The excavations, along with geophysical and metal detecting surveys of the Stanborough Mead site since 2020 have revealed just part of what are believed to be settlements dating from the Late Iron Age through to the periods of Roman occupation.
The earliest evidence for settlement on the site is from the Late Iron Age, which lasted from approximately 100BC, until the Roman invasion in AD43. Geophysics has revealed a landscape of round houses and enclosures, and worked flints have been discovered, indicating that people were living on this site long before the arrival of the Romans.
It’s possible that there was an Iron Age trading port on what would then have been the banks of the Severn and that this was appropriated by the Romans for their own use.
The earliest Roman artefacts discovered on the site date back to the late 1st century AD, which could mean this is one of the earliest Roman settlements discovered in Gloucestershire. Most of the county’s large Roman villas date to the 4th Century AD. There are areas of the site containing iron slag, which could indicate that some sort of industrial process took place here.
A large early Roman bathhouse complex has so far been uncovered, containing at least one hot and one cold bath and a room with an apse (a curved extension) that suggests the bathhouse was a very grand building. Ongoing excavations are revealing the site of what may be the villa that the bathhouse would have served. It appears to have been opulently decorated with ornate plaster walls and mosaic floors. The personal items and jewellery that have been discovered point to it being an elite residence.
It is thought that the site changed use in the middle of the 3rd century AD. There is evidence of collapsed buildings and carbon dating has confirmed that a large fire swept through the site. Sometime later, a large aisled barn or warehouse was built over the top of the remains of the villa and its bathhouse, possibly associated with the Roman port.