A Roman Town House and Market Hall at Blue Boar Lane, Leicester: Excavations by J. S. Wacher, 1958

Metadata

Title:

Series:

University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) unpublished report series

Number of Pages:

242

Downloads:

2009-189_FINALEDIT_NJC_2.pdf (31 MB) :

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Licence Type:

ADS Terms of Use and Access

Publication Type:

Report (in Series)

Abstract:

The 1958 Blue Boar Lane excavation was one of a series of rescue investigations undertaken during the late 1950s and early 1960s by Leicester Museums in advance of the proposed construction of the inner city ring road. Funding was provided by the City and the Ministry of Works, and the three-month excavation was directed by John Wacher (1959, 113, n. 57). Excavation methodology consisted of the opening of a series of small trenches laid out on the box-grid system devised by Mortimer Wheeler and excavated using a voluntary labour force.The principal excavation phase sequence showed a timber building was initially constructed during the Flavian period in association with a metalled surface, possibly representing the same early pre-forum surface observed on several other excavations within the centre of the Roman town. The structure was subsequently demolished and replaced during the early second century AD with a more substantial courtyard structure consisting of an unfired clay brick superstructure constructed on low masonry foundations. The building subsequently underwent structural alteration involving the insertion of tessellated floors in all its constituent rooms and the application of painted wall plaster to the inner wall of the corridor surrounding the courtyard. After a short period the building fell into decay and, by AD 180, the site had been cleared in preparation for construction of the south range of what is thought to be the macellum (market hall) during the late second or early third century. The macellum was finally abandoned and demolished in the fourth century.

Author:

Nicholas Cooper
John Wacher

Publisher:

University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS)

Other Person/Org:

Richard Wright (Author contributing)
John Evans (Author contributing)
Kathy Ashley (Author contributing)
Brenda Dickinson (Author contributing)
Justine Bayley (Author contributing)
Hilary Cool (Author contributing)
Paul Sealey (Author contributing)
Brian Hartley (Author contributing)
Richard Buckley (Author contributing)
Martin Henig (Author contributing)
John Gower (Author contributing)
David Neal (Author contributing)
Janet Huskinson (Author contributing)
Robert Abbott (Author contributing)
Leslie Cram (Author contributing)
Donald Mackreth (Author contributing)
Georgina Shaw (Author contributing)
Roger Ling (Author contributing)
Kay Hartley (Author contributing)
Jennifer Price (Author contributing)
Graham Morgan (Author contributing)
Alex Gibson (Author contributing)
Irena Lentowicz (Author contributing)
M. D. Card (Author contributing)
Elizabeth MacRobert (Author contributing)
Roger Kipling (Author contributing)

Year of Publication:

2009

Source:

ADS Archive (ADS Archive)

Relations:

Project archive:

https://doi.org/10.5284/1084995

Created Date:

23 Nov 2022

Cooper, N. and Wacher, J. (2009). A Roman Town House and Market Hall at Blue Boar Lane, Leicester: Excavations by J. S. Wacher, 1958. Leicester: University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS).

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