THIS week in Down Memory Lane we visit Roman Chadwell St Mary.

Chance discoveries of ancient objects, especially when hand digging for gravel or during agricultural work, were carried out in the 19th century and often made their way into private collections and, after 1903, into the Thurrock Museum collection.

Because the recording of such discoveries was often vague, much of the interpretation of how and when these objects came to be placed here is limited.

Modern archaeological recording places much emphasis on the archaeologist to record the context and features of artefacts to allow a timeline of history and development of communities and their way of life to develop.

I recently came across a picture postcard from the 1930s of archaeological discoveries from Chadwell St Mary, which ended up in Colchester Museum.

These Roman pottery items suggest they may have come from a series of burials of high status.

Later excavations in the 1950s, ahead of gravel extraction east of the parish church, revealed ditch boundaries and a buried hoard of Roman coins.

I suggest some important villa site, similar to the one discovered at Mucking, based on a farming operation, was sited here overlooking the estuary.

So perhaps the aptly-named Claudian Way, although not a straight road, is not far off the mark!