Roman Villa site, Acton Scott

The discovery of the Roman Villa

Roman wall plaster, Acton Scott (image) [+]
This wall plaster was discovered during excavations led by Frances Stackhouse Acton in 1844. (Image courtesy of Shropshire Archives)

Workmen involved in diverting the main road through Acton Scott to Hatton in 1817 discovered Roman remains alongside the old road they were digging up.
in 1844, Frances Stackhouse Acton, local antiquarian and artist, organised an excavation on the site and discovered a Roman villa, complete with painted wall plaster, hypocaust system. mysteriously also some ancient Greek coins were also discovered on the site and the provenance of these is being investigated by one of our volunteers. The results of the excavation were published by Archaeologia and have been the basis of our knowledge about the site ever since. The whole site is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Iron Age Enclosure

Iron Age enclosure, Acton Scott (image) [+]
The iron age enclosure at Acton Scott is indicated on the left of this painting. It was first discovered as a crop mark by means of aerial photography.

The existence of a large enclosure ditch was revealed by aerial photography. Small-scale excavations in 1997 and 2004 confirmed the survival below ground of the northern and western arms of the enclosure ditch. The excavations also found Roman pottery and building material (roof-tiles and hypocaust bricks) in the uppermost fills of the ditch, indicating that it survived as a landscape feature until at least the early 4th century AD.

New discoveries

Acton Scott Roman Villa plan (image) [+]
This plan was drawn by Frances Stackhouse Acton as a result of excavations which took place in 1844. It shows part of the villa complex with its hypocaust heating system. (Image courtesy of Shropshire Archives)

A geophysical survey was commissioned by the Acton Scott Heritage Project in Autumn 2007 to explore the two fields most associated with the Roman villa and Iron Age enclosure. The results of this have been impressive and will covered in more detail on a forthcoming web page. Briefly it would appear that the remains associated with the villa discovered by Frances Stackhouse Acton and the cropmark enclosure covered a much larger area than previously thought. The geophysics also suggested two possible areas of former buildings - one in the location suggested by Frances Stackhouse-Acton's sketch plan, and one within the cropmark enclosure,

The latter seemed to be confirmed by the discovery, by project volunteers using the technique of shovel pit testing (see shovel pit testing pages), of quanties of Roman building materials in the part of the enclosure where the geophysics indicated a rectangular building. More shovel pit testing in spring 2008, and trial excavations in 2008 and 2009 revealed more about this fascinating site.