EDO7864 - Frampton Roman Villa, Nunnery Mead, Maiden Newton; excavation 2019-2021

Bournemouth University conducted an excavation at Nunnery Mead upon the results of a geophysical survey revealing a sub-structure. The ground truthing investigation consisted of the excavation of four trenches. Trench 1 was a 2m wide slot across the flint bank of the main wing. This trench was initially 10m long but subsequently was extended by a further 2m. The trench was excavated down to the level of previous investigation, a level maked by pieces of slate roof tile as it is a material not generally found in the Roman period. The excavation revealed the corridor mosaic which had good preservation but only approximatley 50% of it was show. The excavation did not intrude on undisturbed area so all the finds recovered are assumed to have been overlooked or deemed as unimportant by previous excavations. The new finds include a box-flue tile that was a part of a hypocaust, ceramic and limestone roof tiles, black burnished pottery and oyster shells, which all provided a greater understanding of the site. Trench 2 was reduced in 2020 to comprised of four 1m x 1m test pits. From these four pits, ceramic building material and pottery were recovered sometimes in large quantities - 26Kg was recovered from Pit A. Trench 3 was reduced to two test pits totalling only 5 square metres. Mininal finds were recorded from the first amounting to a few pottery sherds, sheep, horse and cow bones, and small fragments of CBM. The second pit was extended on its north-west side and, at depth, the remains of foundations of an early phase to an East wing of the villa was uncovered as well as the partially truncated remains of later building foundations on a slightly different orientation. Trench 4 contained copious amounts of CBM, pieces of limestone roof tile and a fragment of sculpted sandstone. Four metres to the south-east of Trench 4, Bournemouth university were granted permission to hand excavate a fifth trench in an attempt to reveal the guilloche border of the north-east wall. Within the southern quarter of Trench 5, at a depth of 0.42m, an irregular fragment of mosaic measuring 0.62 x 0.98m was uncovered.