At the crossroads of Watling Street and the Icknield Way, where the Roman Empire meets Prehistoric Britain, an ape clambers amongst the amphorae of wine and olive oil, of dried fruit and pungent fish paste. A small boy stares at this pet in amazement, remembering the soldiers and their horses and their wagons, and wonders what strangeness is this to add to all the rest?
Watling Street was a busy road, connecting Dover to Wroxeter, once one of the largest cities in the country, via London and St Albans. At Dunstable it crossed the Icknield Way, an ancient path that linked the Dorset coast with East Anglia. It ran along the ridge of the chalk hills, safely above the lower marshier ground, and is estimated to be at least 5,000 years old.
Roman Dunstable was a bustling agricultural settlement. Wells, corn drying ovens and agricultural implements have been found by archaeologists, along with ditches and farming structures, in and around the town. Everyday cooking, storing and serving pots were made locally and were probably sold at the market. Amphorae containing exotic produce were imported from Mediterranean countries. Pottery arrived from the Continent, for example the glossy red pottery, known as Samian ware, from France.
Dunstable was also a Roman posting station, somewhere to change horses, repair wagons, eat, sleep and receive communications. The skeleton of a young Barbary Ape found in the town is an intriguing mystery. They were popular with Romans as household pets but it might equally have been a military pet or mascot. Another Barbary Ape skeleton was found at Wroxeter which was home to a much larger Roman legionary fort.
It’s not an animal whose bones you’d expect to turn up in rural Bedfordshire but it speaks of links to the Mediterranean and North Africa and is part of Bedfordshire’s long story of connections to the wider world. It’s also a symbol of fortune and decline. When the Romans left Britain in the fifth century, Dunstable was abandoned until the reign of Henry I. He granted the town a market charter and founded a monastery, ushering in a new period in the town’s history. By that time, 700 years had elapsed since a Barbary Ape might have enthralled a small boy in the marketplace.
Shelly Dennison 