The La Bouteillerie Camp

La Bouteillerie was a large hamlet situated between La Houssaye Bérenger (district of Rouen) and Varneville (district of Dieppe). Both districts shared the same hamlet, divided by a road running through the main road running north-south.

The hamlet had been inhabited for 2000 years. The 19th century Clerois writer-archeologist César was very interested in the remains of this place.

Here is a resumé of the long text written by César Marrette about this hamlet.

‘ Personally, I can only explain the name La Bouteillerie by its being a place where bottles, jugs and boxwood boxes were made.

When the land was cleared of forest the remnants of a wall were found near Varneville. More recently, large numbers of tiles have been found at the end of the village. I am told that an auger-shaped  stone tomb  has also been found. A short distance from La Bouteillerie , the plough often turned up fragments of Roman bricks and tiles. The neighbouring woods have revealed wells, ponds, millstones and other objects which prove that the area was inhabited in the ancient times. 

The hypothesis that the original farm was immediately succeeded by the gallo-roman villa has not been officially verified by archeological sources. The shapes  of the enclosures around La Bouteillerie have been well preserved. The height of some of the ditches, from the base, reached ten to twelve feet. Was the double enclosure in La Bouteillerie built by the 

Gauls, the Normans or the Romans? Impossible to say.’

During the archeological excavations that took place before the building of the A29 motorway, archeologists were able to draw up a plan of the gallo-roman villa and to provide numerous details of the people’s lives; 

the following are  résumés of some interesting information provided to the municipality by the excavation company (letter dated October 17th 1995).

Inside the immense courtyard, enclosed by ditches, (260m x 140m) the remains of a gallo-roman villa (a large agricultural farm) were found. These included a residential building for the owner or the manager and farm buildings for animals or for harvested crops. Most of the buildings’ substructure was made of flint and earth.

The lofts confirm  cereal farming , and fences  confirm the enclosure of horses and cattle.

Analyses taken from inside  the farm courtyard enable the localisation of threshing areas, of germination areas and of areas for stocking manure.

The presence of textile working, artisanal forges and glass and ceramic production are also confirmed.

Water for the villa came from two ponds, which collected rain water from the lowest points in the domain.

The Ist century camp seems to have been abandoned at the beginning of the 3rd century CE with no viable explanation and leaving no trace of any violent events.

Conclusion of the 1995 excavations