New exciting phase for Acton Scott Heritage Project

The Acton Scott Heritage Project entered a new exciting phase when a geophysical survey was made of fields where a Roman villa was first discovered 160 years ago. Volunteers from the Shropshire County Council run, Heritage Lottery funded project were also given basic training in the use of geophysical surveying tools.

A great deal of new information has been gleaned from the recently completed geophysical survey on fields near the Acton Scott Historic Working Farm. What was previously known was that a Roman villa had been excavated by Frances Stackhouse Acton in 1844, and an Iron Age farmstead enclosure had showed up in crop marks in an adjacent field.

However it now seems that the site has a much more complex history. Project Officer Phil Scoggins explained: “Amongst the new discoveries are probably an additional Roman building and another Iron Age farmstead. The original villa also now appears to have been much bigger than previously thought, set around a large courtyard and fed with water by aqueduct."

Shropshire County Council's Community Archaeologist Hugh Hannaford said: “Our next task is to verify these results. We hope to achieve this by a mixture of shovel pit testing in December and trial excavation in autumn 2008. We may then have a better idea of how these structures relate to each other both physically and over time. What’s so exciting is that these results indicate such a great concentration of human activity in this very small area”.

Councillor Barbara Craig, Shropshire County Council's Cabinet member for Community Services, welcomed the fact that the contractors, ArchaeoPhysica, also provided training opportunities for many of the volunteers. “I have witnessed the considerable excitement amongst the Heritage Project volunteers that has resulted from all of this and it bodes well for the future”, she said.

The Acton Scott Heritage Project is a Shropshire County Council run community project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

21 December 2007