Lydney Park, overlooking the Severn estuary, was the site of an Iron Age hill fort and important later Roman temple complex. Excavations began in 1805 under Charles Bathurst, followed by Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler in 1928–29 and John Casey and Birgitta Hoffmann in 1980–81.
The site’s extensive collection of finds is displayed in a small private museum on the Lydney Estate. However, the assemblage has never been fully catalogued, leaving many objects unpublished and poorly understood. Funded by a generous grant of £2,500 by the Roman Research Trust and Roman Society Carolina Rangel de Lima, Philippa Walton, Hella Eckardt, Graham Barker and Sam Moorhead completed a three-week assessment of the assemblage in September 2025. Its aims were to improve cataloguing, assess research potential and increase accessibility.
The team examined 1,427 small finds and 1000s of coins and recorded 570 objects in an Access database. A detailed report will help the Estate with Museum management.
A paper now in press in Britannia presents two previously unknown votive sheet fragments and highlights the research potential of the assemblage, while a short account was published in Epistula (issue XXX)