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A summer of excavation for Chase and Chalke

This summer Chase and Chalke volunteers have enjoyed participating in two archaeological excavations run by Teffont Archaeology, at Coombe Bissett in May, and in the Chalke Valley in September. Over 100 volunteers tried archaeological excavation and processing of finds and environmental samples, metal-detecting and geophysical survey over four weeks of fieldwork, funded by National Lottery players through the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s funding of the Chase and Chalke Landscape Partnership Scheme run by the Cranborne Chase National Landscape. The Coombe Bissett project was directed for Teffont Archaeology by Alyson Tanner (Salisbury Museum) and Dr David Roberts (Cardiff University), and the Chalke Valley project by Dr Denise Wilding (Teffont Archaeology) and Dr David Roberts (Cardiff University).

Cranborne Chase and the Chalke Valley have rich histories of prehistoric and Roman occupation, but the Roman period in particular has seen little investigation in the area in recent decades. These projects helped provide local people, landowners, heritage managers and academic researchers with insights into the region’s past. 

Coombe Bissett

At Coombe Bissett we excavated a multi-period site, revealing activity from the Bronze Age to the Roman period, following up on geophysical survey by Chalke and Chase volunteers with Wessex Archaeology earlier in the year. A Bronze Age barrow was excavated overlooking the valley in which today’s village sits, but had a tree at its centre instead of a burial. Perhaps this was a monument to an important member of the community who died away from home and could not be buried in the normal way? 

Around a thousand years later, towards the end of the Iron Age, the site at Coombe Bissett saw the establishment of a small farm yard enclosed by a ditch and bank. Occasional post holes suggest the enclosure may have had a palisaded fence and gate, but preservation was variable across the site so we can’t be sure of this interpretation. The site remained in use through the Roman period, although was probably only ever intermittently occupied as an outlying part of a farming community’s land rather than being inhabited permanently. People disposed of their rubbish in pits within the enclosure, and there are hints of their identities. A cheap copper-alloy bracelet, everyday cooking vessels and the remains of meals of lamb and beef suggest a relatively poor – but not impoverished – farming group with access to their own flocks for meat.

The Coombe Bissett excavation work by the volunteers helps fill out our picture of rural life in the Roman period. It is tempting to imagine a shepherd watching over a herd of sheep in the little compound on the shoulder of the hill, cooking a meal over an open fire. Whilst only a few miles from the villa at Downton or the town at Stratford-sub-Castle (Sorviodunum in the Roman period), this quiet corner of rural Britannia must have been a very different experience for the shepherd to those who owned villas or townhouses.

Volunteers Excavating Painted Wall Plaster

Garson’s Villa

Our excavation in the Chalke Valley highlighted the other, elite, end of the Roman social spectrum. Slightly to our surprise, the excavation revealed a Roman villa complex, the extent of which did not show up on the geophysical surveys. The main villa building measures c.40m in length, with walls constructed from local flint and roof tiles made from limestone. Considerable investment of time and money went into its construction, demonstrated by a mosaic laid down in one of the corridor rooms. The design is known as a latchkey meander, and is found at other villa sites in the south and south-west, such as Box, Dorchester, Spaxton and Fullerton. Interestingly, the design is also present at Rockbourne, one of the closest villas to ours. It is also found at larger, more elaborate villas and towns further afield such as Chedworth, Cirencester, Silchester, Winchester, Verulamium, Bignor, Chichester and Fishbourne. The owners of the Chalke Valley villa were likely local, but over time successive generations had become part of a wider network of the Roman elite, and used their wealth to invest in Roman material culture. 

Volunteer Drawing Roman Villa Remains

This is also evident through the establishment of a bath house adjacent to the main villa building. This featured a hypocaust (underfloor heating system), with a caldarium (hot room), tepidarium (warm room) and plunge pool, and walls decorated with painted plaster. Downslope towards a stream our team found a large in-situ slab of Roman concrete, which possibly had a use associated with water management, such as a pond, swimming pool, or quay.

The villa complex also gives us hints as to the daily life of ordinary people. Upslope from the main building a large barn was built of flint, with very thick walls suggesting that it was multiple storeys high. The absence of mosaics or wall plaster indicate that it was not richly decorated and instead had a more functional use, such as storing livestock or crops. No elaborate finds were found in the building, and so we can picture a scene where labourers were working and living alongside the livestock.

At the top of the hill a series of pits and ditches had been dug in the late Iron Age and early Roman period, thereby giving us a glimpse into the earlier habitation of the site. This longer term occupation history revealed by our work is consistent with circular features on the geophysics, which are probably Iron Age round houses or Bronze Age barrows.

Next steps

Post-excavation work continues on both sites. Once the finds assemblages are cleaned and packed according to museum guidelines they are sent out to specialists. Their reports will then inform the forthcoming publications, and once our research is finished the finds will be transferred to Salisbury Museum. The Teffont team will give talks locally to share our results with our volunteers and the public. Through publishing our results and housing the finds in a museum where they are accessible for viewing and further research, the legacy of these excavations, and the hard work of all the Chase and Chalke volunteers, lives on.

Further updates from both projects will be published on Teffont Archaeology’s website: www.teffontarchaeology.com , where details of talks and upcoming opportunities with Teffont Archaeology will also be available. Find out more about the Chase & Chalke project at www.cranbornechase.org.uk

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