Summary
The buried remains of a Roman circus used for chariot racing and two sections of the south precinct wall associated with the Benedictine Abbey of St John (founded 1095).
Reasons for Designation
Colchester Roman Circus, including sections of the Benedictine Abbey of St John, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: as a unique monument in Britain, being the only place in the country where there is excavated and convincing evidence for a circus, and is one of only six locations in the north west provinces of the Roman empire where circuses have been securely identified;
* Survival: most of the components of the circus survive well as buried features, illustrating its construction, layout and use;
* Potential: the excavations highlight the archaeological potential of the site both in terms of structural and artefactual evidence and, if analysed scientifically, will improve the knowledge and understanding of such buildings not only nationally but in an international context;
* Documentation: the circus has been recorded through several excavations, providing important information regarding Roman civil engineering and construction techniques along with an insight into Roman leisure activities.
* Group value: in conjunction with numerous other archaeological sites relating to Roman Colchester, the circus provides further insight into the town’s importance as one of the principal urban centres of Roman Britain.
The two sections of south precinct wall associated with the Benedictine Abbey of St John (founded 1095), are scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: the buried and standing remains of the precinct walls represent a hugely significant survival of medieval monastic fabric associated with a nationally important abbey;
* Group value: with the separately scheduled remains of the core of the Benedictine Abbey of St John, which together have the potential to increase our knowledge and understanding of the monastery, its precinct, and of other sites of this type.
History
A Roman circus was a large open-air venue originally used for chariot racing and boxing, although athletics and wrestling also became popular. It usually consisted of an elongated oval track flanked by tiers of seating (cavea) along its two long ends and at one curved end, with a low barrier (spina), sometimes decorated along its length with obelisks, columns and statues, running down the centre to prevent collisions. Turning posts (metae) in the form of conical pillars were placed at either end of the spina, and the open, non-curved, end contained a row of starting bays (carceres).
Colchester was founded in around AD49 as the first colony (Colonia Victricensis) of the new province of Britannia. Although glass and pottery vessels decorated with scenes from chariot races (possibly souvenirs of actual events) were discovered in the C19 and C20, indicating that its Roman inhabitants were interested in events that took place in circuses, it was not until 2004 that the presence of such as structure in the town was confirmed during major archaeological investigations undertaken by Colchester Archaeological Trust (CAT) prior to the redevelopment of Colchester Garrison. It was found some 450m to the south of the walled part of the Roman town, on essentially the closest piece of flat land, in an area dominated by cemeteries and burial plots. Other known examples are at Arles, Vienne, Lyons, and Saintes, all in France, and Trier in Germany. No other archaeologically attested examples have been discovered in the north-west provinces of the Empire.
Since the circus’s discovery a succession of targeted investigations by CAT have revealed its basic plan and provided some limited dating evidence for its period of use. Evaluation trenches and test-pits have revealed that the circus was laid out on an east to west alignment and measures around 450m in length, which is the average size range (normally between 350m to 500m long) for circuses across the Roman Empire), by around 71m to 74.2m wide, which is unusually narrow. It is a classic example of its type, being an elongated arena comprising of a racing track flanked by tiered seating (cavea) along the long north and south sides and around the curved east end; it is possible that this would have provided as many as six tiers of seating outside of the track. Based on the distance between the two foundations forming the cavea, it is estimated that the circus could accommodate around 8,000 spectators.
Although dating evidence for the construction of the circus is limited and imprecise, it has been suggested that it was built in the AD C2, a date largely derived from the use of Kentish greensand in Colchester, which is believed to be linked to a decline in the availability of septaria sometime after the construction of the town wall around AD 65 to 80, along with the absence of AD C1 material from the site. The end of the life of the circus is indicated by two separate and distinct types of deposits; a layer of demolition debris which lies immediately outside most parts of the circus shows that the outer wall of the cavea was systematically taken down and the material salvaged for reuse elsewhere, while scatters of rubble (nearly all lumps of greensand) on the arena surface show that the podium wall and the central barrier were left to decay and gradually disintegrate over time. The demolition debris from the dismantling of the outer cavea wall contains a small quantity of late AD C3 to AD C4 pottery, probably indicating a likely Roman date for its demolition. This is supported by the discovery of 10 Roman coins from the footprint of the circus, dating to AD 117–138, AD 139–141, AD 253–268, AD 260–268 (x2), AD 270, AD 270–273 (x2), AD 270–290, AD 320–380, AD 364–374, and one of AD 270 date that was stratified in demolition debris at the west end of the circus. Although the number is small, the predominance of late AD C3 coins, coupled with the near-absence of later ones, suggests that there was not much activity in the vicinity of the circus after around AD 275/300. Moreover, the presence of six Gallic radiates (AD 265-275) compared to one barbarous radiate (around AD 270-290), suggests that that demolition may have started around the mid to late AD 270s.
Excavation has also confirmed that the circus was surrounded by a contemporary cemetery from which 516 burials have recovered. As the known areas of the cemetery have been fully excavated and preserved by record they are not included in the scheduling.
The circus footings were subsequently robbed in the medieval period, and early-medieval pottery from a trench dug to extract building material suggests that some material may have been dismantled and re-used in the construction of the Benedictine Abbey of St John, which was built immediately to the north-east. As the southern section of the precinct wall, which was built across the circus site after the abbey's foundation in 1095 and before it was destroyed by fire in 1133, contains building materials used in the circus, namely Roman brick and Kentish greensand, this adds further weight to this assertion.
The site of the circus appears to have remained open ground and undeveloped until the late C19 when the Royal Artillery Barracks were laid out across the area. Despite this military expansion, large parts of the site remained as open areas, and were not built upon.
In the early C21, as part of the redevelopment of the Garrison site, the general outline of most of the circus was highlighted on the ground. The route of the cavea has been marked with paving slabs and the edge of the spina has been marked out in small square paving blocks with a raised grass mound in between. In 2014, in the garden of the former Royal Artillery Sergeants’ Mess (listed Grade II), the plan of the starting gates were recreated using stump walls and low earthen banks placed directly above the original buried remains.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: the buried remains of a stone-built Roman circus used for chariot racing and two sections of the south precinct wall associated with the Benedictine Abbey of St John (founded 1095). It is located around 450m to the south of Colchester town centre (defined by the Roman town wall), on the crest of a prominent ridge. The circus remains are largely in the form of partly robbed-out foundations, while the precinct wall survives as both upstanding and buried remains.
DESCRIPTION: the circus is orientated east-west and measures around 450m in length by around 71m to 74.2m wide. The principal remains consist of the foundations of the seating cavea, with internal and external buttressed walls and entrance ways through it, starting gates (demonstrating bays for eight chariots) and the central barrier (spina) with a monument base on its line. Also identified is the base of the earthen bank that supported the cavea, a metalled area around the perimeter of the building, demolition debris sealing these metalled areas, and collapsed debris on the arena surface when it was worn away.
The seating cavea takes the form of an earthen bank revetted on each side by a stone wall defined by two parallel wall foundations (or trenches where the foundations have been robbed out), placed around 5.8m to 6.1m apart. The foundations of the outer and inner walls measure 0.8m to 1.1m and 0.6m to 0.9m in width respectively, indicating that the outer wall was more substantial. The foundations were made of lumps and chips of greensand set in mortar, while part of the lowest course of the outer wall, comprising a row of small ashlar blocks, survives in situ in one area. Fragments of brick in the demolition debris indicate the walls had brick bonding courses. Photomicrography has revealed that the stone, as also used elsewhere in the circus, is primarily greensand from the Medway area in Kent. The outer wall was supported by a series of external buttresses spaced around 4.5m apart. Four different patterns have been identified around the circuit, with changes in their style along with variations in the depths of the foundation of the outer cavea wall indicating that the cavea was erected one block at a time, with 13 blocks in total, each measuring around 73m in length. The blocks were separated and accessed by entrance passages or vomitoria, of which several examples have been discovered along the southern cavea.
The complete remains of two starting gates, plus parts of some of the others, survive at the west end of the circus, along with a base belonging to the arena’s western entrance, the latter dividing the gates into two groups of four. The remains survive in the form of a series of parallel foundations made of greensand, either set in mortar or left as loose chippings. The gates appear to have been 3.3m wide internally and around 5.6m long, each sharing a common wall 0.9 m wide with its neighbour. The locations and size of the stalls can be reconstructed to give eight in all. As the starting-gates and the entrance are much narrower than the arena, the ends of the cavea curve inwards to meet them. The surface of the passage to the arena entrance was gravelled and found to be sealed by a thin layer of destruction debris including fragments of painted wall-plaster and roof tile, indicating that a magistrate's box was probably placed above it.
The remains of the central barrier (spina), which was constructed between two turning posts (matae), was excavated at its west end and found to consists of the shallow foundations of its perimeter wall which measures 0.4m-wide and 0.5 to 0.6m deep. The excavations also uncovered the remains of one of the western turning posts (metae) in the form of a brick cone which is now on display in the Roman Circus Visitor Centre. It is believed that the turning-posts were integral with the barrier, rather than standing on a separate platform, with the barrier itself being around 5.9m wide. The surface of the arena has been worn away by the chariots as they performed their 180-degree turns. The erosion its greatest at the end of the barrier, where charioteers hugged the turning-post as close as possible when changing direction, with it being eroded to a depth of at least 0.5m and probably as much as 0.8m. Found within the worn away section of the arena surface were the remains of the barrier perimeter wall which was in the form of loose rubble. The remains of the podium wall (inner cavea wall) were found as rubble spreads along the outer and inner edges of the arena, whose shallow foundation was probably made even shallower by the erosion in the arena.
Running around the perimeter of the circus is a thin metalled surface. This is at its thickest along the northern side, where wheel-ruts indicate the east–west movement of vehicular traffic along the foot of the outer cavea wall. Along the south side, the metalling is much thinner, and survives in patches where it was sealed by a layer of debris, up to 0.2 m thick, left from the demolition of the outer cavea wall in the later Roman period. The thinner surface was probably used only by pedestrians.
Also surviving within the perimeter of the circus are the buried and upstanding remains of two known sections of the southern precinct wall to the Benedictine Abbey of St John. An excavation trench placed across the eastern end of the east to west aligned central barrier (spina) uncovered 16.5m of in situ wall foundation constructed on the same axis as the spina. It measures 0.8m wide and survives to a depth of between 0.2m to 0.56m. The second section survives in the form of upstanding remains at the southern end of a former late-C19 Royal Artillery wagon shed which was converted to residential use in the early C21. It measures around 9m wide and stands to a height of some 2.25m. The two sections of wall are both constructed from fragments of Roman brick, septaria and Kentish ragstone, with the upstanding section also having some granite and modern brick repairs and a probable blocked doorway at its east end; although the jambs are visible as vertical lines of brick, there is no sign of the doorway head. A further upstanding section of the precinct wall standing immediately to the east (bounded to the south by Napier Road car park), is protected, along with the rest of the Abbey site, by a separate scheduling (National Heritage List for England (NHLE): 1015015).
Excavation has also confirmed that the circus was surrounded by a contemporary cemetery. A total of 516 burials have been excavated and recorded. The known areas of the cemetery have been fully excavated and preserved by record and therefore not proposed for scheduling.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: as the monument largely survives as a buried feature its extent is more clearly defined on the accompanying map extract. It includes a 10m boundary which is considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
EXCLUSIONS: all buildings excluding the upstanding sections of precinct wall are excluded from the scheduling, as are the paving slabs and blocks marking the seating cavea and central barrier (spina), the replica starting gates, modern road and pavement surfaces, fences, wooden posts, street signs, lamp posts, railings, and wooden planters although the ground beneath all these features is included.
