Birmingham Warwickshire Archaeol Soc Trans 110

Report on the excavation in 1979--80, in advance of development, of a site at Grimstock Hill, north of Coleshill in Warwickshire. Excavation work was focused mainly on the area of the temple enclosure or temenos in the northwestern part of the site (Area A) although investigations to the south and southeast of this area identified a bath house and other features. The area known as Area A was initially the site of five round houses, two boundary ditches and a number of associated features. Artefacts of this period included hand-made pottery of Iron Age type, clay loomweights and querns, and some Romanised pottery and Roman tile. A smithing hearth had been constructed in the eastern boundary ditch, and a later feature was an L-shaped palisade slot. A cobbled surface over most of the southern part of Area A, possibly extending as far as the bath house in Area M, sealed all features confidently ascribed to this first period. The first, timber, Romano-Celtic temple, identified as such from its plan, lay at the northern end of the cobbles and may slightly pre-date their deposition. It is argued that there was almost certainly ritual activity on the site before this temple was erected. A stone cella roughly 8m square internally with a western apse replaced the timber temple, its walls enclosing the earlier cella and cutting through the earlier ambulatory postholes on the north and south sides. It was later modified by removing the apse and adding an ambulatory, to which were abutted two small annexes or antae flanking the eastern entrance. Nine metres east of the temple was a semicircular structure with an internal diameter of about 6m, and south of the temple was an almost square building about 6m wide internally. To the west, demarcating the edge of a pebble surface, was a shallow ditch following roughly the line of the earlier western ditch. The complex was enclosed by a stone wall, with an entrance in its east wall and buttresses at the northeast and southwest corners. These structures are thought to date from the later-second century to the early years of the fourth century. With the exception of the bath house, all features south of Area A appeared to belong to an agricultural/domestic phase which continued after the first- and early-second-century settlement site became a ritual focus. Many of the features were field ditches, some of them continuations of the western ditch in Area A. Others included a stone-lined well and buildings with stone foundations. Further evidence of smithing was found. Separately authored contributions include