The Archaeology of the Newark to Widmerpool Improvement Scheme, 2009

by Nicholas Cooke and Andrew Mudd

ISBN 978-0-9553534-6-8

The A46 trunk road in Nottinghamshire has its origins as the Roman Fosse Way, and archaeological work ahead of road improvements in 2009 between Newark and Widmerpool undertaken by Cotswold Wessex Archaeology has shed new light on both Roman and pre-Roman use of this transect of land. A number of significant sites were revealed, including evidence for Late Upper Palaeolithic flintwork at Farndon Fields on the gravel terrace south of Newark. This nationally important site comprised scatters of debris left in situ by a flint-knapper of the Creswellian and Federmesser hunter-gather cultural traditions. At Stragglethorpe there was a ring-ditch with a number of inhumation burials of Beaker date. Iron Age and Roman settlement in the hinterland around the Roman small town of Margidunum near Bingham was also investigated. Further to the south-west near Saxondale, Roman roadside enclosures became the location of early Anglo-Saxon cremation burials and perhaps also a ‘tumulus’, as recorded by William Stukeley in 1722 in the middle of the Fosse Way.

Follow this link for a review of the A46 volume for the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire.