Thornborough

The Bletchley to Buckingham road (A421) has long been recognised as a roman road.  Shortly before arriving at the outskirts of Buckingham there is a lay-by which was once the main route. There's a lovely ancient bridge, the only surviving medieval bridge in Buckinghamshire, which dates from the fourteenth century - and in the fields nearby there are two Roman barrows.

It is believed that five roman roads met at Thornborough. The remains of the roman village is now protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (as amended) as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. The barrows were first excavated by the Duke of Buckingham in 1839. Remains of high status romans and their possessions were found, along with evidence of later burials from the anglo-saxon period. The description by Historic England states...

"The western barrow is roughly circular in plan, measuring c.40m in diameter and 3.5m high, with steep sides leading to a flattened area on the summit some 15m across. Slight traces of the ditch surrounding the mound remain visible around the south western side. 

The second barrow lies about 30m to the east. It is similar in size to the western barrow, although slightly more oval in appearance, and appears marginally higher due to its position on the hillside. 

Traces of the encircling ditch are also visible around the east and west sides of the mound... One (although it is not recorded which) proved to have been previously robbed and little was recovered. The other revealed a floor of rough limestone blocks which had stood beneath a timber structure, some of the oak timbers of which survived intact. Within this area were found three bronze jugs; a bronze lamp and a patera (a shallow, circular dish); a cup, bowl and platter of samian-ware (red pottery imported from Gaul); two ceramic storage jars (or amphorae); a small lozenge-shaped piece of gold, and two glass vessels, the larger of which contained the cremated remains of the deceased. The calcined condition of the limestone pavement indicated that it had been used as the base of the funeral pyre.

Traces of iron objects were noted at the time, but these apparently did not survive the excavation. The remaining finds, with the exception of the gold object, were later purchased by the local antiquarian R C Neville (fourth Lord Braybrooke) and are now held by the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. They date from the first and second centuries AD (some being old when buried, perhaps being retained for generations as family heirlooms) and demonstrate that one of the barrows was constructed in the late second century AD. The other is thought to be of the same date."

One article I read had the worrying title - "ISIS AT THORNBOROUGH" - which today has a meaning very different from the one intended when the article was written. This article - available at http://www.bucksas.org.uk/rob/rob_25_0_139.pdf - describes the rare bronze figurine of the goddess "Isis", an Egyptian goddess - often identified with Fortuna in Greek and Roman contexts.

The Historic England description of the site can be accessed here.