The site is located at the south-east angle of the Gallo-Roman forum. At the beginning of the 4th century AD, a church was built on adjacent land to the south. The church, which was the first cathedral, remained the seat of the Archbishop of Rheims until the end of the 4th century. In the 7th century, it was named Saint-Symphorien. Against this edifice, and within the excavation limits, was the cloister of the canons of Saint Symphorien which has existed since at least the 13th century.

The oldest stratigraphic levels of the site date to the 1st century BC.
Only a few wooden constructions on sill beams and posts were revealed from the beginning of the reign of August (27 to 5 BC). The first stone constructions did not appear until the 1st century AD, including one large building at least 500 m2 in area, which has a 60 m2 reception hall decorated with a black and white, geometric mosaic. Painted plaster is still visible at the bases of the walls and in some parts is conserved to a height of 2 m. The house had underfloor heating (hypocaust). The status of this structure remains to be defined: was it a luxurious domus or a schola (co-operative building)? The fire that ravaged it at the end of the 1st century provides useful information.

The fire "fossilised" everything contained in two cellars. One of the cellars of the domus was devoted to domestic storage. Here, a wooden tray was found with three bread rolls, around 12 cm in diameter, placed on it and covered with a cloth. Several glasses and pots, as well as three amphorae, one of which had been recycled to store wheat, were also discovered. A gold coin from the era of Domitian was also found.
The other cellar, which was more carefully built, does not seem to have served for storage. At the base of its walls were four pits, of varying depths, which contained pots stacked inside one another. This seems to indicate some type of ritual activity. The fire greatly modified the structure of the residence during the 2nd century and the spaces formerly occupied by the now backfilled cellars were built on. Heated baths were constructed and the size of the rooms diminished while the outside spaces were enlarged.

During the 2nd century AD, this site was completely reorganized. On the remains of the 1st century domus, a heated bath was built. It included an apsidal room with underfloor heating and probably equipped with a basin, along with other large rooms, also with underfloor heating.

A few sporadic remains from the Early Middle Ages were found at the site. They are principally waste pits which happily contained numerous archaeological finds. These pits, rarely discovered in Rheims, contribute to our understanding of the daily life of urban populations during the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. It seems that the Merovingians occupied the 2nd and 3rd century heated buildings which were still standing in the 5th and 6th centuries.

Of the Church of Saint-Symphorien, only the north wall of the nave, which still serves today as the foundation of a boundary wall was found. Following the destruction of the church and cloister in 1795, the enclosure wall visible today was reconstructed with architectural fragments originating from these structures. During the excavation, numerous 13th century fragments of capitals and columns were found, as well as several pieces of sculpture, including one very beautiful, intact polychrome head.
Only the west and north corridors of the cloister, which is U shaped and turned toward the church, were found. The gallery, whose exterior wall is conserved to a height of over a metre, surrounded a garden. Numerous canons graves were excavated in the cloister corridor.
The remains of a very large lime-kiln indicate a period of reconstruction and improvement of the ecclesiastical buildings.
Houses belonging to the canons were found between Saint-Symphorien Street and the cloister.

This archaeological operation has allowed Inrap researchers to trace the history of a quarter occupied since the Gallic period. During the Roman era, luxurious residences were erected on this site and likely continued to exist until the beginning of the Early Christian period. At this time, the area passed from secular to religious hands. As early as the 4th century, the ecclesiastics of Rheims acquired the land and founded a church and later a cloister. The religious vocation of the quarter continued until the end of the 18th century. This remarkable site thus allows archaeologists to study the particularities of a religious occupation over a period of 1500 years.

Developers: A3C
Curation: Regional Archaeology Service (DRAC Champagne-Ardenne)
Site Director : Stéphane Sindonino, Inrap
Scientific and technical assistance: Agnès Balmelle, Inrap