A Roman Settlement at Bicester Park, Bicester, Oxfordshire

SUMMARY Excavation by Northamptonshire Archaeology for Gifford in advance of a new industrial estate at Bicester Park, on the outskirts of Bicester, examined part of a Roman rural settlement lying just over 3 km north-east of the small Roman town of Alchester. The settlement may have been established with respect to a linear land boundary of late Iron Age/early Roman origin and was in use from the later first century AD to the late third to early fourth centuries AD. It was defined by a rectilinear ditch system that was heavily truncated but had probably formed a series of rectangular enclosures and sub-enclosures, with the northern area separated from a domestic area to the south by a trackway. The trackway and the boundary ditches were slightly realigned in the third century. Activity in the domestic area included pit groups, soil-filled hollows, and two wells, one of which was stone-lined. These probably lay at the margin of a more extensive domestic focus lying largely beyond the excavated area. The pottery assemblage has a very low average sherd weight and includes a limited range of material, with few higher status finewares, and the animal bone assemblage is similarly poor. Other finds were also sparse, with only three coins recovered, while a small amount of iron slag is suggestive of small-scale secondary smithing. In contrast to the bulk of the material evidence, which indicates that this was a rural settlement of relatively low status, part of a wooden writing tablet came from a well.