Sacrewell

Why are we here?

Our first season of crowdfunded excavation here at Sacrewell, Cambridgeshire, is upon us!

But why are we here? Let’s rewind…

In the 1970s, engineers cutting a water pipeline across Sacrewell Farm stumbled across some Roman archaeology, unearthing a substantial Roman villa and industrial site on the north bank of the River Nene – just five miles from the Roman town of Durobrivae.

Subsequent archaeological investigation revealed villa remains with several furnaces, tiled floors, painted walls, evidence of large-scale metalworking and even earlier hints of Bronze Age and Iron Age activity.

But these excavations didn’t uncover the full extent of the villa, leaving the story of its inhabitants and their place in the wider Nene Valley untold…until now!

This season, we’re retracing the steps of the archaeologists before us to see what more this long-lost villa could reveal about life here in Cambridgeshire 2,000 years ago, investigating a number of anomalies identified through a survey carried out in February this year, including:

• In Trench 1, we’re investigating possible ditches and pits
• In Trench 2, we’re investigating a possible entranceway and enclosure ditch that may belong to the main villa building itself
• And in Trench 3, we’re investigating ditches and a highly magnetic anomaly that could point to a kiln or furnace, suggesting that something was being made here!