If you think this information is inaccurate please e-mail corrections to Hertfordshire HER .

Summary

Possible villa, on a hill slope overlooking a ford across the river Chess

Monument Types

• VILLA? (Late Iron Age to Late Roman - 100 BC to 409 AD)
• ENCLOSURE (Roman - 50 AD to 409 AD)

Associated Finds

• COIN (Early Roman - 50 AD to 200 AD)
• INTAGLIO (Roman - 50 AD to 409 AD)

Associated Events

• Excavation at Valley Farm, Sarratt, 2008
• Geophysical survey at Newhall Farm and Valley Farm, Sarratt, 1976-77

Protected Status

• Area of Archaeological Significance 6
• SHINE: Roman Villa, Church Field, Valley Farm, Sarrat

Full description

Roman masonry building with associated finds of pottery, flue tile, pila tile, and coins. Finds also include late Iron Age pottery. Coins range from AD 97 to the early 5th century. Part of the villa was excavated in 1907 by Peter Clutterbuck, who found a rectangular structure 37 feet by 55 feet with a semicircular apse at the west end <1>. Fieldwalking in 1969 revealed extensive scatter of Roman material <2>. Geophysical survey in 1975 revealed further evidence of masonry building <3>. A later geophysical survey in 1977 revealed anomalies which show no conclusive evidence of wall features but could be the result of structural debris <4>. For LiDAR data, with possible features, see <8>.
For remains on both sides of the river, see [898, 2718].
Three small test trenches were dug in 2008 to test anomalies identified in geophysics <6>. A suspected enclosure ditch was found in two of the trenches; in one it had been partly backfilled with a great deal of demolition debris from the Roman building (tile, mortar, flint, opus signinum, wall plaster). A pit was earlier than the demolition, but later than the enclosure ditch. More building materials were spread across the site, mixed with 1st to 4th century pottery, nails, charcoal, two pieces of quernstone (stone unidentified), two bronze coins, and an oval intaglio from a ring. The coins were Trajan sestertii (AD 97-117). In the topsoil were several prehistoric worked flints [15598].

OS Records (Index). SHT8223.

Dunnett, Rosalind, 1972, Mountwood 1972 - a summary (Unpublished document). SHT4252.

Gover, John, 2007, Proposal for further archaeological investigation of the Romano-British settlement at Valley Farm, Sarratt Bottom: evaluation of geophysical anomalies by small-scale trenches (Unpublished document). SHT7168.

<1> Page, W (ed.), 1914, VCH Hertfordshire vol.4, - p163; includes plan (Bibliographic reference). SHT3026.

<2> Humphreys, Derek, 1971, To put you in the picture - Sarratt and Mountwood; Chess Valley Archaeol & Historical Soc Miscellany 1 (Article in serial). SHT9430.

<3> Larkin, N H, 1975, Use of geophysical survey to locate buried artefacts at Bury End, and Sarratt, Bucks (Unpublished document). SHT1538.

<4> Griffiths, P, 1977, Geophysical survey report, Sarratt, Herts, RNO 1136 (Report). SHT3932.

<5> Fairclough, Penny, 1972, The archaeology of the Chess valley: Sixth Form course March 13th-17th 1972; Environmental Studies in Secondary Schools report 12, 33-7 (Unpublished document). SHT4277.

<6> Edwards, Yvonne, Gover, John, & Wells, Marion, 2009, Archaeological investigation of the Romano-British settlement at Valley Farm, Sarratt, August 2008; Chess Valley Journal 2009, 8-16 (Article in serial). SHT4539.

<7> Greep, S, & Stone, S M, 1980-2, Recent enquiries and donations to the Verulamium Museum; Herts Archaeology 8, 210-17 (Article in serial). SHT5977.

<8> Gover, John, 2013, LiDAR in the Chess valley; Chess Valley Journal vol.33, 18-20 (Article in serial). SHT7182.

Sources and further reading

Related records

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.