A Bronze Age pottery ‘Beaker’ was found in a gravel quarry at Cowley Concrete Ltd in 1937. Three Bronze Age skeletons were found about 100 yards away in the following year. The Beaker is now in the Ashmolean Museum.
Record Type Archives
Fitzharrys East
The skeleton of a woman with Roman bronze wire bracelet on her left wrist was found when foundations for new houses were being dug here in 1946. A few pieces of Roman pottery were also found.
Radley Road
A Bronze Age pottery ‘collared urn’ was found, close to a skeleton, in a gravel quarry on Radley Road in 1863. Other skeletons, and ancient ditches, were also found. The exact location is now unknown, but it may have been in the vicinity of Galleyfields. The urn is now in the British Museum.
Queen’s Arms
A Roman pot containing cremated bone was was found while excavating a cellar at the Queen’s Hotel in 1884.
The find is now in Abingdon Museum’s collections.
Gasworks, Vineyard
A hoard of four Neolithic stone axes were found when Abingdon’s new gasworks were being built in the Vineyard in the 1880s.
The axes are made of non-local stone, and probably came from Wales or the west or north-west of England.
They are on display in Abingdon Museum (on loan from the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford).
Winsmore Lane
Part of a circular stone carved with decoration in Anglo-Saxon style was found, built into a wall in Winsmore Lane, in 1927.
It may have been an architectural feature from Abingdon abbey or St Helen’s church. It is now in Abingdon Museum.
St Nicolas’ Churchyard
A coin of the Roman emperor Claudius was found here.
Claudius ordered the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43.
Stratton Way underpass
A complete Roman bowl was found when the Stratton Way underpass was being built. It is now on display in Abingdon Museum.
Debris from a Roman building, including painted wall plaster, was also found.
High Street
North Avenue hand-axe
A Palaeolithic flint hand-axe, over 100,000 years old, was found by a householder while digging foundations for an extension.
It is one of the oldest artefacts found in Abingdon. It was left behind by an early species of humans, who lived by hunting and gathering.