Page:VCH Berkshire 1.djvu/298

A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE SUPPOSED STEEL- YARD WEIGHT FOUND AT WEY- COCK FIELD. Claudius Gothicus, Tetricus, Domitian, Antoninus Verus, Aurelianus and Maxentius, also a silver Sceatta. A small bronze female head, supposed to be the weight of a steelyard, was ploughed up in Weycock Field. About ten years before, in the course of excavations for the Great Western Railway, an ancient burial-ground was discovered, close to the foundations just referred to. A large number of skeletons laid out in order and orientated, were found, the site being possibly the cemetery attached to a Romano-British settle- ment which must have existed here. A line of what are termed old wells, but which were more probably rubbish pits, was broken into a little further to the south. Three of these were cleared out in 1890 in the Waltham Cutting of the Great Western Railway close to Weycock Field and amongst their contents, which consisted chiefly of bones and fragments of pottery, were two pieces of Samian ware [Mr. Rut- land, Maidenhead and la-plow Field Club etc. Rep. (1890-1), 49]. In t ^ ie ear ^' er excavations a leaden coffin was found near the pits and is sa 'd to nave contained a coin, but this was not traced and the coffin was broken up and the metal sold. Weycock Field itself, as Mr. Neville points out in the account of his investigations, was rich in coins centuries ago. Camden writing in 1607 of Sonning says, ' Not far from hence is Laurence Waltham, where are to be seen foundations of an old castle, and Roman coins are frequently dug up ' [Brit, (ed. Gough), i. 149]. Hearne also refers to ' the Roman fort here ' and coins of the lower Emperors. In the same account he describes and illustrates a silver coin of Amyntas, grandfather of Alexander the Great, which had been found here. A gold chain is said to have been turned up by the plough and sold to a blacksmith of Reading [Bibl. Topog. Brit. iv. 135]. Castle Acre seems to be the name generally given to the site, whilst the field itself was sometimes called ' Weycock Highrood.' Dr. Stukeley refers to it under the name of ' Castle Field ' [Itin. Curiosum (ed. 2), 62]. WANTAGE. Roman coins were frequently found here, especially in Limborough, in the first half of the eighteenth century [Dr. Wise, Letter to Dr. Mead concerning some Antiq. in Berks, 51, 52]. Many have been dug up more recently on the western limits of the town about Limborough and St. Mary's Home, the majority of the fourth century, A.D., but also some silver coins of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Severus and Maximinus (A.D. 98-237), and specimens of Gallienus, Postumus, Claudius Gothicus, and Diocletian (A.D. 253-305) in brass [Arch. Journ. xxiii. 389-391 ; Agnes Gibbons and E. C. Davey, Wantage Past and Present, 12]. A silver ring of late Roman workmanship, possibly part of a hoard discovered in the neighbourhood, was exhibited to the Society of Anti- quaries in 1867 [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (ser. 2) ii. 173]. At Charlton Downs, about 2 miles south of the town, remains of a furnace or oven approached by a shallow flight of steps paved with coarse bricks, were found. Within it were two iron bars, part of a flue-tile, a denarius of Elagabalus (A.D. 218-222) a small brass of the younger Constantino (A.D. 317-340) with the letters of the London mint in the exergue, a fibula, fragments of pottery and a few bones [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (ser. 2) ii. 173]. The fibula, which is of open work and circular, is now in the British Museum. In Wantage itself no foundations have been discovered and there seems to be no warrant for the assumption of Dr. Wise and other early antiquaries [N. Salmon, New Surv. of Engl. 752; Gough, Add. to Camden, i. 157; Reynolds, Iter Brit. 469], that it was the site of a Roman station and camp. WARGRAVE. Coins of the Lower Empire [Reid, Hist, of War- grave, app. p. i]. Traces of a Roman road from Church Green to the Loddon [Berks, Bucks and Oxon Arch. Journ. Jan. 1902, p. 120]. WATCHFIELD. An ancient well, 15 feet in depth, has lately been discovered at the Little Wellington Wood, near Watchfield. When it was cleared many fragments of Roman pottery were found and twenty-four coins chiefly of the reign of Allectus (A.D. 293-296), from which it seems probable that a small Romano-British house existed in this neighbourhood at the close of the third century [Evening Standard and St. James's 218 FIBULA FROM WANTAGE.