Even before the aerial discoveries of a Roman marching camp at Llancayo Farm, Gwehelog (NPRN 409178) and a barrow cemetery (NPRN 409179), the Roman temple was described by Davies (in Arnold and Davies 2000, 130) as `...potentially one of the most significant Romano-British sites in Wales...? Despite this significance the site has remained relatively obscure and an accurate plan of the temple was not published until 2000 (mapped from aerial photographs by R. Moloney in Arnold and Davies 2000, Fig. 11.2.A).

The architecture of the Gwehelog temple appears to be unique in Wales. The site has a circular stone Roman temple 9 metres in diameter externally at SO 3632 0300. Presumably towered, it has a typical `signet-ring? appearance, indicating a porched entrance to the east ((Frere 1985, 263; Arnold and Davies 2000, 128-30). Miranda Aldhouse-Green (2004, 162) refers to the structure as a `shrine? or `sanctuary?, and notes the easterly orientation of both the porched entrance of the sanctuary, and the gatehouse and eastern entrance of the temenos, potentially continuing the ritual importance of an eastward orientation also found in Iron Age and earlier houses and shrines. The temple is set asymmetrically within a large rectilinear temenos, 56 metres north-south by 50 metres east-west, with a probable gate house to the east (Wilson 1990, 16). A 20m long additional east-west corridor or range of buildings, 5m wide, on the north side of the temenos can be seen on the cropmarks. These are associated with a pair of clear subdivisions within the corridor or range describing a room 5m square, and is matched by an offset solid footing of a further building or room 5m x 3m on the inner side of the north temenos wall. There are traces of other stone anomalies within the temenos, conceivably structural features or patches of collapsed stonework. One of the most interesting features is the clear but fragmentary remains of a large circular structure 16m diameter, partly visible in the southern part of the temenos to the south of the shrine but cut by, and presumably earlier than, the south temenos wall. This interesting structure provides an indication of a possible pre-Roman cult building on the site. Given the prehistoric context for the site, it could also be considered to be the ditch of a levelled early Bronze Age barrow.

The results of the recent geophysical survey (Wellicome 2010, 46-60) were of variable or poor quality. A sub-station trench inserted c. 20 metres south-east of the temple at circa SO 3635 0295 during installation of the solar farm cut through one of these linear features (wall at lower right, Figure 5). Recording by Monmouth Archaeology identified a stone and cob wall footing running south, terminating at the south end in a 'T' shaped arrangement with packing for two posts standing either side of the wall. Roman pottery and iron slag were recovered from the rubble fill but the overall character or function of the wall footings remains obscure, although it was postulated that it could be one terminal of a gateway (Clarke and Bray 2012).

In plan, the temple bears a close resemblance to the circular shrine at Hayling Island, Hampshire (King and Soffe 1998). Davies (in Arnold and Davies 2000, 130) postulates that the Gwehelog temple may have been built as the result of `...the military patronage of a pre-Roman cult focus...? or alternatively could have been a `...purely native temple of predominantly western Gallic architectural form?.


References:

Arnold, C.J. and Davies, J.L. 2000. Roman and early medieval Wales. Sutton: Stroud.

Clarke, S. and Bray, J. 2012. Usk, Lancayo Farm, Lancayo, SO 3630 0300. Archaeology in Wales 51 (2011), 193-4.

Davis, O. and Driver, T. 2015, Llancayo Farm Roman Marching Camp, Usk, Monmouthshire, Archaeologia Cambrensis 163 (2014), 173-184

King, A. C. and Soffe, G. 1998. Internal organisation and deposition at the Iron Age temple on Hayling Island. Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 53, 35-47.

Wellicome, T. 2010. SMR/HER Enhancement Project for: Gwehelog/Llancayo Roman temple. Coursework Project for the University of Bristol, MA in Landscape Archaeology. Unpublished.

Wilson, D. R. 1990. Air-reconnaissance of Roman Wales 1969-88. In B. Burnham and J.L. Davies (eds). Conquest, co-existence and change: recent work in Roman Wales, 10-18. Trivium 25: Lampeter