MALDON'S Anglo-Saxon heritage is well-known, but there are older Iron Age and Roman roots very close by.

Heybridge land used for a new housing estate in the mid-nineties revealed an ancient past.

Finds of Roman pottery and cremations were already known in Elms Farm and Crescent Road when, in 1993, an opportunity arose to conduct a massive excavation of the land which Bovis Homes had bought up between Crescent Road and Heybridge Approach.

Over two years of digging this led to the discovery of 2,910 Roman coins and large collections of animal bones and pottery fragments from the late Iron Age and Roman periods. First occupied in the mid 1st Century B.C., around 2,100 years ago, the site grew to become a major Romano-British village in the 1st Century A.D., with farm plots, roads, wooden buildings and a temple built over an earlier shrine.

This settlement was located where the modern Temple Way and Roman Close were built. The area north of this, closer to where Crescent Road runs, was used for burials, cremations

and funeral pyres.

Archaeologists believe the village was both a market and a centre for religious activities. By the 5th Century the site was largely empty, though it is possible a Christian chapel was built over the temple, as there is evidence of a substantial building being added to replace the earlier structure at this time.

In its day the site was a hive of activity, with cereal growing, stock rearing, textile production, metal and pottery production, fishing and oyster harvesting. As this community declined, another grew up nearby on higher ground. Its name? Maeldune.

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