Rutland Roman Villa

[Andy26]

The recently found Rutland Roman Villa, was featured heavily in the news yesterday, the mosaic looks an amazing find.

I see it was made a Scheduled Monument (SM) this week, which got me thinking how its great to find historic sites but then as a landowner you can have your ability to use the land as you wish removed at a pen stroke with no compensation. As the whole field appears to be a SM you cannot even enjoy the fruits of some metal detecting!

Its bizzare how all the news reports just gave the location as Rutland presumably to discourage uninvited visitors but then Historic England give a map and exact location with the listing!

Roman villa east of Foster’s Bridge, Ketton - 1477234 | Historic England

List entry 1477234. Grade Not applicable to this List entry. Scheduled Monument: Roman Villa East Of Foster’S Bridge. May include summary, reasons for designation and history.

historicengland.org.uk

I'd quite like to strip the topsoil in a few places here where aerial images suggests there's something interesting but don't want another SM, I've got one already which is a pain, mostly from Nigthhawkers.

 

[7610 super q]

Yes. I've always kept my head down, and re buried all those Saxon hoards of gold I've found.

 

[Still Farming]

How much is STILL not found or ever will ?
Nice coffee shop by there and new ready made attraction that solved their diversification ideas and quids in straight away!

 

[Vader]

Local landlord won't allow metal detectors on incase they find something and same happens!

 

[Andy26]

My Grandfather used to farm in the same village as above, Mum was saying when she was a child they excavated some Roman baths, but in those days they had a good look and covered it back over!

 

[renewablejohn]

Have a Roman beacon site here but torn whether to get the professionals in purely for this reason.

 

[Red Fred]

We do a fair few geophys surveys with our local Archie. Soc, and it is a constant problem asking permission to survey a suspected site. Many farms won't allow us to look in case we find anything and it is reported back to "The Authorities". At the other extreme, the threat of nighthawkers puts people off. Without being able to record the position, the whole exercise is pretty pointless.

 

[onthehoof]

We have some bronze age barrows apparently- but there's no way I want loads of hippies digging up the fields, assume you can refuse permission if they wanted to investigate??

 

[Vader]

In 1 field we been told we have shallow ancient features as you can see the line on Google maps.
The London is actually where land turns from sandstone to shale.
Perfect line, crops on the sand side come through a week before shale.
There is no shallow underground ancient features as we subsoil deep but the experts know better from looking at Google....

 

[BuskhillFarm]

I was thinking the same an amazing find. But good way to blow £50-250k asset depending how big the field is.

 

[renewablejohn]

We do a fair few geophys surveys with our local Archie. Soc, and it is a constant problem asking permission to survey a suspected site. Many farms won't allow us to look in case we find anything and it is reported back to "The Authorities". At the other extreme, the threat of nighthawkers puts people off. Without being able to record the position, the whole exercise is pretty pointless.

But surely for some sites the position is pretty obvious for those knowledgeable in the subject as the clues are already out there. You can't hide a Roman road as they did a good a job of building them and keeping them straight.

 

[Nearly]

A friend says his claim to fame is he once destoned a Henge!

 

[Red Fred]

But surely for some sites the position is pretty obvious for those knowledgeable in the subject as the clues are already out there. You can't hide a Roman road as they did a good a job of building them and keeping them straight.

Our geophys boffin works for the Ordnance Survey at Southampton and he looks for ploughed out barrows by playing around with the OS 3D landscape imaging. When he sees a suspicious looking mound on Google Earth,he drags it up by exaggerating the vertical dimension . Then we help with the field survey if we are allowed,access which shows the tell-tale trenches which were dug along the sides of the long barrows and are often still in existence beneath the plough depth. So far we have found around 17 vanished long barrows and none have been scheduled as they have been ploughed for centuries and there is nothing much to see. It is still interesting though, as it shows that prehistoric people didn't just live on the chalk Downs where surviving barrows are, they lived in the valleys but overcrowding has destroyed the evidence.

 

[Red Fred]

We have some bronze age barrows apparently- but there's no way I want loads of hippies digging up the fields, assume you can refuse permission if they wanted to investigate??

Our folks are all amateurs and have no right to go anywhere without permission. As far as I know, this applies to all hippies including the ones from the Uni. Archie Departments.

 

[Hindsight]

Our geophys boffin works for the Ordnance Survey at Southampton and he looks for ploughed out barrows by playing around with the OS 3D landscape imaging. When he sees a suspicious looking mound on Google Earth,he drags it up by exaggerating the vertical dimension . Then we help with the field survey if we are allowed,access which shows the tell-tale trenches which were dug along the sides of the long barrows and are often still in existence beneath the plough depth. So far we have found around 17 vanished long barrows and none have been scheduled as they have been ploughed for centuries and there is nothing much to see. It is still interesting though, as it shows that prehistoric people didn't just live on the chalk Downs where surviving barrows are, they lived in the valleys but overcrowding has destroyed the evidence.

Does your boffin use of have access to LIDAR imagery. Quite fantastic what can be picked up.

On another tack I walk several fields near Lolham at Stamford. Fen edge Gravels. Lot of neolithic as well as Roman remains (Kings Street is adjacent to these fields. In a dry time iron age huts show up as crop marks. I get very excited but the drier it gets the more irritated the farmer gets as he sees his crop wither away to nothing. I have said to him just think back three thousand years and two farmers would be standing where we are today complaining about the weather!

 

[Andy26]

Does your boffin use of have access to LIDAR imagery. Quite fantastic what can be picked up.

On another tack I walk several fields near Lolham at Stamford. Fen edge Gravels. Lot of neolithic as well as Roman remains (Kings Street is adjacent to these fields. In a dry time iron age huts show up as crop marks. I get very excited but the drier it gets the more irritated the farmer gets as he sees his crop wither away to nothing. I have said to him just think back three thousand years and two farmers would be standing where we are today complaining about the weather!

Worlds most basic golf course there too, always seems busy though!

 

[MrNoo]

But surely for some sites the position is pretty obvious for those knowledgeable in the subject as the clues are already out there. You can't hide a Roman road as they did a good a job of building them and keeping them straight.

Afraid you can......!!! We have one here in perfect condition, when they put the A419 duel in there was a bit they never dug out until one sunday when all the bods were out, it was dug out and being as it t'was a Sunday there were no hippy types to keep an eye on proceedings and stop work for weeks on end.
But yes we have a road, all cotswold stone on end vertically, deep drainage ditches both sides, long since covered up now it goes down an old track and then seems to stop at a small spinney.

 

[renewablejohn]

Afraid you can......!!! We have one here in perfect condition, when they put the A419 duel in there was a bit they never dug out until one sunday when all the bods were out, it was dug out and being as it t'was a Sunday there were no hippy types to keep an eye on proceedings and stop work for weeks on end.
But yes we have a road, all cotswold stone on end vertically, deep drainage ditches both sides, long since covered up now it goes down an old track and then seems to stop at a small spinney.

I know we have a field here that you would never know it has a road through it but look on the Lidar images and its obvious a dead straight road leading straight up the hillside from the Roman road below to where the Beacon is located.It goes through two field gates 90 degrees to each other which look totally random but put the lost road in and they make perfect sense.

 

[Hindsight]

Worlds most basic golf course there too, always seems busy though!

Yep, think the owner is putting it up to host the Open in a couple of years!

 

[Andy26]

Yep, think the owner is putting it up to host the Open in a couple of years!

Think it's not a bad business model, £5/day collected by an honesty box. No staff, no buildings. Might need a bit of investment to keep Tiger and Rory happy!

Lidar looks interesting around Lolham:

LiDAR terrain map and aerial photograph of Lolham Hall, City of Peterborough, TF1107, TF 11 07 ()

LiDAR Terrain Map of Lolham Hall, City of Peterborough, TF1107, TF 11 07 LiDAR map and aerial photograph of Lolham Hall, City of Peterborough, TF1107, TF 11 07 Archaeology UK (ARCHI UK): Local history near Lolham Hall, City of Peterborough, TF1107, TF 11 07 ( England, Scotland or Wales or...

www.archiuk.com