ULAS
University of Leicester Archaeological Services

Highcross St., Leicester - excavations on the street frontage

The Highcross St frontage had been intensively occupied from the Roman period until the present day leading to the build up of over 3.5m of archaeological deposits. One of the principal streets of Roman Leicester runs along the west edge of the site broadly on the line of Highcross St.

One of the most remarkable discoveries of the excavation was the collapsed wall (right) of a large Roman building. This was almost certainly the macellum (the Roman shopping centre), which mostly lay beneath the modern casino and Travelodge across the road.

The macellum wall had collapsed across the main Roman road and was at least 8m high, constructed of granite rubble with regular tile bonding courses, a possible tile relieving arch and the jamb and arch of a possible window.

Left shows the collapsed Roman wall seen from above, showing the tile bonding courses and, towards the bottom of the picture, part of a tile arch.

Beneath this collapsed macellum wall, was an earlier Roman wall. This wall was still in its original position, defining the boundary of the edge of the road and the insula block.

Although the presence of the collapsed macellum and precinct wall were an unexpected bonus, almost as interesting was the fact that the insula adjacent to the road (to the top on the photo above) appeared to contain no major Roman buildings, even though it was  more or less in the centre of the Roman city. Fragmentary parts of a possible Roman building were found in an earlier phase of the excavations which would have been in the centre of  the insula, and a cobbled surface laid on top of the original ground level was encountered in many places. Perhaps this was an open area, like a parade ground, or even a religious precinct, with a temple centred in it?

Cutting into the edge of the Roman road, were a series of Roman hearths which may have been used for the extraction of silver from coinage near the end of the Roman period. Shown here is a steelyard complete with a pan, from site. These Roman ‘weighing scales’ may have been used for weighing out such precious metals.

read more about the Highcross St site in Projects or click here