A46 Nottinghamshire; Newark to Widmerpool Improvement
Author: Nicholas Cooke and Andrew Mudd
The A46 trunk road in Nottinghamshire has its origin as the Roman Fosse Way. Archaeological work ahead of road improvements in 2009 between Newark and Widmerpool has shed new light on both its Roman and pre-Roman use.
A number of significant sites were revealed, including evidence for Iron Age and Roman settlement in the hinterland around the Roman small town of Margidunum, near Bingham. Further to the south-west near Saxondale, Roman roadside enclosures later became the location of Anglo-Saxon cremation burials. A Beaker period ring ditch and inhumation burials were located at the foot of the Wolds, near Stragglethorpe. The discovery of Late Upper palaeolithic flint scatters at Farndon Fields on the Nottinghamshire gravel terrace near Newark are of national importance.
