The project would like to say a big thank you to the Medieval Settlement Research Group. The MSRG have just awarded us a small grant towards the geophysical survey of the deserted medieval settlement of Barrow.

The geophysics team have completed two further fields called Danscombe and Ten Acres. Both of these fields contain geophysical anomalies that are likely to be archaeological. One of the most interesting discoveries is a sinuous anomaly that is probably an ancient stream channel that would have fed into Balls Water (or Welham’s Brook).

Geophysics of Ten Acres. The features in this field may well be Romano-British © Geoflo and The Lufton Project

Geophysics of Danscmobe. The sinuous anomaly is likely to be an ancient stream channel © Geoflo and The Lufton Project

Geoflo and SSARG are busy extending the geophysical survey. The ‘Any Other Duties’ clause is in full effect here as Nigel rolls a hay bale out of the way before surveying.

Nigel rolling haybales before surveying © GeoFlo

Meanwhile James is writing funding applications for next year’s excavations…

We’re pleased to say that Nigel, Neil, Doug and some other SSARG members have just started to extend our geophysical survey. This is a piece of work we’ve been meaning to do since 2012 and will give us a much greater coverage of the landscape to the south west of the villa.

Updates to follow – so keep an eye on the blog!

The work is partially funded by the Aston Fund of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society.

We completed the survey of Hungerford and realised that the settlement continued further to the south. So we carried on surveying and in 2010 and 2011 covered two smaller fields known as Danscombe and Mr Unwin’s Field.

Geophysics of Danscombe © GeoFlo and The Lufton Project

Danscombe was particularly interesting because just before the magnetometer survey was carried out the landowner manured the field with ‘green waste‘. This is the composted hedge clippings and other stuff collected from householders by the council. Theoretically it shouldn’t have an impact on the survey but at Danscombe we discovered that the ‘green waste’ had a lot of many metal contaminants. These had a negative impact on the survey (compare image above with the one below) and this problem is currently being studied by Alissa, an MA student at Newcastle.

For all of the problems caused by the ‘green waste’ we could see that the ancient settlement continued into this field. The big line running across the image is a modern pipeline (A).

The Mr Unwin’s Field (to the east: below) was also surveyed and contained further anomalies associated with the settlement (A). We also identified a round anomaly (B) that we thought might be the remains of a roundhouse or barrow. This is where we decided to dig in 2012.

Geophysics of Mr Unwin's Field © GeoFlo and The Lufton Project

Following the geophysical survey of the area around the villa we took a decision to survey the big field to the south. This piece of land is known as ‘Hungerford’, a fieldname that usually denotes poor land. In the nineteenth century this big field was a number of smaller fields some of which were named ‘Little’ and ‘Lower Danscombe’.

The geophysical survey was undertaken between 2009 and 2011 and revealed an astonishing archaeological landscape. It is of many phases but includes a large and almost circular enclosure and a settlement with trackways and enclosures. This ancient settlement was a new discovery. We had no idea it was there and it came as quite a surprise.

The settlement probably dates to the Iron Age and Roman periods. Some of the geophysical anomalies are likely to be contemporary with the villa – it may be where the agricultural workers and tenants lived.

Geophysics of Hungerford © GeoFlo and the Lufton Project