As part of my ongoing mini-series on the towns of Roman Britain, I will focus in this column on Roman Lincoln (Lindum), which was founded as a legionary fortress during the reign of Nero (AD 54-68), and subsequently developed into a colonia (a settlement for retired soldiers) after AD 86 during the reign of Domitian (AD 81-96). As CA 421 comments: ‘For those of us who know the city today, it is hard to imagine a time when Lincoln was not thought of as an outstanding destination for heritage tourism’. The pages of Current Archaeology across the decades, however, reveal a hard-fought battle for its rich archaeological heritage.
KING OF THE CASTLE
Unusually for my column, I will start in this instance at the most recent mention of Roman Lincoln and then work backwards chronologically through past coverage in the magazine. CA 421 (April 2025) reported on Michael J Jones’ wonderful book about his 40-plus year career exploring the city’s archaeology, and I urge all readers interested not just in Lincoln, but in the history of our discipline, to read his book. It is a fascinating insight into the ups-and-downs of 20th-century fieldwork, and a paean to the benefits of long-term investment in places and people. As a starting point of any desk-bound exploration of a city, I cannot think of better.
Moving backwards in time from there, CA 317 (August 2016) explored the area around Lincoln Castle to understand its story at a time of redevelopment to improve visitor facilities. Current Archaeology’s editor Carly dived into the medieval (especially 11th- to 12th-century) layers, but also delved deeper into this corner of Lincoln’s history, examining a row of 3rd- to 4th-century terraced houses, likely to have been the homes of traders to the settlement’s elite, which sat alongside a single higher-status family home. All of this was excavated by a joint commercial/volunteer team, working together in the best traditions of Lincoln’s archaeological community.
LORD OF THE RINGS
CA 254 (May 2011) examines a quite different piece of Lincoln’s history: its central role in the cult of the god Toutatis, as evidenced by distinctive finger-rings found across Lincolnshire. As CA explains, Toutatis was a popular god among Roman soldiers, made famous in the modern day by the Asterix cartoons, but previously little-known in the British archaeological record. Thanks to the work of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, finds of rings bearing the inscription ‘TOT’ have been identified, in all but a few cases within the boundaries hypothesised for the Roman civitas of the Corieltauvi, located around the River Trent and the territorium for the colony at Lincoln, and all dating from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD. The rings are a rare instance where we can map the distribution of a find-type that correlates so closely with such boundaries – a highly specific material expression of group affiliation and identity.
An excellent counterpoint to this micro-focus on the specifics of the archaeology of Roman Britain then appears in the next reverse-chronology visit to Lincoln by the magazine. CA 211 (September 2007) placed the settlement in the macro-context of our understanding of Britannia Prima during the tail-end of Roman Britain from AD 286 onwards, when Lincoln was capital of Flavia Caesariensis, one of four provinces at this time – the others being Maxima Caesariensis (London), Britannia Prima (Cirencester), and Britannia Secunda (York).
TALK OF THE TOWN
The 1990s saw two in-depth visits to Lincoln by the magazine, the first in CA 129 (May 1992) and the second in CA 194 (October 2004). Together these provide a fascinating insight into the archaeology of the town across the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and medieval eras, and, in the case of CA 194, this coverage runs right up to the modern era with its assessment of the city’s 19th- and 20th-century industries. In terms of the Roman era, CA 129 provides evidence for the late Roman/early Saxon town, including the fascinating site of St Paul-in-the-Bail, which lays claim to being one of the earliest Christian sites in the country, dating to the 5th-6th centuries (for more on this site, see CA 63, September 1978). It also touches on waterfront development along the River Witham, with, again, evidence of continuity of use during and after the Roman occupation into the Saxon era. CA 194 builds on this work, with more on the waterfront around what is known as the Brayford Pool (the small lake at the confluence of two rivers that puts the literal lin – ‘lake or pond’ – in Lincoln), as well as further afield, notably at Greetwell, a villa site 2km (1.2 miles) to the east of the city that is hypothesised as the likely seat of the late Roman provincial governor of Flavia Caesariensis.
AN ARCH THROUGH TIME
CA 83 (August 1982) provided an exciting snapshot of fieldwork at a busy time in the city and the magazine’s second cover-story for Lincoln. In this era, the outline of its defences had been delineated, the original legionary headquarters building identified, and overlying that was the later forum. These finds gave new structure to our understanding of the town’s development and made easier its comparison to other Roman towns in Britain and beyond. Fieldwork had been undertaken across the city through the 1970s with an intensity common to this era, the heyday of the ‘rescue’ movement, which had its origins in primarily urban fieldwork, when sites were often at risk of demolition within days, sometimes hours, and primarily volunteer teams of archaeologists had to act accordingly. CA 53 (November 1975) and CA 54 (January 1976) give a sense of this urgency and of the outcomes that it delivered, especially as regards the Roman era, with the latter issue reporting on the search for the city’s aqueduct.
Earlier still, CA 44 (May 1974) also showed the pace of work at this time. As the magazine reported: ‘A conservation area was designated in 1968, but much of the Roman and medieval walled cities and all the extensive suburbs and cemeteries lay outside this area… much of the redevelopment, however, has taken place within the walls of the lower Roman town – in 1971 there were schemes in the pipeline to develop about 20 acres of the historic city. This posed an unparalleled problem.’
But, to close on a different problem, I will conclude with the oldest mention of Lincoln in the magazine and arguably its most-famous Roman site: the Newport arch. This 3rd-century north gate of the Roman town featured on the cover of CA 26 (May 1971), showing the horrifying moment in 1964 when it was struck by a fish lorry. Beyond discussing the arch – which survived this incident, as well two further vehicle strikes in 2004 and 2017, and which remains the oldest arch in the UK still used by road traffic – CA 26 is full of superb detail about fieldwork across the city at this time. If you read it in counterpoint to CA 421, where I started this article, you gain a tremendous sense of how much has been achieved by the city’s archaeological custodians in the 54 years that separate these two reports.
Lincoln Museum (previously The Collection) houses an excellent array of material from across the city: www.lincolnmuseum.com. The local authority has a very helpful online portal https://arcade.lincoln.gov.uk, as does the Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology: https://slha.org.uk.
