The villa at Litlington always seemed to be something special. I first became curious about it twenty years ago when helping to put together an archaeological survey of Cambridgeshire County farmland. We came across a little map drawn by an antiquarian, which showed what appeared to be a huge courtyard villa just west of the village centre.
Ben Robinson, Site Director and Peterborough Unitary Archaeologist
The map also marked the nearby position of a walled Roman cemetery, which had been given the evocative name 'Heaven's Walls'. There were contemporary engravings of the impressive grave goods discovered there.
The funny thing was that fieldwalking the supposed cemetery site failed to produce anything at all - not a single pot sherd. The villa was just as elusive. After the first excavations of the site in the early 19th century by Reverend Clack, Roman building remains had also been exposed at various times during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But no further detailed reports or plans had come to light. For such an apparently magnificent villa it had left remarkably little trace in the archives, or on the ground.
I flew over Litlington several times in my microlight aircraft hoping to see the tell-tale parch marks of buried villa foundations in the grass. I spotted plenty of enclosures and ring ditches in the area, but the crucial pasture field was annoyingly ambiguous. I could just about make out some mild parching of the grass at the top end. Buried Roman building material perhaps? To be honest this was stretching it a bit. Hardly the striking evidence we needed.
We began the Time Team excavation, sensibly enough, by targeting the pasture field with geophysics. It was an ideal target - short grass and no interference. After a couple of hours it became apparent that geophysics was simply refusing to give us the perfect courtyard villa plan, or in fact anything even remotely villa like.
Nevertheless, we poured some more faith into the antiquarian's mapping skills. After four trenches and nothing but small, abraded, and obviously residual fragments of Roman pot and tile, mild panic had begun to set in. It was time for a conference!
Thankfully the test pit we had opened in the small copse adjacent to the pasture field had come up with the goods. Good job too. Digging through dense undergrowth was obviously not the favourite pastime of certain Time Team members -this did not bode well for Bedford Purlieus Woods I thought. Fairly soon Phil exposed a tessellated pavement - a walkway worn by the tread of Roman feet - and a substantial flint and chalk clunch wall.
Finally we had solid Roman building remains, and we now also knew that they did not extend north into the pasture field. Stewart tinkered with the maps a bit more and we decided that we needed to look east. This would be easier said than done - the area was covered by a housing estate.
Obviously we could not do any geophysics or open up large trenches here, but small test pits strategically placed in back gardens might reveal Roman finds and help us to chart the actual location and extent of the villa.
Thankfully the residents of Litlington were very welcoming and very interested to know what was under their lawns. Many cups of tea later, the test pit crew's gardening began to pay off. We had found our missing villa. Not only that, but geophysics had pinned down 'Heaven's Walls'. The troublesome antiquarian map, like Eric Morcambe's piano playing, had all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.
