Cylchgronau Cymru

Excavations in Caernarfon 1976-77 By Richard B. WHITE "Caernarfon was the Bulawayo of the Roman Empire"-David Lloyd George (St. David's Day Address, Caernarfon 1910). Excavations by the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust on behalf of the Ancient Monuments Branch, Department of the Environment (now Welsh Office), in advance of a road improvement scheme revealed a hitherto unsuspected Roman occupation of two main phases. The remains recovered date from the late first and early second centuries A.D. A quantity of organic material, mainly leather and wooden artefacts, was a noteworthy find. INTRODUCTION THE areas investigated (Fig. 1) lay to the north-west of the auxiliary fort of SEGONTIUM at about 20 m. above O.D. on the promontory between the rivers Seiont and Cadnant within an urban area built up during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century expansion of the town of Caernarfon. Fig. 2 shows the excavation sites; I, II and V were dug in 1976, the remainder the following year. Their shape and position was largely dictated by the need to maintain access to houses facing Newborough Street and some parts (in particular between sites V and Fig. 1. Location map.