ROMANO-BRITISH SUFFOLK Some county histories vouch for the existence of an inclosure at a quarter of a mile north-west of the village of Stratford St. Mary. This is an important point, for it is fairly certain that a Roman road from Colchester passes the Stour at this point, going northwards. Nothing seems to have been found in the inclosure, but cinerary urns have been dug up in the parish. From its distance from the ford it is scarcely likely to have had any military character about it ; but, if Roman at all, one is tempted to see a farmstead, fortified in troublous times, perhaps the last quarter of the 3rd century, sufficiently to resist any sudden attack from the sea-rovers who by chance might ascend the river.* Another quadrangular inclosure of similar kind is to be found at South Elmham. Within the bank this measures about 4 acres, and it contains the ruins of a Saxon church called ' the Old Minster.' Fragments of Roman brick, and it is said even of flue tiles, were used up as material in the building of the church. It may possibly be that a Roman homestead of some consequence stood originally on the site, and that the bank and ditch had been drawn round it for protection in the later years of the Roman occupation, whilst, at a later period still, the ruins of the house and its dependencies served as a quarry in building the church whose remains are still to be seen. There are great discrepancies in the accounts given of this site by antiquaries. One (Suckling) speaks of ' urns with burnt bones and ashes ' having been ploughed up frequently within the inclosure ; another (Woodward) states 'that though the Minster Yard (the inclosure in question) has been cultivated by all the most approved methods of modern husbandry, ploughed, subsoiled, and even drained ; although the moat has been searched and cleared ... no traces of anything that could be called antique has been found.' There is no need to give here any description of various vague traces of banks and ditches which have been called Roman, as they will be dealt with at sufficient length in the Topographical Index to this article and in the section upon earthworks. Burgh near Woodbridge. — The twilight becomes less obscure as we come to the next site to be described, one which shows plain marks of Roman occupation. This is at Burgh near Woodbridge. Dr. Raven,* whose studies on Roman roads in East Anglia are well known, sees at Burgh a fortified post, and considers it to be the Combretonium of the IXth Iter of Antonine. The aspect of the site might bear out this supposition. In fields gently sloping to low land through which flows a little stream, and close beside the road from Woodbridge, lie the scarcely distinguishable lines of a mound and fosse, forming a quadrangular inclosure whose dimensions may be guessed approximately at 800 ft. by 500 ft., although nothing but careful excavation and measurement could ascertain its exact size. The greatest length of this inclosure is from north-west to south-east. The eastern end is traversed by a considerable depression or valley running to the low ground, down which a road called ' Drabs Lane ' has been carried to meet that from Woodbridge. Near the angle where the two ways join are ' Such a protected farmstead has presumably been found at Cwmbrwyn in Carmarthenshire ; ice Arch. Cambr. Apr. 1907.
- Raven, Hist. ofSuff. (1895), 30 et seq.
I 281 36
