Henley Wood, Temples and Cemetery: Excavations 1962-69 by the Late Ernest Greenfield & Others

With contributions by D. Allen, F. W. Anderson, J. Bayley, S. Butcher, D. Charlesworth, B. Dickinson, A. Everton, E. Fowler, M. Gelling, P. Rahtz, D. Haddon-Reece, K. Hartley, M. Henig, R. Jones, R. Reece, J. Richards, A. J. Walker and D. F. Williams.

Rescue excavations at Henley Wood, Yatton, North Somerset, were undertaken during the 1960s in advance of quarrying. The site was a small promontory, overlooking the North Somerset Levels and the Bristol Channel, adjacent to the major hillfort of Cadbury Congresbury; it was in an area with dense settlement from the prehistoric period onwards. The earliest finds were Neolithic flints, although none were associated with features. There may have been Beaker burials on the site, found in earlier explorations.

There were late Iron Age finds – some pottery, at least one brooch, a Dobunnic coin, and probably the remarkable bronze figurine. The presence of the latter may suggest that religious activity began on the site in pre-Roman times. It is possible that a ditch across the eastern part of the promontory dates from this time. It is however more likely that this was the eastern boundary of the precinct of a Roman temple, the temenos ditch, probably with a bank on its inner side.

Within the temenos, a number of superimposed Roman temples were built. Details of the first building arc obscure, but it is interpreted as a shrine, perhaps of the 1st or 2nd century AD. The second was a two-cell structure with an eastern entrance, with a third century floruit. The third was a typical doublesquare Romano-Celtic temple, probably built in the late 3rd or earlier 4th century and remodelled after AD 367–75. A fourth structure, also probably of 4th century date, lay in the northern part of the precinct, and may have been polygonal.