A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE while the Portway is possibly of a later period. Many other roads have been identified by various writers as Roman, but the present evidence as to them must be considered insufficient to warrant this attribution. INDEX ABINGDON. In June 1865, some workmen, digging the foundations of a house at the north end of Fore Street, St. Helen's, laid bare some massive foundations, consisting largely of herring-bone masonry. Mr. Akerman, who watched the excavations, sent an account with sketches of the remains disclosed, to the Society of Antiquaries [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (ser. 2), iii. 145, 202], but the place was unfortunately not thoroughly explored. Some earthen vases of a very common description, possibly from the kilns at Sunningwell, a second brass of Trajan, a denarius of Philip, a small brass of Constantine, and very many animal bones were found. Earlier in the same year other Roman relics from this neighbour- hood had been exhibited to the Archaeological Institute [Arch. Journ. xxii. 82, 162]. They were found at Barton farm on the estate of Sir George Bowyer, a mile from Abing- don on the Oxford side, and consisted of Roman pottery, calcined bones and remains. On several occasions human skeletons had been disinterred near this spot during the process of digging for gravel. In a grave here opened by Professor Rolleston were found the unburnt bones of a dog and a horse, whilst fragments of Romano-British pottery occurred through the deposit. It may be noticed that a Romano-British urn and an interment, which were dug up in the Old Abbey grounds at Abingdon, are exhibited in the Reading Museum. The interment consists of a skull and an arm bone with a small pot and patera of fine red ware, with dotted diamonds in white slip, found to the right and left of the skull respectively. A few other finds, from Abingdon or its neighbourhood, are recorded. In 1849 a sketch of a bronze figure of the Gaulish Mercury which had been turned up by the plough near the town was laid before the Archaeological Institute [Arch. Journ. ii. 209]. Mention is made of perforated baked clay weights, from 3 to 4 inches in diameter, discovered in a field near Abingdon and exhibited to the British Archaeological Association in 1848 [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. iv. 404 ; xvi. 34], and the discovery of an unpublished silver coin of Carausius, with R.S.R. in the exergue, found in the neighbourhood, was com- municated to the Numismatic Society [Num. Chron. (new ser.) i. 161] in 1861. There is also in the British Museum a bronze brooch of the early La Tene type from Abingdon. In conclusion a passing reference may perhaps be permitted to the mediaeval legend [Abingdon Chron. (Rolls ser.) i. 6, 7 ; ii. 278] telling of crosses and images belonging to an early British Christianity dug up here in later days, for though it has no historical value it is not without its interest as an old tradition connecting the town with the Emperor Constantine and his mother. ALDERMASTON. Cinerary urns found in Box Meadow, one of black earth, another of coarse grey pottery, the others not described [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. xvi. 324 ; Newbury Dili. Field Club Trans, ii. 126]. APPLEFORD. Fragments of a light brown urn found beside two skeletons in Appleford fields [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. i. 309 ; xvi. 33]. Circles and square enclosures resembling those at Long Wittenham but unexplored in a field south of the church [Berks Bucks and Oxon Arch. Journ. July 1898, p. 44]. APPLETON. Grey Upchurch vase found below the bed of the Thames and now in the British Museum. ASHBURY. From Ashdown Park bronze bracelets and brooches somewhat of a British type, now exhibited in the British Museum. An iron chain and a few much corroded coins found about a mile from Wayland Smith's cave, in digging stones for the road [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. iv. 404]. A Roman steelyard said to have been found with Roman coins at Lambourn End near Ashbury about 1888 [Newbury Dist. Field Club Trans, iv. 204], Coins of Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, Claudius II, Constantine the Great, Constans and Valentinian I (A.D. 81-375), Samian and other pottery, mullers, horse-shoes, querns, rings, spindle-whorls and fibulae from the neighbourhood [Ibid.]. ASTON TIRROLD or ASTON UPTHORPE. Third brass coins of the Tetrici (A.D. 267-74) an< ^ Claudius Gothicus (A.D. 268-70). Hedges (Hist, of Wallingford i. 143) gives these coins as found ' near Aston.' 202
