ABOUT THE SITE

On top of the Berkshire downs, half a mile from where I used to live, Vic Pocock, a local amateur archaeologist, has been excavating this site for over 20 years. He is sometimes assisted by a team of workers, of which I am one. The site was probably inhabited for a thousand years, all through the Roman era, and Vic thinks there is a Roman villa there, yet to be discovered.

He had been alerted to the existence of the settlement by coins and pottery picked up when field walking and also disturbed by the plough. During subsequent excavations, he has continued to find bronze coins (over 600), jewellery and pottery, animal bones, quern stones, burnt flints (used to heat water), pits, postholes and ditches. Well over 20 baby skeletons have been excavated, buried all over the site, some in postholes and some in the tops and sides of pits, perhaps to bring good fortune. There were no regulations in Roman times about where babies (aborted, miscarried, stillborn and newly born) had to be interred. Only one adult skeleton has been found, an elderly male, crouched in a shallow grave.

I have worked several of the artefacts into the story – a ring, a jug, spurs for fighting cocks, baby skeletons, a rare fish (Christian) brooch, and a Medusa medallion.

It is on this south-facing hill that I have created the pagan settlement of Byden, the birth place of Bron.

Iris Lloyd,
13 Bridge Street,
Hungerford, Berks.
RG17 0EH

Tel. 01488 686372
Email: iris.lloyd@virgin.net