Guy de la Bédoyère's conclusions

'What we were hoping to find here at Syndale was some evidence for a first-century fort, which is what the local archaeologist Paul Wilkinson thought he had when he discovered some Roman ditches,' says Roman expert and Time Team regular Guy de la Bédoyère. 'Now the problem is that a ditch does not make a fort – a ditch is just a ditch. What you need to find is a combination of ditches and associated features.'

What would you expect to find on a site of this type?
'The sort of thing we might expect to find could be a marching camp, where Roman soldiers would bivouac for the night. In that case all you would have would be a shallow ditch and possibly a turf rampart, but very little else as these sites were not permanent and would only have had tents inside and not solid buildings.'

What did the field school find?
'The archaeologists here had actually discovered more substantial ditches, which led us to believe we may have had a more permanent fort. However, for that type of enclosure we would expect large ditches, ramparts and evidence for timber gates on each side and buildings inside the walls.'

So what have the Time Team excavations discovered?
'In fact, what we've found here has been lots of little pieces of ditch which don't appear to relate to each other. We've also had none of the range of finds we would expect if this was a military establishment. Yes, we've had some Claudian coins and pottery but nowhere near enough.'

So what do you think this site was?
We're now absolutely confident that we have no fort here at all. The area has obviously been settled, but it looks more like it would have grown up over the second and third centuries as a normal settlement alongside Watling Street, which is the main Roman road running through here to London.'

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