In 1976, engineers from the Severn and Trent Water Authority were digging a trench for a water main on West Hill, just below Uley Bury, when their machines struck Roman stonework. What followed was one of the most significant temple excavations in Britain.
Over three seasons between 1977 and 1979, archaeologists Ann Woodward and Peter Leach uncovered a sanctuary that had been in continuous use from the late Iron Age through to at least the eighth century AD. The earliest phase consisted of standing stones or massive timber posts within an oval enclosure — a sacred clearing in the pre-Roman landscape. By the late Iron Age, enclosed timber shrines and pits containing votive offerings had replaced them. In the early second century AD, a stone Romano-Celtic temple was built, later enlarged in the mid-fourth century.
The temple was dedicated to Mercury. The evidence is compelling: a cult statue carved from local oolitic limestone, depicting the god with his characteristic cockerel and ram, was found carefully buried in a pit. The limestone head, now in the British Museum, is carved in a classical style but unmistakably in local stone. Alongside it, excavators found altars, figurines, and a remarkable collection of inscribed lead curse tablets — written complaints to the god about stolen livestock and farm tools, offering a vivid glimpse of rural grievances.
“The temple was dedicated to Mercury.”
The excavation covered 2,150 square metres and produced over 60,000 pottery fragments, more than 250,000 animal bone remains, and the foundations of twenty buildings. This was no wayside shrine. It was a major religious complex with living quarters, guest accommodation, and shops.
