Throughout prehistory water was of critical importance to life and society in the British Isles. With the coming of the Romans, however, demand for water increased rapidly. The Romans introduced new technologies into its handling and distribution, as well as widening its uses. At the same time, the mystical significance of water continued to be an important element of Romano-British religion. A conference has therefore been arranged dedicated to the fascinating subject of Water in Roman Britain to explore key aspects of its availability, use and religious functions. Synopses of some of the talks are given at the bottom of this page.

10.00                     Registration and coffee

10.30                     Introduction by the Society's President (David Graham)

10.35                     Chairman's opening remarks (Professor Mike Fulford)

10.40                     Rhythms of Life: water, possession and transformation in Romano-British religion (Professor Miranda Aldhouse-Green)

11.30                     Water for domestic needs (Anne Jones)

12.00                     The Dorchester aqueduct (Dr Bill Putnam)

12.40                     Lunch

14.10                     Dolaucothi and the uses of water in mining (Dr David Bird)

14.30                     The Londinium water-lifting machines (Ian Blair)

15.15                     Tea

15.45                     Roman water-mills (Dr Bob Spain)

16.30                     Chairman's closing remarks (Professor Mike Fulford)

16.40                     Depart

Tickets £12 (£10 for members of Surrey Roman Studies Group). In addition a two course lunch will be available at the Hall for approximately £5. To reserve a place at the conference please complete and return the slip below. Please indicate if you would like to book a lunch.

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Booking Form - AQUA BRITANNICA CONFERENCE

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Please return the form with your remittance to: AQUA BRITANNICA CONFERENCE, Surrey Archaeological Society, Castle Arch, Guildford, Surrey GU1 3SX, enclosing a SAE.

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Water for Domestic Needs - Synopsis by Anne Jones

The Romans were aware of the importance of providing their citizens with a clean water supply, and as they expanded their empire the laying on of fresh water served to enhance the amenities of civilised life. In Roman Britain, army and civilian engineers ensured that almost every town, large or small, was served with a supply of fresh water. This paper takes an overall look at the important role that water played in improving lifestyles in the home, principally in the kitchen and in the preparation of food but also in maintaining the civilised lifestyle enjoyed by the Romanised population of these islands. For the sake of brevity, however, the paper does not cover the use of water in baths or latrines. 

The Roman Aqueduct at Dorchester, Dorset - Synopsis by Bill Putnam

The year 2002 saw the completion of ten years' work on tracing and understanding the Roman aqueduct which supplied water to Durnovaria - Roman Dorchester. The aqueduct, easily visible on the hillside at the Dorchester end, has been known to exist since the start of the nineteenth century. It was Major Coates who in 1900 first realised that the well-defined terrace maintained a steady but slightly falling gradient towards Dorchester, and was therefore a water channel. He correctly assigned it to the Roman period.

The excavation in 1977 of the Roman bath-house at Dorchester confirmed the aqueduct's main purpose, and the deep channel passing behind County Hall towards the river Frome was perceived to be for the discharge of the waste water.

The source

But this was far from being the end of the story. Where exactly did the water come from? The Royal Commission on Historic Monuments for England in their Dorset Inventory thought that the Frome itself was tapped at Notton, near Maiden Newton. It took the first three years of excavation to prove that the source was not the Frome itself, but the small tributary in Church Bottom at Frampton.

This small stream was dammed at Littlewood Farm to form a lake at the head of the aqueduct. To the embarrassment of all subsequent excavators including the present one, this had first been suggested by W Miles Barnes in 1901! The dam still stands 2 metres high today, though it is partly masked by the deep silt present on the valley floor.

This gives a channel length of approximately 9km, though as the crow flies the distance to Dorchester is only 4.5km. The aqueduct follows the contours throughout, with no arcades as seen in continental aqueducts such as that at Nimes. The gradient averages 1:1750, though it is a little shallower at the Frampton end.

The channel

What of the channel itself? Alongside Poundbury Hillfort and in Fordington Bottom, at the Dorchester end of the aqueduct, it appears to be an open channel 3 metres across and nearly two metres deep. Because of this it had long been assumed to be exactly that, a wide and open flowing channel. Some had even thought it a canal.

But excavation revealed that near the Frampton end, the nature of the aqueduct was entirely different. It had been built as a small closed channel with a clay bottom, wooden sides, and wooden lid, with a protective covering of soil. The dimensions were c.80cm wide by 30cm deep. This made more sense. Roman urban aqueducts throughout the empire were normally covered to maintain the cleanliness of the water.

So what of the large open trench at the Dorchester end? In the sixth season of excavation this problem was at last solved. A cross section cut close to Dorchester showed that the closed wooden channel had originally been built all the way to Dorchester, but had later been dug out to form a wide trench, apparently in preparation for building a replacement aqueduct, presumably of stone or brick.

The builders

The final problem for the research team was the date of construction and abandonment. At the Frampton end, beside the dam and the lake, a small Roman army camp was found. Pottery in its ditch belonged to the period of the Roman conquest of Britain, making it clear that it was the engineers of the Second Augusta Legion who built the aqueduct. What's more the Roman town of Durnovaria did not exist at the time the aqueduct was built, and thus the legion was building a water supply for its own fort near Dorchester. When Durnovaria was built, the fort became redundant, the army moved away, and the final course of the aqueduct was diverted into the new town.

Abandonment

A date for the abandonment of the aqueduct is provided at two places. Excavation of the overflow channel near County Hall gave a date of c.150AD for its demolition and the robbing of much of its stonework. This was confirmed at Frampton, where a workshop associated with the attempted reconstruction of the aqueduct gave a similar mid-2nd century date.

This project was the winner of the Dorset Archaeological Award for 2002.

Dolaucothi and the uses of water in mining - Synopsis by David Bird

This talk aims to draw attention to water in the context of mining, referring specifically to gold-mining, which has some of the most relevant evidence. The focus will be on the British site of Dolaucothi (near Carmarthen in south-west Wales) and its Spanish parallels.

At Dolaucothi, an aqueduct tapping the river Cothi has been known for many years. It was at first interpreted as delivering water for ore processing. Subsequent detailed study of the site by the late Professor Barri Jones and Dr Peter Lewis revealed a second aqueduct system and many water-related features such as water tanks grouped around several opencast workings. In seeking to interpret the site they turned to Pliny the Elder, who has an important chapter on gold-mining. Unfortunately they rather freely translated it, not recognising the way in which Pliny interweaves description of the mining method he calls arrugia with that of more traditional shaft and gallery mines. Their interpretation of what happened at Dolaucothi, while a great advance on previous suggestions, suffered as a result.

Research by the writer in NW Spain found several different types of gold mine, but all used water power. There were vast aqueduct systems to provide the water. Pliny's description of gold-mining can be shown to be mostly about the huge alluvial mine at Las Medulas. We can extract the process he called arrugia from his text: aqueducts to the top of the mine, so very long; large water tanks set high up; the gold-bearing deposit undermined and collapsed; water let out from the tanks in a rush to break up the collapsed material and wash it into sluices, where the gold (if any) was collected. The method required a deposit with free gold that could be treated in this way.

At first sight this should not apply to Dolaucothi, but other NW Spanish mines suggest that a similar technique could have been used there. Several hard-rock mines in Asturias have aqueducts supplying tanks at the tops of huge opencasts, worked into a deposit that was probably very similar to that at the Welsh site. It was an eluvial deposit, a sort of mushy quartz with free gold created by the weathering of the original ore body where it reached the surface. It is probable that this was worked directly by ground sluicing - and without the need for preliminary undermining of the deposit.

Some of the features suggest that water may have been supplied to a second hill at Dolaucothi by a big wooden bridge. Here two well-known adits may have served to drain opencasts. Later Roman period work at Dolaucothi involved some underground working in the valley that needed a different form of drainage, using large wheels of the type known from Rio Tinto to raise water from the depths. This later work produced ore that needed to be crushed, but it could then be processed by water, now delivered to the foot of the mine. Water may even have been used to power a stamp mill to do the crushing, but this is difficult to prove.

Dolaucothi thus illustrates all three of the aspects of water in mining: provision of water, its uses, and the problems of drainage.

The Londinium water-lifting machines - Synopsis by Ian Blair

Prior to the archaeological excavations on two sites in the City of London during 2001, no conclusive evidence had ever been found, to suggest that water-lifting machines or bucket chains could have played a pivotal role in supplying fresh water in Roman Londinium during the 1st and 2nd century. It is extraordinary therefore, that by the end of 2001 the remains of four bucket chains had been found in the bottom of massive wells, with two distinct types of device being identified. Given the international importance and rarity of these finds, a decision was taken by the Museum of London to build a full-scale replica of the unique and more complex early 2nd century wrought iron bucket chain.

Having obtained financial sponsorship for the reconstruction project, the theoretical analysis and design of the machine was commenced by two engineers. Analysis showed that the bucket chain required a two-stage water transfer, whereby the water is first discharged from the bucket into a compartment then secondly through a port into the delivery trough. It was concluded that the bucket chain was probably not carried and driven by a faceted wheel but rather radial wooden plates or registers engaging the underside the cranked iron links. The bucket chain was assessed for strength leading to the conclusion that the water was raised by up to 10 metres.

At the commencement of the project two alternative methods of powering were considered; a tread-wheel mounted on the wheel-shaft, and a capstan using animate power driving through two gears. In the final design, where water is raised by 4-5 metres, gearing was adopted because the machine required two people to power it and the advantage that a capstan provided for safe public involvement.

Following finalisation of the design and tenders a contractor was appointed and work commenced on the replica machine in August 2002. Experimentation led to the adoption of an eight register driving wheel and the development of the second stage collection chamber and transfer port. A simple cog form was developed for the gears and the bearing design was influenced by the limited evidence provided by Roman water-mills.

The machine was completed and assembled in the Rotunda garden outside of the Museum of London in November 2002, and has been regularly demonstrated since that date. The reconstruction project was filmed by Time Team, Channel 4 TV in ‘Hadrian's Well' as a follow up to an earlier Time Team Special ‘Londinium, Edge of Empire' which followed the excavations at Gresham Street and the discovery of the bucket chains in 2001.