Exploring and Sharing Alfred Harker's Archive. (original) (raw)
2000
Cambridge Archaeology Field Group (CAFG) carried out a fieldwalking exercise at the Reach Roman villa and Iron Age site in 1999, at the request of the Archaeology Field Unit of Cambridgeshire County Council. This was in order to aid the assessment of the deterioration of the Scheduled Monument due to the impact of agricultural activities. The fieldwalking area and scheduled site is centred on approximately TL5727565300. It is enclosed in a triangular area, with the ‘Devil’s Dyke’, an ancient ditch and bank to the northeast, the Swaffham Prior road to the west and the remains of a disused railway to the south. The Villa was partly excavated in 1892-3 by T. McKenney Hughes and T. D. Atkinson of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. It was described as a corridor villa which was aligned northeast/southwest, with wings at each end, each having apsidal projections. The southeast wing had a further apse to the southeast and the remains of a hypocaust. In situ flue tiles suggested that it may have been a bathhouse. These features are probably indicative of later development of the property, which may have originated as a simpler structure, perhaps like the aisled phase of the nearby building at Exning, excavated by Ernest Greenfield in 1958 – 59. The finds were washed and sorted with the brick and tile being separated out from the pottery. The ceramic building material (CBM) finds were assessed by CAFG members, whilst the pottery was submitted to Alice Lyons (Lyons Archaeology) for identification, dating and cataloguing. Although little dating evidence was found among the CBM, an early phase of building is hinted at by a small quantity of Iron Age/Early Roman daub, tegula fragments with relatively thicker flanges, a tegula fragment with an extremely thick bed and perhaps two thicker fragments of imbrex. The Roman CBM was found in a limited number of fabric types, with almost threequarters by weight, occurring in a single, uniformly well-fired type. A small number of possible medieval brick fragments was observed among the Post Roman CBM, which was mostly plain roof tile. The location of this material across the site has the appearance of a typical manuring distribution. Plotting the pottery finds’ distribution by era was more enlightening. Early Iron Age pottery was located to the north-east of the later villa site in a slightly elevated position, near the area of the Devil’s Dyke. Finds quantities increase through the Iron Age and into the Early Roman era, spreading south-westwards. Pottery finds then begin to occur around the location of the villa, increasing in intensity through the Romano-British era. By the Medieval and Post Medieval eras, the site appears to have returned to agricultural use. The finds density decreases and become much more diffuse across the site, indicative of the typical manuring of arable farmland. Although not a grand property, together with the hypocausts and the evidence for distant trading links with the recovery of Samian ware and Spanish amphorae sherds, the inhabitants appear to have prospered somewhat, on the edge of the rich Fenland zone.