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Time Team came to Ffrith, in Flintshire, north Wales, to try to find out more about the Roman remains that keep turning up in the village. A huge quantity of Roman finds and evidence of buildings have been discovered here over the past four centuries. These include significant chance discoveries from 1585, 1709, 1828, 1870, 1874 and 1933, as well as the results of organised excavations in 1893, 1910, 1926 and – most recently, and of most interest to Time Team – 1967-69.
The 1960s' excavation, carried out in advance of a housing development, uncovered a number of walls. Their layout and other discoveries in the village suggested to the excavators that they were digging a substantial Roman building, possibly a bath house.
With houses and other buildings tightly packed around the area that Time Team wanted to explore, the scene was set for a classic back-garden excavation. And with just three days to come up with some answers, the Team set about turning the well-tended village gardens into a muddied mass of trenches. Heavy rain throughout the first day, and growing doubts about the conclusions of the 1960s' excavators, only served to muddy the waters even further.
The village recreation ground, a chicken run and (almost inevitably) the local pub car park were all turned over as the experts tried to get to grips with Ffrith's Roman heritage. Did there used to be a Roman bath house here? What was Time Team able to uncover in the short time available to it?
In archaeology, finding out what isn't there is often as important as identifying what is. At Ffrith, remains that had previously been interpreted as a Roman bath house turned out not to be Roman at all. How well would you do in identifying certain key Roman features? Try our quick 'True or False' quiz.
Roman bricks come in many shapes and sizes, including circular, but generally they are thin and more like tiles than modern bricks.
True
False
The fine, red pottery known as Samian ware, or terra sigillata, is only ever found on Roman sites in Britain.
True
False
You can often distinguish between Roman pottery and tile or brick by checking for the imprint of grass, straw or sand where tiles or bricks have been laid out to dry.
True
False
Although brooches are a common find on first and second-century Roman sites, very few were made by the Romans after the second century, and those that were tended to be high status.
True
False
Mortaria are large, thick vessels used for mixing food or other items. They are made with coarse grit for grinding purposes and are only found during the Roman period.
True
False
Window glass, generally blue-green in colour, with a rough surface on the side on which it was laid out to dry, is a common find on Roman sites in Britain. After the Romans left, most window glass was made of horn.
True
False
Answers here.
Finding what you seek
Sometimes archaeologists find what they expect to find. It would have been a major surprise, for example, if the boat Time Team excavated near Utrecht earlier in this series had turned out not to be Roman – not least because the tip of it had already been partially excavated, before being reburied.
Sometimes archaeologists don't expect to find something that they believe may have been on a site, but go looking for it anyway. Time Team's attempts at searching for possible Saxon palaces, such as at Islip, featured in the previous programme in this series, sometimes fall into this category. Like so many ancient monuments, their wooden structures, no matter how grand they may once have been, leave little trace in the ground when they have had a millennium or more in which to rot and decay (see How are archaeological sites formed?) – and the range of possible sites often covers a very large area.
And sometimes, of course, archaeologists find something entirely different to what was anticipated.
Past excavations
This can happen even when, as at Ffrith, a site has already been properly excavated and well documented and recorded by other archaeologists relatively recently. In this case, the excavations took place between 1967 and 69, when a number of exploratory trenches were dug in advance of housing development in the village. Time Team was even able to draw upon a geophysics survey of the village playing field – carried out in 1987, when the science was in its infancy as an archaeological tool, but clearly showing what appeared to be a row of substantial structures on an east-west alignment.
Earlier discoveries and excavations, and the huge quantity of Roman finds made in and around the village, had long established that there was once a significant Roman settlement at Ffrith, which was located on a major Roman road into Wales. Two sites in the village have protected 'scheduled ancient monument' status in recognition of the Roman remains found on them. The 'structures' identified from the 1987 geophysics survey, carried out on one of these scheduled sites, were believed to be part of the Roman settlement. And the discoveries of stone walls and other features made in the 1967-69 excavations were interpreted at the time as relating to a substantial Roman villa complex or bath house.
Unjoining the dots
The 1967-69 excavators had reached their conclusions about the likely presence of a bath house on the site by digging a number of relatively small exploratory trenches around the area to be affected by housing development and then, as Mick Aston put it, 'joining the dots'. Time Team, who had come to Ffrith to see what they could add to the knowledge of its Roman past, had no problem in finding their trenches again. There were clear maps, drawings and even photos to help locate those remains that were not now underneath houses.
But the more the Team dug, the more they began to question just what it was they were digging. An apsidal (semi-circular) wall feature that was central to the interpretation of the remains as a bath house turned out, on closer investigation, to be more of a slightly bent straight wall alignment. And it gradually became apparent that it was some sort of boundary wall, rather than belonging to a building – and that it wasn't actually Roman at all.
Other features had to be similarly reinterpreted, as Time Team began unjoining the dots and redrawing the plans of what lay under the ground. On the scheduled playing field site, meanwhile, where John Gater's current-day geophysics survey appeared to confirm the findings of the 1987 one, the row of structures turned out to be something else altogether – probably natural, and certainly not Roman.
Not a complete blank
The Team didn't draw a complete blank in the search for Roman remains, however. The excavations in village back gardens did uncover at least some genuine Roman walls, complete with plaster finds and evidence for a 'tessellated Roman pavement', or unpatterned mosaic floor. There were also some small wooden post holes and associated finds, probably relating to an internal wattle and daub screen within a Roman building.
Beyond that, though, Time Team's efforts had mainly added to the knowledge of Roman Ffrith in forcing a re-evaluation of past interpretations rather than making new discoveries. The Team didn't 'find nothing' – though even that can be invaluable in archaeological terms. They just didn't find what they expected.
For this programme Sally Pointer worked on making Roman oils and perfumes. Unfortunately, the Roman bathhouse that the team had expected to excavate turned out to be nothing of the sort. This meant that the reconstruction cameo didn't make the final cut of the programme – but you can still find out about it here.
What was your experience in Roman perfumes and oils before doing Time
Team?
I've spent several years researching the topic and particularly exploring ways to make plausible reconstructions of historical beauty products. I'd previously explored Roman perfume and incense in a Time Team cameo [South Perrott in the 2005 series] and am also the author of a book on the history of perfumes and cosmetics [The Artifice of Beauty: A history and practical guide to perfumes and cosmetics, Sutton Publishing, 2005].'
What was the aim of the cameo?
I've always felt that a good experiment should raise as many questions as it answers. So I was hoping that, as well as demonstrating that the various preparations we were trying out worked, we'd find areas that needed further research and questioning. It was also meant to be fun. People have always seen the humorous side of bathing practice and the Romans were no exception. We have documentary records of the various things that went on at the bath house, and we wanted to see if there was some truth behind all the reports of splashings and screaming!
What materials did you use?
We looked at cleaning with oils that had been scented with herbs believed to promote health, and also at ways to remove unwanted body hair. This involved a potentially dangerous mixture of molten pine resin and beeswax, as well as an array of tweezers, strigils and coarse towels.
How did you make the oils?
We chose a base of olive oil and two plants that would have been familiar to the Romans in Britain, coriander and rosemary. These were also used in cooking and were thought to help promote a strong body and healthy mind. We had to grind these in mortaria and then heat them in the oil to yield a thick, strongly scented oil.
What was the hardest part of the task?
Getting the depilatory wax right. Whilst beeswax has a low melting point, pine resin doesn't, and the effective working temperature of the wax was very close to the point where our 'volunteer' might have been scalded. I was very worried about doing the poor man an injury on camera!
Did you learn anything by doing the reconstruction?
Even a fairly basic bathing routine using Roman methods took quite a bit of time. It takes a while to work the oil properly into the skin, then you have to strigil it off very carefully or the skin remains greasy. If you then apply treatments such as plucking, waxing or massage, a trip to the baths really could take a couple of hours at least.
If you did it again would you have done it differently?
It would have been great to have had a proper pool to allow for all the oils to be washed off, with a warm room for the sauna aspect of many Roman baths to be used. This would have altered the way the oils worked on the skin and it would have been interesting to see how clean people felt afterwards. It's very like Turkish baths are today, but using Roman potions and implements would have allowed some real experimentation with early methods.
Are there any other reconstructions you would like to try?
Oh lots! The more I research, the more things I want to explore. Really early soap making is one that I am working on but haven't yet had the chance to try a full-scale series of experiments on.
Roman Britain by Tim Potter and Catherine Johns ('Exploring the Roman World' series, British Museum Publications, 1992) hardback £19.95; paperback £12.99
A survey of the effects of Roman culture on Britain and its people, by two British Museum curators. Includes evidence from the latest archaeological discoveries, including the Vindolanda writing tablets and the Thetford and Snettisham treasures, as well as a gazetteer of noteworthy sites to visit.
Roman Britain by T W Potter (British Museum Press, 1983, 2nd edition 1997) paperback £8.99
The four centuries during which the Roman presence in Britain rose, flourished and declined changed every aspect of life: industry, trade, government, the arts and learning. This book gives an illustrated outline of the period.
Roman Britain by Martin Millett (English Heritage, 1995) paperback £15.99
Making full use of the archaeological material available, this introductory study of four centuries of Roman presence in Britain explores the central themes of daily life, laying particular emphasis on the social, economic and cultural history.
Life in Roman Britain by Joan Alcock (Batsford/English Heritage, 1996) paperback £15.99
An excellent social history of life in Roman Britain covering food and drink, clothing, recreation, administration and religion. Richly illustrated.
Companion to Roman Britain by Guy de la Bédoyère (Tempus, 1999) hardback £25
This book is a comprehensive compilation of historical and epigraphic facts about Roman Britain and seeks to set the record straight about where facts end and opinions begin. Includes a complete breakdown of all military units, when and where they were stationed and so on, together with details of buildings, officials, administration and the first full list of the Gods of Roman Britain.
An Atlas of Roman Britain by Barri Jones and David Mattingly (Blackwell, 1993, 2001 edition) paperback £15.99
An amazing accumulation of archaeological evidence has been used to map every aspect of Roman life on a countrywide scale, including the distribution of Roman forts, towns, villas, potteries and quarries. Lots of additional plans and useful descriptions on each topic.
Clwyd Archaeological Trust Community Heritage: Ffrith
www.cpat.org.uk/ycom/ffrith/ffrith.htm
As part of the Regional Heritage Management Service funded by Cadw (the Welsh Assembly's historic environment division), and in conjunction with Time Team, the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust has created an interactive map of Ffrith and supporting web pages about the settlement. Visitors to the website can use the map to find out about the sites of archaeological and historical interest in the village and access background information. This information comes from the Regional Historic Environment Record, a public-access database about archaeology and history. The site has not yet been updated to take account of Time Team's excavations at Ffrith, so some of the details of past digs need to be reinterpreted with the results of Time Team's investigations in mind.
For links to other websites, either on archaeology generally or specific to the periods and subjects raised in the programme, see our extensive section on Archaeology websites. In particular, see the section on The Roman era.
Roman bricks come in many shapes and sizes, including circular, but generally they are thin and more like tiles than modern bricks.
True
The fine, red pottery known as Samian ware, or terra sigillata, is only ever found on Roman sites in Britain.
False
You can often distinguish between Roman pottery and tile or brick by checking for the imprint of grass, straw or sand where tiles or bricks have been laid out to dry.
True
Although brooches are a common find on first and second-century Roman sites, very few were made by the Romans after the second century, and those that were tended to be high status.
True
Mortaria are large, thick vessels used for mixing food or other items. They are made with coarse grit for grinding purposes and are only found during the Roman period.
True
Window glass, generally blue-green in colour, with a rough surface on the side on which it was laid out to dry, is a common find on Roman sites in Britain. After the Romans left, most window glass was made of horn.
True