John Wilson

“ The coins found at Woodperry have been nearly all in second, with one or two in third, brass ; and were of Domitian, Hadrian, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantine, and Claudius Gothicus. A second brass of Nero was discovered in the beginning of 1842, in a ploughed field called Upper Stafford Grove [8] , near the line of the Roman road, the stones of which, the farmer, with little reverence for antiquity, was then removing. During the continuance of the same operation, and not far from the same spot, scarcely a foot under the surface of the ground, the labourers came upon a human skeleton. ”

“ Several small vessels of earthenware have been found at Woodperry, which may be regarded as curious examples of medieval date; the ware being wholly distinct from the remains of "Samian," or Anglo-Roman fabrication, of which beautifully ornamented fragments have occurred ”

“ Mixed up with other remains were bones and antlers of deer, horns of oxen, bones of pigs, portions of vessels turned in stone, a stone much broken appearing to have belonged to a hand-mill, and frequent fragments of iron slag, or the refuse of an iron foundry; a substance also observed at Drunshill, near Woodeaton, in the neighbourhood [7] , where again the Romans have been, as is attested by many remains of their pottery, and by a brass coin of Vespasian, in good preservation, which was picked up there in 1841. ”

“ Not far above it was a well in good preservation, about twenty feet deep; which being cleared out, afforded nothing more interesting than the bones of many horses and dogs; and lower again, was a smith's shop, as was conjectured from a heap of cinders and many keys found there. ”

“ Woodperry [1] , a hamlet or tithing of the parish of Stanton St. John, in the neighbourhood of Oxford, appears, by the numerous antiquities of many periods there discovered, to have been a place of popular resort by successive races from the earliest times, until the church and village, as traditionally reported, were totally destroyed by a conflagration. The neighbourhood abounds with Roman remains, amongst which may be included the newly discovered villa at Wheatley, described in No. ”

“ Some of these appear to be of late Roman workmanship . Three of the rudely formed flat beads, measuring in diameter about 11/4 inches, two formed of baked clay (fig. 13) , the other of bone turned in the lathe (fig. 14) , occurred amongst these remains: similar objects have been repeatedly found in spots occupied in early times. ”