Speaker: Paul Booth
Subject: Archaeological developments in the Chipping Norton area.
Paul’s talk featured the ‘new’ Romano-British settlement at Chipping Norton and examined its position within the wider context of Roman Oxfordshire.
Upwards of 65 interested members and guests enjoyed another successful and informative evening, featuring “close-to-home” history.
We learned of the initial geophysical survey carried out by Chris Knowles in 2021 on land around Glyme Farm, which made significant advances to knowledge of the site. Further developments in our understanding came from a 2022 survey by Wessex Archaeology.
Paul showed us detailed and fascinating composite plans of areas of the site developed from these surveys, and photographs of the various trenches made to reveal building foundations, including the possibility of several shrines.
Archaeology has also revealed evidence of Iron Age features through pottery deposits, and from this Paul discussed in more detail and with fine illustrations, the pottery types found in the wider region, and also showed interesting timelines of “lost” coinage during the Roman period.
For the second part of his talk, Paul showed maps and diagrams of the location of other, better known, Roman Oxfordshire sites, enabling us to see the Chipping Norton settlement in this wider context. He picked out Alchester as a major military garrison from the early Roman occupation, and discussed also Sansom’s Platt (Tackley), Swalcliffe Lea, North Leigh, as well as the 1930s studies of Ditchley, Wigginton and Shakenoak. These latter sites showed similarities to the Chipping Norton complex in terms of function, religious worship, animal husbandry and farming.
There is still much to be done at Chipping Norton , but Paul showed us how the initial surveys have revealed quality structures, materials and skeletal remains, so the chances of improving our knowledge are high. It was indeed good to learn of the importance of these new discoveries close to our home in the Wychwoods.
About Paul Booth
Paul’s career journey started at Warwickshire Museum, later joining the Oxford Archaeological Unit (OA) in 1990. As a Senior Project Manager at OA, he managed numerous fieldwork and post-excavation projects in Oxford and beyond, including HS1, M6 Toll, and East Kent Access Road. His projects also covered large-scale work on Iron Age and Roman settlements at Gill Mill, Oxfordshire, and post-excavation reporting on the late Roman cemetery at Lankhills, Winchester.
Paul specialised in Roman pottery and coins, conducting extensive editing work. From 2007-2018, he directed a training excavation for a University and OA project at Dorchester-on-Thames. Since retiring in 2019, Paul has focused on post-excavation work for the Dorchester project but remains actively interested in Roman settlement, pottery, coin, and burial/cemetery studies, particularly in the Oxford region.
