Landscape of Plenty: Excavations on a Roman Estate, Cambridgeshire

Excavations near Milton, Cambridgeshire, revealed a late Roman agricultural complex with enclosures, structures, and a possible villa estate. Active from the mid-3rd to 5th century AD, the site suggests surplus grain production and cattle use. The findings raise key questions about land use after Roman rule ended.

A large archaeological excavation was undertaken in 2023 prior to the construction of the new Cambridgeshire Southern Police Station directly west of the village of Milton, 4km north-east of the historic core of Cambridge. The main features revealed were ditches that formed part of an extensive and complex series of intercutting late Roman period enclosures with associated boundary ditches, trackways, small timber structures, pits , waterholes or wells, a pond and an oven. Activity on the site probably began in the mid-3rd century AD, apparently peaked in the mid- to late 4th century AD and possibly extended into the 5th century AD. The remains indicate an intensive agricultural working area where activities related to the surplus production of grain and the penning/keeping and breeding of considerable numbers of domestic animals, principally cattle for traction activities such as ploughing and transport. This working area may well have formed part of a villa estate and evidence from the site and its vicinity indicates that a villa probably lay nearby-most likely in the unexcavated area immediately to the south. A wide array of Roman finds was recovered, including a large pottery assemblage, 68 coins, ironwork, copper-alloy objects, glass vessels. These suggested basic, utilitarian occupation and activity, although some objects suggest ‘higher-status’ occupation in the vicinity. Evidence for small-scale bone and antler working appeared to reflect the manufacture of pins and handles respectively. A poignant discovery was a burial of three infants of the same age, very likely triplets, in a pit cut into the inner side of an enclosure ditch, probably in the late 4th century AD. This agricultural working area/probable villa estate appears to have gone out of use around the end of the Roman period, c.AD 400 or shortly after, with enclosure and boundary ditches filled up at about this date. No features or finds of Anglo-Saxon date were recorded. The results raise important questions as to how land tenure and land use changed after Britain left the Roman Empire in AD 409. Was the estate confiscated or was it abandoned and left to fall out of use? By whom and why was the system of land allotment filled in and levelled? Did woodland regenerate or were larger fields created and still tilled or given over to grazing? Infilling of the ditches suggests that land divisions, and potentially ownership or tenure, were deliberately changed as new systems of control, governance, coercion and military-political dominance took hold.

Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction

Outline of the study

Geology and physical setting

Archaeological and historical background

Aims and objectives

Methodology

Site phasing

Chapter 2: Results

Introduction

Unstratified prehistoric struck flints

Period 1. Middle to late Iron Age

Early to middle Roman (residual finds)

Period 2. Late Roman, mid-3^rd to mid-4^th centuries AD

Period 3. Late Roman, mid- to late 4^th century AD

Period 4. Late Roman, late 4th to ?5th centuries AD

Period 5. Medieval/post-medieval

Period 6. Modern

Chapter 3: Specialist reports

Introduction

Iron Age and Roman pottery

Medieval and later pottery

Ceramic building material

Burnt clay

Mortar

Struck flints

Utilised stone artefacts

Coins

Metal small finds

Miscellaneous material

Objects of antler and bone

Glass

Clay tobacco pipe

Human bone

Animal bone

Marine shell

Molluscan assemblage

Charred plant remains and charcoal

Waterlogged wood

Radiocarbon dating

Chapter 4: Summary and discussion

Introduction

Neolithic to Bronze Age

Middle to late Iron Age (Period 1)

Early to middle Roman

Late Roman, mid-3^rd to late 4^th or 5^th centuries AD (Periods 2-4)

Medieval/post-medieval (Period 5) and modern periods (Period 6)

Significance of results

Concluding remarks

List of abbreviations

Bibliography

,

Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction

Outline of the study

Geology and physical setting

Archaeological and historical background

Aims and objectives

Methodology

Site phasing

Chapter 2: Results

Introduction

Unstratified prehistoric struck flints

Period 1. Middle to late Iron Age

Early to middle Roman (residual finds)

Period 2. Late Roman, mid-3^rd to mid-4^th centuries AD

Period 3. Late Roman, mid- to late 4^th century AD

Period 4. Late Roman, late 4th to ?5th centuries AD

Period 5. Medieval/post-medieval

Period 6. Modern

Chapter 3: Specialist reports

Introduction

Iron Age and Roman pottery

Medieval and later pottery

Ceramic building material

Burnt clay

Mortar

Struck flints

Utilised stone artefacts

Coins

Metal small finds

Miscellaneous material

Objects of antler and bone

Glass

Clay tobacco pipe

Human bone

Animal bone

Marine shell

Molluscan assemblage

Charred plant remains and charcoal

Waterlogged wood

Radiocarbon dating

Chapter 4: Summary and discussion

Introduction

Neolithic to Bronze Age

Middle to late Iron Age (Period 1)

Early to middle Roman

Late Roman, mid-3^rd to late 4^th or 5^th centuries AD (Periods 2–4)

Medieval/post-medieval (Period 5) and modern periods (Period 6)

Significance of results

Concluding remarks

List of abbreviations

Bibliography

• By (author) Francis M. Morris
• By (author) James E. R. Davey

'This volume makes good use of figures and reconstructions, and is a welcome addition to the ever-growing corpus of evidence for the later Roman trend for extensive interconnected agricultural estates in the region, and, most importantly, how they may have been linked.' – Paddy Lambert (2026): Current Archaeology Issue 432

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