Monument record 0997300000 - Former White Swan Public House, High Street

A wide north-south aligned Roman ditch or channel containing pottery dating to 200-400 AD and cattle bones found during evaluation by Pre-Construct Archaeology in July 2005 (B1).
During excavations by Albion Archaeology from September to November 2006, two parallel Roman ditches and the possible terminus of a third. The two parallel ditches were roughly 4m apart and formed a probable trackway. The seventeen sherds of pottery recovered from these ditches suggest that they silted up at some point in the 2nd-4th centuries AD. Trackways were a common feature of the Romano-British countryside, forming a link between small rural settlements and connecting them with elements of the Roman road network such as Akeman Street. The trackway at Westcott is likely to have linked two such settlements, even though none are currently known in the immediate vicinity. The amountof Roman pottery recovered from the White Swan site is indicative of nearby settlement-related activity; its recovery primarily from medieval and post-medieval deposits suggests that evidence of this has been disturbed by development during these periods (B3).