Made with Xara
CONGRESBURY HISTORY GROUP
The Romans The Roman invasion of 43AD rapidly affected this area. However only a few first century pottery shards have been found. Most pottery and coin finds in the parish date from the 2nd century and later. Romano-British kiln sites south of the village indicate pottery production in Congresbury from c250AD to, possibly, the mid 4th century with the pottery being traded over a wide area. Several reconstructed pots are on show in Woodspring Museum. Other Romano-British finds in the village include a plough share and loom weights, used in making cloth, which, with pottery, often found in local gardens, and coins, indicate several settlement sites in the parish. At Wemberham ( Now in Yatton but previously part of Congresbury) a substantial building, which contained mosaics and hypocausts, was built very close to the river. Other buildings are said to exist in Kent Road and in Taylor’s Wood above the village.Adjacent to Cadbury Hill fort on northern slopes of the hill at Henley Wood a series of temples were built during the Roman period. Excavations on the site prior to its destruction for a land quarry revealed finds including a 20 mm bronze pre Roman figurine (below) of a nude female with a plaited band around her neck and collar around her neck. Cadbury Hill
Before St Congar
Post Roman Cadbury Hill The most significant period in the history of the hill occurred when it was reoccupied in the post Roman period. “In 1959, Keith Gardner excavated some well-targeted evaluation trenches at Cadbury, which identified for the first time the post-Roman imported pottery that showed this site was extraordinarily important. Study of the finds from the excavations showed imported pottery from Syria, North Africa and Francia; there was also evidence for Germanic glass, and for smelting, glass-bead making, and extensive food remains. Round house foundations of post-Roman date occurred (very unexpected at the time) and the remains of one end of a great timber hall. The banks of the fort had been completely restructured in the post-Roman period. The site clearly had links with Byzantium in the 5th and 6th centuries AD: This was no hovel on a hill-top Maybe we should all just think and wonder a little more that a great lord of men held court in a huge wooden hall on our hill top, in that mysterious period after the fall of Rome, but before the coming of the English. He lived in the midst of his warriors, clerics, potters, storytellers, jugglers, smiths, glassmakers and so on, and was on terms with the Emperor of the mightiest city of the time, far Byzantium in the eastern Mediterranean. He even drank his wine and ate his meat on platters from those far lands”. Vince Russett
It looks unexciting but pottery fragments such as this piece revealed trade over vast distances