...beneath the allotment site it's highly likely that there is a Roman villa, complete with a tessellated pavement.
I'm not a great one for going to meetings — there always seems to be something better to do. Weeding, reading or even cleaning are often more attractive options than going to a meeting. But this week the plot holders of Bathampton Parish allotment were invited to a meeting at the Village Hall to hear all about the proposed archaeological survey of the site. So, of course, I went along, hoping that my humble plot would be featuring alongside Tony Robinson and the Time Team.
Well, I won't be meeting the Time Team in the near future, but I did discover that beneath the allotment site it's highly likely that there is a Roman villa, complete with a tessellated pavement. Apparently, various Roman pottery sherds and coins, even gold ones, have turned up on the allotments over the years.
The experts, one from the local Bath and Camerton Archaeological Society and another from the university, told us that the site was discovered in the 19th century by a historically-minded vicar who had made a note of it on a map and left it alone. Now the university want to make a geophysical survey of the site to establish the orientation and existence of any walls and buildings. This involves gridding the allotment into squares and then walking over it with a resistance monitor. The boffins were anxious to get the agreement of the plot holders and to time the survey so as to cause minimum disruption to the growing of crops.
As a result of the meeting it looks like the survey will take place in the autumn. In the meantime, I suspect there will be an awful lot of double or even triple digging going on in the hopes of turning up a Roman coin or two.
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