undoubtedly Roman antiquities have been discovered. There seems however no good reason for rejecting the opinion that Spinas was at Speen, and though probably not a town, was a posting station. The question next arises to what part of this parish the Roman site may be assigned. A careful examination was made in 1813 by Mr. Leman, F.S.A., who gave his judgment in a MS. now deposited in the library of the Bath Institution, in favour of the house and grounds then occupied by the Rev. George Wyld, now called Speen House, a view which was supported, sixteen years later, by Mr. Rickman, F.C.S., and since then by Mr. Walter Money, F.S.A. The Ordnance Survey Department have accepted this identification and so marked it on the 25-in. ordnance map. The site is a fine one standing at the top of a hill nearly 400 feet high and commanding the valleys of the rivers Kennet and Lambourn, with further extensive views to the north-east and south. It is probably near to the junction of the Roman roads before referred to, but the exact spot where these roads joined has not been definitely settled It must, however, be confessed that beyond the record of the discovery of a coin of Faustina (A.D. c. 141) [Newbury Dist. Field Club Trans, ii. 258], a denarius of Trajan Decius (A.D. 249-251) [W. Money, Coll. for Hist, of Speen, 19], and a general statement unsubstantiated by details, that pottery and coins have been found, there seems little evidence of a nature which might be expected of the Roman occupation of the site. Rev. J. L. Gibbs, the present owner of Speen House, kindly permitted the examination of his grounds and said that so far as he was aware no Roman antiquities had been found there, and two gardeners who had worked in the grounds for many years, for some time before Mr. Gibbs purchased the property, said they had never seen there any potsherds, coins or other antiquities. It is true that the hill is scarped here on the south side of the garden and shrubbery for about 1,110 feet and on the east side for about 600 feet, but further than this there are no indications of defensive earthworks. The 25-in. Ordnance Map appears to show a ditch in the field on the north side of the high road parallel to the escarpment on the south of the house, but this is only a natural slope. It is not, indeed, necessary to seek for earthworks at a Roman posting station such as Spinae probably was, but the absence of potsherds, coins, bricks and objects of a like nature almost invariably found on the site of Roman settlements, gives cause for hesitation in assigning the identification of Spinae to the grounds of Speen House. Another suggested site for Spinae is on Speen Moor at a place called the Plot, where 213