Timeline

2017

Several detectorists’ rallies are held in a field in Slimbridge and an unexpected number of Roman artefacts are discovered. The then chair of the Slimbridge Local History Society, Den Bannister, contacts Tony Roberts, owner of local scanning company Archeoscan, to discuss scanning a number of sites around the village to see if further evidence of Roman occupation can be discovered.

2018–2020

Sites around the village are scanned over the following years. One is identified as being particularly promising – Stanborough Mead – a field owned by the Ernest Cook Trust to the east of the village. It contains evidence of round Iron Age dwellings and Roman buildings including a large rectangular structure. An evaluation dig is planned for 2020 with Tony’s company Archeoscan offering opportunities to join the dig to people from across the country as well as from Slimbridge itself.

2020

The first dig in this field begins on 11 October 2020. Nine evaluation trenches are dug across the site and a large amount of ceramic building material is discovered, including fragments of painted wall plaster, roof tiles and box flue tiles from an underfloor heating system. Geophysics suggests there is a huge building on site, possibly 40m long, dating back to 1st and 2nd centuries AD, suggesting it was built very early in the Roman occupation period. Its size suggests it may be some kind of port building and evidence is discovered that it may have been damaged by fire. Interesting finds on the site include a tegula (roof tile) bearing the footprint of a cat, which must have walked over it before it was dry, as well as coins and personal items such as brooches and hairpins.

2021

The second dig on the Stanborough Mead site takes place over four weeks during July 2021. Four large trenches are dug across the site uncovering more evidence of the large building discovered the previous year. One trench contains a well-engineered water channel from where many items of domestic refuse are recovered, including pottery and a finger ring. The large number of box flue tiles and other building materials suggest that there may be the remains of a bath house on site. Evidence is also found of rubble, suggesting a collapsed building.

Away from the dig itself, a number of large stones are found in the ditches around the field, including a shaped one that is possibly a base for a column or altar.

2022

July’s dig provides more evidence of the structure of the large building previously identified. Parallel pairs of stone piers, or supports, are discovered along its length, suggesting the building was an aisled barn or hall supported by pairs of pillars resting on these piers. The amount of building material discovered to the west of the aisled building, including areas of flooring separated by walls, suggests that there are further structures to be explored. These include a bath house of some size, possibly associated with a very large and important private villa.

2023–2025

Further summer digs reveal more intriguing evidence of the occupation of the site

• The bathhouse complex: this is a large structure containing at least one hot and one cold bath as well as a room with an apse. The discovery of pieces of marble, mosaic and painted wall plaster suggests it would have been richly decorated and probably part of a grand private building rather than a public bathhouse.

• A large stone-built water feature, possibly used with a waterwheel to produce power for the adjacent aisled warehouse.

• A stylus for writing on wax tablets, indicating that educated people lived or travelled through here.

• Medical implements including a scalpel and pair of tweezers. The scalpel is Greek, made of bronze and is exceptionally rare. The only other example of its type was discovered in Pompeii.