Northover House is a late Roman inhumation cemetery on the northern outskirts of Ilchester (Lindinis), Somerset, in use principally during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. It lay across the River Yeo from the small walled town, on or beside the Fosse Way, and forms part of a wider extramural funerary landscape associated with Lindinis.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The cemetery is significant as evidence for the population and burial practices of Lindinis, a small but administratively important roadside town that may have served as a civitas capital of the Durotriges in the later Roman period. Its roadside, riverside position is typical of late Roman urban cemeteries and contributes to understanding of suburban land use around southern British small towns.
Excavations in the 1980s recovered a substantial number of late Roman inhumations, predominantly west–east oriented and largely unaccompanied, with some in stone-lined or stone-packed graves consistent with later 4th-century practice seen elsewhere at Ilchester (e.g. Little Spittle). Skeletal analysis indicated a mixed-sex, mixed-age population, though detailed publication is limited and finds assemblages were modest.
Northover House is a late Roman inhumation cemetery on the northern outskirts of Ilchester (Lindinis), Somerset, in use principally during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a cemetery site from the Roman period in Britain.
Northover House, late Roman cemetery is classified as a Roman cemetery — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Ilchester Mead (0.3 km), Lindinis (0.4 km), Catsgore (3.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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