Archaeologists uncover Roman ‘service station’ during roadworks in Gloucester
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The mutatio, on Ermin Street linking Silchester and Gloucester, would have provided a place for travellers to rest or change horses. At Gloucester services on the M5, travellers are resting and refuelling, taking a break from the demands of the road. Just a few miles east, scores of archaeologists are completing a two-year project that has unearthed a forerunner of the site, a 2,000-year-old Roman take on the service station.
![[A gloved hand holding a Roman item in their gloved hands]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/83ad24856ec215ffbaaf3e93349274c6527497ce/0_102_3000_3750/master/3000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The Roman version, a mutatio – or horse-changing station – would have provided respite for travellers on the Ermin Street road, which linked Gloucester and Cirencester in Gloucestershire and Silchester in Hampshire. Finds in and around the mutatio – which somewhat ironically has been excavated to make way for a major new link road – include hundreds of Roman coins, brooches, animal bones and the remains of ovens.
![[Archaeologists searching the ground at the site]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/985eac4d24d67e1e17dffcc0ea52f9baf1a8cc1d/0_150_1098_659/master/1098.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Alex Thomson, the project manager for Oxford Cotswold Archaeology, said: “We knew that we would find good archaeology, but what was revealed exceeded all expectations. “Being able to look at a Roman roadside settlement in such extensive detail is a rare opportunity. It’s clear that the structures we’ve recorded helped serve the passing trade on a busy Roman highway – it really could be a 2,000-year-old service station.”.
Up to 70 archaeologists have been working on the 40-hectare site, which is part of a £250m-£500m project to connect two dual carriageway sections of the A417 at Brockworth and Cowley in Gloucestershire. Almost eight hectares have turned out to hold a Roman settlement straddling Ermin Street, one of the key routes in south-west Roman Britain.
