EDO5039 - Lenthay Roman villa, Sherborne; excavations 1951

Mr H Greenwood and members of the Foster’s School Classical Society conducted a small trial excavation during the summer of 1951 in order to locate the probable Roman villa at Lenthay Common. The position was known approximately from the excavation of a piece of mosaic in 1836, now in the Sherborne Castle Dairy, and the examination of air photographs in 1950. A number of trenches were dug south of the railway line, east and west of the lane running from the level crossing to the river, but only near the railway were any remains found. Roman pottery and fragments of a stone mortar were found in disturbed ground which contained clay pipes at all levels. The pottery is held at Foster’s School, Sherborne. Some walling was examined in the garden of the railway cottage, a few inches below the surface. It was seen to be faced with dressed blocks of approximately 8 x 10 x 10 inches. Trial trenches outside the garden to the north could not locate the walls. Mr. Greenwood concluded that most of the villa lay beneath the railway and at an angle to it and may have been damaged during its construction.