Following the work undertaken by the Rev. Henry Jenkins in 1842, no further excavation took place at Gosbecks until 1936, when aerial photographs taken in 1933 allowed M.R. Hull to identify both the temple and portico and excavate a trench across the temple enclosure. Further trenches followed to examine the outer enclosure wall.<1> “On Gosbecks Farm on Cheshunt Field there is a Celtic temple surrounded by a double portico, standing in its own temenos. Immediately adjacent, on the east, is another large enclosure, the length of the north side of the two together measuring 1125 ft. Two hundred yards south of the temple is a theatre of simple construction, and west of temple and theatre lies a strange complex of quadrangular ditched enclosures, superimposed and overlapping. The fields all around, when deeply ploughed, show black patches here and there and are covered with Roman tile, pieces of stone, and Iron Age and Roman pottery. It is not yet possible to estimate the number of acres involved." In 1943, deep ploughing revealed the remains described above and several burials were also discovered [at C] and the associated Roman coarse ware urns damaged by the plough. This evidence is only sufficient to suggest a broad first to second-century date for the site. In 1948 the Roman Essex Society investigated further at this spot [C] but found no further burials. Instead they uncovered a hearth and Iron Age pit, proving there was domestic occupation here in the Iron Age. In 1932, the temple and its ditch and double portico and the ditched enclosures in the adjoining field were clearly visible from aerial photography, as well as the Roman road to the east of the site. Also, in the surrounding fields, and possibly extending over the entire 12 square miles of ancient Camulodunum, traces of a former field system were recorded. Hull noted that this was a new discovery of vital importance, the lines recorded being representative of small hedgerow ditches, which vary in size but on average appear to be around 3 ft wide by 2 ft deep. He also states they are usually filled with a ‘cheesy’ clay. Hull notes that there does not appear to be any continuity between this field system and the current one and speculates that the area must have fallen out of use for a period of time, explaining the lack of a ‘rigidly reticulated Roman system or a recognisable Saxon strip-system’. He dates the field system as both pre-Roman and partly Roman. The Temple The work on the temple in 1936 was simply an exploratory trench, the results of which do not add substantially to the knowledge regarding the temple that can be gleaned from Rev. Jenkins account (ECC2729) and the aerial photographs, although he notes some discrepancies: …”It is noticeable that Jenkins somehow missed the outer wall on the north, east and south, and the inner one on the west, but states the corridor was 14ft wide all round. On the west he should mean the outer one, with walls 3ft thick. But on the south he gives us the outer one (partially) as only 12ft wide and its wall 2ft thick. The inner angle of his walls at the SW corner could be correct, but the same arrangement, shown at the NW corner is shown by all the air photographs to be wrong. They also agree that Gilbert’s outline of the ‘central’ ‘strong foundations’ is wrong so that it is quite clear that Jenkins only got the general idea of the plan and not the details. We have not exhausted our sources. <2> Wire says in his diary, 02/08/1842, ‘Received letter from the Rev. H. Jenkins containing a few particulars respecting a Roman villa discovered by and being explored under his auspices at Gosbecks Farm, Stanway. See C R Smith’s Collectanea Vol. ii page [sic] and Vol. I of my Colchester Collection.’<> On 05/09/1842 Wire writes: ‘went to see the foundations of a Roman Villa in Cheshunt or Chestnut Field Gosbecks…which is being explored…the following measurements were obtained by me, 400ft wide from SSE to NNW, and Mr Jenkins sends me word that the crypto-porticus is 305ft long, this ran the whole length of the building.’<> Now we can only get a length of 305ft by measuring on Gilbert’s plan, the inner of the two west walls shown, and this is short of an over-all measurement by one width of the outer corridor and the outer wall. If these were 14ft and 3ft the over-all of the building is 322ft, barring buttresses such as that Gilbert shows at the NW corner. Wire’s 400 ft is accounted for if we take it as the diagonal on the middle wall, that is the inner wall on Gilbert’s plan. Wire mentions no rooms, and we doubt the existence of any. The fact is that Jenkins found the ditch without realising what it was, and thought he was in buried rooms; nowhere could he have found a depth of 10ft. Moreover, his description of the filling of the ditch tallies exactly with ours. Wire would realise there were no rooms, but mentions neither them nor a ditch, nor does he seem to have been impressed by the ‘central’ building even as much as Gilbert. Since the air photographs show nothing in the centre of the square we discount Jenkins’s use of the word and suppose his ‘strong walls’ were those of the temple in the SE corner, as indeed, indicated on Gilbert’s plan. Here we are to understand that Jenkins had actual masonry, yet Gilbert only shows the traces by broken lines! We are told the farmer removed the masonry uncovered, but we found no foundation trenches in 1936, and we aimed to pass diagonally across the centre of the whole site, and must have been very near doing so. We had, in their place, white patches where the subsoil was stained by lime. The air-photograph shows the walls very clearly; it is possible that the lime in the ground could, alone, give the effect, or did we make a mistake? Only further excavation can tell. It is possible that the temple stood on a mound, the removal of which has removed the foundations, save the lowest layer of mortar. If so, there is no mention of it in Jenkins, and the mound must have been levelled centuries ago. On the other hand, the photograph and Jenkins’s account lead one to expect marked foundation-trenches, so clear that they can be measured, and even have suggestions of buttresses showing. The portico would be about 48.5 ft square and the cella about 33 ft square. This is a temple of merely large-average size. The actual centre of the enclosure had scarcely a foot of top soil and no recognisable traces of buildings, though here and there were patches of mortar and chips of septaria. There was loam down to nearly 18in and then what appeared to be natural red sand. But a shaft was sunk to 4ft deep to test this and it showed six layers as follows: 1 (lowest), 7in of ‘dirty oily sand’; 2.5in of clean yellow sand, which some thought contained mortar; 3.9in of red sand and gravel, divided from 4 by a thin layer of gravel; 4.6in of red sand and mortar; 5.8in sandy loam; 6.7in top soil. It is clear that further exploration is desirable but the air photographs show no building. Our own description of the temple site in the SE corner runs as follows. At 215ft (approx.) from the NW corner came a small slot with vertical sides, filled with chips of septaria in reddish sand. The width was about 16in, the depth was not ascertained. Beyond this the soil changed. The natural sand was at 14in, capped by an even layer of 4in of clayey loam. At 227-8ft was another patch of septaria and mortar in the top of the sand, exactly as at 201ft. At 237ft lay another slot 3ft 6in wide. Though opened up for 3ft on each side of the trench, this did not seem to be continued, appearing to be a rounded patch of septaria set in the middle of a square floor of fine gravel. The bottom of the trench was now only just over a foot below the surface, but the gravel floor went down to at least 15in (its top was 9in from the surface). Beyond this the loam continued, but at 251ft it changed to a whitish layer of fragments of septaria, mortar, and tile lying on fine gravel. The top of this was only 9in from the surface, and the sandy bottom of the trench was at 10in. The edges of this white spread seemed to be quite clear and straight, crossing the trench at converging angles. Here were found numbers of white tesserae, peculiar, because not square, but measuring about 1in by 1/5in by 1/5in thick. The trench continued, showing now a yellow gravel floor, to 279ft, where lay another white patch extending to 284ft (i.e. 5ft wide), and after another 5ft was yet another white patch at 289-97ft. Here the floor of the trench fell away somewhat, and it was 1ft 10in to the natural sand. Upon which lay 13in of dirty gravel. The remains of the temple are thus very ill-preserved, and the exact position of the walls was not determined. It appears that the white patches must contain the evidence for the walls, as they certainly do of white tessellated floors and of the fine white mortar in which they were laid.” <2> The ditch of the enclosure Hull states that this large ditch appears on all of the aerial photographs of the site but does not appear to have an entrance. It was cut twice by the trenching works which revealed a v shaped ditch with a depth of 11 ft. 3 in. with 15 in. of fine dark silt lying in the bottom. This was covered with gravely material and at one point, “a layer of very black charcoal and ash”, which he postulates may be the original upcast of the ditch thrown back. Finds from Hull’s trench included a large ‘cow’ snail-shell, large amounts of pottery, the base of a cooking-pot, a heavy bronze pin with massive globular head, and many tiles and tesserae. He records that a large amount of mortar lay on the silt layers, up to 3 in. thick in places and that lots of red tesserae were found in this area. A well-preserved coin of Cunobelin was found in the silt, although generally there were few small finds from these excavations. A real occupation layer was also not found, even where a floor could be identified. Hull lists the following coins: “A worn second brass of an empress, possibly Sabina or Faustina senior, was found in the temple ditch at a depth of 3 ft. 9 in. from the surface in the SE angle.” “A second brass of Antoninus Pius was found unstratified near the site of the burials (A on plan - ELM?), inn 1949.” “A very worn and illegible first brass of M. Aurelius or Comodus was found on the surface of the field in 1929.”<2> The Enclosure Walls Hull notes that the Rev. Jenkins located the temenos wall of the temple but did not follow it very far, saying “In the same field, and almost parallel with the eastern side of the villa, but at the distance of 170 feet from it, was discovered the foundation of a long wall, about two feet thick, except in one part, where it was three feet thick, with a return wall, apparently proceeding as far as it was opened along the northern side of the villa. In two spots near this wall, and in two other parts of the field, where the return wall probably came on the opposite side, large quantities of oyster shells, boars tusks, and broken earthen-wear, were discovered to a considerable depth in the ground, in pits or cess-pools.” Hull recognises that on Gilbert’s plan, the wall is shown as being 160 ft. away from the middle wall of the portico at the SE corner and 189 ft. at the NE corner, making it far from parallel. “In December 1947 Mr A. F. Hall discovered that a ploughman named Beales employed on Gosbecks Farm had preserved in his garden shed for two years or more a fine statuette of Mercury, 20 in. high, in excellent preservation. The figure is quite nude, with two wings on the head, and no cap. The soles of the feet are pierced with triangular openings to receive securing studs in an uneven base (perhaps representing a rock) on which the figure had been fixed. Mr. Beales stated that he struck the figure with the plough, which partly broke the right leg. He had ploughed that field many times and never found anything, but had noticed the road which passes the temple on the east. This time, however, he was ploughing a few inches deeper than previously, and since then remains of stone walls have been noticed here and there. The missing arms of the figure may have been caught by previous ploughing and may still lie in the soil. Owing to the great size of the field it has not been possible to fix with any accuracy the exact find-spot, which according to the finder was in the bottom of the valley about 100 yards NE of the NE corner of the temple portico. Nevertheless, in 1948 the Roman Essex Society made an attempt to explore the site, using a mine-detector. Much agricultural iron was found, but no ancient remains. We also have reason to believe we were not really on the right spot. But trenching in the vicinity exposed Jenkins’s N-S temenos wall, and it was decided to try and follow this east and west farther than he had done. We had found the N-S wall and a coin of Antoninus Pius among the rubble of it. It was followed north. Practically nothing was left but the foundation trench, full of broken mortar and fragments of tile and stone. Here and there a few large stones were found which had been missed by the robbers. On the whole this foundations trench had been but little damaged and was easy to follow. It was usually sunk about 12 in. into the brown subsoil and was 26-30 in. wide, occasionally as much as 35 in. The total length of walling subsequently traced was no less than 1,125 ft. E-W. In this length are comprised the north walls of two distinct enclosures. That on the west contains the temple. Its north wall is 508 ft. long. The NW corner was found opposite that of the double portico of the temple, which it probably struck exactly at this angle, but we did not uncover the angle itself. In effect the line of the outer west wall of the portico continued for 120 ft. in a straight line. In the slope of the hill against the corner of the portico the foundation trench was at least 38 in. wide and depth to its bottom was 46 in., but this is exceptional owing to the rise of the ground to the south. Five trenches were cut between this point and the corner of the temenos. At half-way the bottom of the foundation trench was 38 in. from the surface. The depth to the top of the rubble filling of the trench varied from 20-25 in., and over it there was a layer of yellow loam 7-10 in. thick. This was observed in nearly every trench of these excavations, and shows that most of the robbing must have been done so long ago that this layer has accumulated since. Nothing was ever found in it to date it. At the NW angle itself there was a buttress on the west face 4 ft. 5 in. long and projecting 1 ft. Some septaria lying against the position of the north face suggested there was a shorter buttress on that side also, approximately 3 ft. long. Depth to the bottom of foundation, 32 in. A number of trenches were cut to trace this wall eastwards, and all went well until 140 ft. from the corner. Here the line of the wall was found to be 3 ft. north of the prevailing line. But in the next cut, at 166 ft. it was on the original line.” <2>