The Tabard Square Excavations
Posted 20 August 2003
The excavations at Tabard Square - a 1.2 hectare site located at the junction of Long Lane and Tabard Street in Southwark, London, have recently been completed. The information provided here is preliminary. Dougie Killock and his excavation team of between 40 - 60 excavators were on site for 54 weeks. The development footprint allowed a large tract of the palaeolandscape to be exposed and recorded. This in turn will provide clues as to the attraction and suitability of the area for human habitation in the pre historic and Roman eras. A large part of the area was dry-land during the Roman period, and evidence for active stream channels was restricted to the extreme north east corner of the site. It appears likely that the channel thought to have existed immediately to the north was relatively narrow, and is marked by the line of Long Lane.
Evidence for a prehistoric presence was limited. Some indication for ard marks were present. A large spread of burnt and broken flint at the north of the site may indicate a zone of activity, and occasional lithics were recovered widely. The two finest pieces were recovered from residual contexts, an arrowhead from a Roman pit and a fragment of polished stone axe from an 18th century floor.
Watling Street, the road connecting London with the major ports at Richborough and Dover, passed a short distance to the west. Further west still is Stane Street, the road from Chichester. These two roads have been conjectured to meet close to Tabard Square with a single road leading towards the river and across to the settlement on the north bank.
In the second half of the 1st century the edge of Watling St was lined with clay and timber buildings. Their walls were constructed of timber and brickearth, with postholes, stakeholes and baseplate trenches all being represented. All floors were apparently prepared from compacted brickearth. Several rooms have been identified and they generally vary in size between 5 x 5 Roman feet and 10 x 5 Roman feet.
Some of the walls were covered in painted wall plaster. This had been applied directly to the walls as demonstrated by lozenge shaped keying in impressions at the back of the plaster. The roofs were constructed of tile. A number of hearths have been located, some of them relined on more than one occasion, and some of which may have performed an industrial function.
To the rear of these buildings were others of rather cruder construction. Here the rooms were framed with vertical posts to which horizontal planks were presumably attached, and the floors were of very crude beaten brickearth. Beyond the buildings the landscape was one comprising mostly ditches and gullies, the functions of which are not yet understood but an agricultural purpose seems likely.
By the mid 2nd century the landscape was transformed. The clay and timber buildings were demolished and were replaced by a large open space or piazza. Along its eastern side a small winged corridor villa was constructed. It measured c 25m long by up to 10m in width. A triple row of postholes on its western side probably indicates the position of a flight of stairs to the first floor.
Towards the north and south sides of the piazza two square Romano Celtic temples were built. They were typical of their type, square in plan (only 11m long) with an internal corridor or ambulatory. As with the villa all the floors and internal features had been removed in antiquity.
West of the two temples were three rectangular cuts, two of which contained ragstone rubble, the third (central) one had been robbed. A short distance from the central cut was a large column drum, itself set in to the mortar of the piazza floor.
It is likely these features collectively represent the positions of statuary and/or plinths. The recovery of a slightly larger than life bronze foot, possibly female (See above right), and a bronze finger gives more than a little credence to the probability of statuary being present at the site.
Some distance to the south of was a ditch, the terminus was recorded at the west and it probably emptied into a palaeochannel to the east. Over 100m of the feature was excavated and it seems originally was timber lined.
Looking at this group of features as a whole it would appear therefore that the excavations at Tabard Street have revealed a hitherto unsuspected temple complex or precinct. Within the excavation area the precinct contained two temples, a possible guest house (the villa) plinths for three statues and a column and a ditch that marked the limit of the precinct (temenos).
A reconstruction of how the temple may have looked
We have the name of one of the deities venerated at the precinct as, early in the excavation, a now famous inscription was recovered. It was found in a pit close to all three of the buildings and it is not possible to determine to which of the buildings it was originally attached. For more details on this stone go to:
The Tabard Square Inscription
For the most part finds were relatively scarce from the temple levels whereas the boundary ditch was relatively speaking overflowing with them. It would appear by the completeness of the pottery recovered, including some apparently ritually 'killed' vessels, and the exotic nature of some other of the finds that the ditch too was used in religious practices.
None of the finds was more exotic than a complete small tin canister that still had its lid clamped firmly shut. Resisting the temptation to open it to see if it contained keepsakes of its previous owner, the object was transferred to the Museum of London where it was looked after in controlled conditions. Under the gaze of much of the national press the lid of the container was gently prized from the canister to reveal its contents. Filling about a third of the canister but also in the lid was a viscous off-white cream into which had been left the finger marks of its previous owner.
It is still not known what the cream represents: ointment, cosmetic or something else, but we should have the answers in due course as samples are being analysed by English Heritage and the Universities of Bradford and Bristol
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