Archaeological Sites in and around Swindon

 Every Friend's talk we have been given has been written up as a blog post for the last 10 years, but lately I have got a bit behind with these, and with tomorrow's talk almost upon us, I thought I'd better catch up with writing up the July talk. We were very fortunate to have Melanie Pomeroy-Kellinger, archaeological adviser for Wiltshire and Swindon talking to us via Zoom. This is the information a yields:

 'Melanie Pomeroy-Kellinger is a professional archaeologist of more than 25 years’ experience. During that time she has carried out fieldwork, research and lecturing in Britain and overseas including  in America, Greece and North Korea. For the last 11 years she  has been managing the Archaeology Service at Wiltshire Council as County Archaeologist. A particular focus of her work over the last two decades has been the archaeology and conservation of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site.' from A303 Scientific Committee.

 I will share my notes and photos from the computer, and fortunately we have a video of the talk where you can find out exactly what Melanie said.

Melanie focused on 8  or 9 sites around Swindon; there are approximately 1800 sites in the area, many around Wanborough and the A419 along Ermin St and in the south east along the M 4 corridor. The eastern villages developments will expose a lot more sites. The first site Melanie talked about was the Foxbridge development where a Roman town can be seen, maybe like the one mapped below.

Maps form an important part of recording remains, there's a site along the A 420 opposite the police station where significant remains have been found, the site is scheduled and will not be built on.

If you look up Marston Farm, there are archaeological reports on the importance of things like a Roman oven with burnt material inside it.

A third site, Sam's Lane, Blunsdon is the site of 32 cremations, some of them in pots. A fourth site of Roman development is at Roves Farm which was surveyed before a solar farm was built on the land.

Day House Lane dates back to early Iron Age. The highlighted link outlines the furore around developing the area, the development did go ahead, although the stone circle has not been built on.

Melanie also talked about artefacts like brooches found at these sites and described this area as the breadbasket of England which is why there are so many archaeological sites here, it was a pleasant place to live. Lots more excavations are needed to get a better picture.

If I had written this talk up before, people may have been able to go on this trip.

Apologies for taking so long to get this posted, and thank you Melanie Pomeroy-Kellinger for a super talk.