About James

I'm the Project Director and a Lecturer in Roman Archaeology at Newcastle University

Roman Coin

Posted on 1 May, 2013 by James

The small-scale metal detecting survey recovered a small number of Roman coins as well as the coin of Henry VIII.

This is one of the Roman coins. The obverse (heads) shows the Emperor Constantine I. He was elevated to the imperial throne at Eburacum (York), became the first Christian Roman emperor and established Constantinople (Istanbul). The reverse shows the Genius of the Roman people (surrounded by the legend GENIO POP ROM). At the bottom of the coin (in the exergue) is a mintmark PLN, which tells us that the first (Prima) ‘workshop’ of the mint at Londinium (London) made this coin in the summer of AD307(RICVI (London), 88).

This coin could have been dropped by one of the villa’s inhabitants!

Obverse: head of Constantine, Reverse: GENIO POP ROM // PLN © The Lufton Project© The Lufton Project

Open Day

Posted on 29 April, 2013 by James

The excavation open day will take place during the annual Festival of British Archaeology on Saturday 27th July 2013.

Between 10am and 4pm the excavations can be visited by the public and the excavation team will be on hand to answer any questions. We also hope to have a Roman re-enactor join us to do some living history! Lufton Open Day Flyer.

Then in the evening a public lecture will take place at 7.30pm in Abbey Manor Community Centre.

Both events are free but donations are always gratefully received.

Members of the public visit the excavations © The Lufton Project

Volunteering

Posted on 29 April, 2013 by James

Opportunities to volunteer during this year’s excavations are now filled (sorry!). If you’re interested in getting involved with the project and archaeology in south Somerset why not join the South Somerset Archaeological Research Group ? Please follow this link for information on how to join SSARG.

Coin of Henry VIII

Posted on 28 April, 2013 by James

One of the exciting aspects of archaeology is never knowing what you might find. This is the story of an object that post-dates the villa by a thousand years.

In 2009 we trialled some systematic metal detecting using the grid system that had been set up for the geophysics. We found a small number of Roman coins (which I’ll try and post something about in the future) and much to our surprise a gold coin struck in the name of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon (1526-1533).

The coin was identified as a ‘Crown of the Double Rose‘ by Dr Rob Collins and logged on the Portable Antiquities Scheme as NCL-833393.

Gold coin of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon © The Lufton Project

Obverse description: double rose crowned, with crowned initials (h & K) to each side

Obverse inscription: hENRIC VIII RVTILANS ROSA SIE SPIA

Reverse description: shield bearing royal arms of England crowned, with crowned initials (h & K) to each side
Reverse inscription: DEI G R AGLIE FRANC DNS hIBERNIE
Initial mark: lis
Degree of wear: Hardly worn: extremely fine

Lifting the corner: Magnetometry 2009

Posted on 28 April, 2013 by James

At the same time that we carried out the resistivity survey of the villa we also carried out a much larger survey using a Bartington gradiometer. This type of instrument senses very slight changes in the earth’s magnetic field caused by burning, silting or the dumping of refuse.

Geophysics near the villa in 2009 © The Lufton Villa Project

The survey was designed to identify the extent of the Roman villa (visible in the SE corner of the western field) and to see if there were any associated buildings or features like roads, trackways and field boundaries. The results showed that these heavy clay fields had a lot of modern field drains in them (these are visible as parallel lines running NNW to SSE on the graphic below). There were also hints that an archaeological landscape was preserved in these fields.

A greyscale plot of the results of the gradiometer survey (Caldwell 2009, Fig 4)

As we were to discover, this survey was a little bit like lifting the corner of a rug. When we carried out a more extensive survey to the south incredible things were revealed…

The Origins of the Landscape Project 2009: Resistivity Survey of the Villa

Posted on 26 April, 2013 by James

The current project began when James was a post-doctoral resesearcher at Cambridge University. He was (and remains) interested in the end of the Roman Empire and the late Roman villa on the outskirts of his home town seemed an exciting site to study.

Since Leonard Hayward’s excavations no archaeological work had been carried out on the villa. For a long time the villa was being regularly ploughed and we were unsure what impact this was having on the buried remains. It was also unclear whether Leonard Hayward had uncovered the whole of the building, or just one wing of a grander structure (like the villa excavated not far away at Dinnington by Winchester University).

In 2009 James received permission from English Heritage and the landowners to geophysically survey the villa site. This survey was carried out in March with the assistance of Liz Caldwell and Nigel Harvey of GeoFlo and volunteers from the South Somerset Archaeological Research Group and the Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society.

The resistivity survey (which is good at detecting differences between dry features such as stone walls and damp features like ditches) showed that the villa building did survive. It also demonstrated that the range of rooms excavated by Hayward was not part of a grander structure.

The discovery of the villa 1946-1963

Posted on 25 April, 2013 by James

The Roman villa at Lufton was discovered by Mr K. C. J. Hill in 1945. Mr Hill was ploughing a field and realised that his plough had hit the ruins of a stone building. The site was soon confirmed as that of a Roman Villa and it was excavated by Mr Leonard Hayward FSA and the boys of Yeovil Grammar School between 1946 and 1952 and again between 1960 and 1963.

The excavations identified a fourth-century corridor house richly adorned with painted wall plaster and mosaics. Many of the finds from the excavations are now in the Community Heritage Ac cess Centre in Yeovil. Today the site of the villa is a scheduled ancient monument and protected by law.

The villa has attracted considerable academic attention because it is one of a small number of excavated corridor houses that include a large and ostentatious octagonal bath suite.

Mosaic from the Villa

Further Reading:

Hayward, L. 1952 ‘The Roman villa at Lufton, near Yeovil’, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 97: 91-112.

Hayward, L. 1972 ‘The Roman villa at Lufton, near Yeovil’, Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 116: 59-77.

Lufton Project

Landscape Archaeology and the Lufton Roman Villa, Somerset

Author Archives: James