Roman and medieval remains discovered beneath new university campus

Exciting archaeological discoveries have recently been made beneath the University of Gloucestershire’s new campus at Kings Square, in Gloucester city centre.

During the conversion of the former Debenham’s retail store into a modern city center campus, evidence has been revealed which sheds light on Gloucester’s history, stretching back aa far as the Roman period.

As this area of Gloucester lay within the Roman colonia and is known to be rich in archaeological deposits, Cotswold Archaeology were commissioned by the University of Gloucestershire to conduct an archaeological evaluation, as part of their plans to develop this iconic building into a new state of the art teaching facility. The results of the archaeological evaluation can be seen by clicking on the following link:  Archaeology at Debenham’s

This new information adds to the archaeological discoveries made when previous development work was conducted at the former Debenhams store (then known as Bon Marché) in the 1950s. The results of these excavations were published in two important articles in the BGAS Transactions.

  • M D Cra’ster (1961) Roman Remains from the Bon Marche, 1955; BGAS Transactions, volume 80, pp 50-58 – available from bg080050.pdf (glos.ac.uk)
  • A G Hunter (1963) Excavations at the Bon Marché Site, Gloucester, 1958-59; BGAS Transactions, volume 82, pp 25-65 – available from bg082025.pdf (glos.ac.uk)