A Roman bronze brooch, decorated with enamel, was found when the Peachcroft housing estate was being built in 1979. The brooch dates to the 2nd century AD. Other fragments of bronze metalwork were also found in the area.
Record Type Archives
Caldecott Anglo-Saxon gold ring
The ring is thought to date from the early 7th century AD. The four beads set into the ring are made of glass. The cross motif may suggest a link to Christianity, which was being introduced to the area around this time.
Clevelands
Two human skeletons were found on a building site in Clevelands in 1973. They had been buried in shallow graves. One skeleton was of a middle-aged man, the other of an old man. They were thought likely to be Iron Age or Roman in date.
St Peter’s Road
A Neolithic flint chisel was found in the garden of a house in St Peter’s Road in the 1980s. The find comes from the area of the Neolithic ’causewayed enclosure’ which was originally found when quarrying gravel nearby (at what is now Camerom Avenue and Gordon Drive). Chisels like this were prestigious items. It is now in Abingdon Museum.
Riverbank opposite St Helen’s Church
A Mesolithic flint axehead was found sticking out of the riverbank opposite St Helen’s Church.
Wootton Road
A number of adult skeletons were found when digging drainage trenches for new houses on the east side of Wootton Road in 1947. The burials may be Roman or medieval. No artefacts were found. The findspot must have been on the Fitzharris housing estate, but the exact location isn’t known.
Albert Park
A channel lined with stone slabs was found in a trench dug in Albert Park in 1917. The channel once took spring water to the nearby Conduit House. Some of the slabs were elaboarately carved pieces from a 15th century building. They probably came from Abingdon Abbey, possibly even from the abbey church which was demolished after 1538
Horse and Jockey
Two skeletons were found by builders at the former Horse & Jockey pub in 2004. They were thought to be early Anglo-Saxon. Roman pottery was also found.
West’s gravel pit, Radley Road
Two Palaeolithic flint hand-axes were found in a gravel pit here in the early 1920s. One is in Abingdon Museum.
River Thames
An Iron Age sword in a bronze scabbard was found when dredging the Thames below Abingdon Lock in 1969. It is now in Reading Museum (with thanks to Angela Houghton for providing the photograph of the sword).
