The Butts and Pitchcroft

The Butts (the name suggests an area used for archery practice) was open space in the Middle Ages, part at least of it occupied by tenters (centre, left), frames for stretching and drying cloth after fulling (washing) or dyeing. Hundreds of years earlier it had been a busy part of the Roman town, and the course of a Roman road is still just visible as a slightly parched, lighter line in the grass whose roots cannot penetrate the buried iron-slag surface.