More information : (SY 2370 9096 - `A') Roman Building (R) (site of) (NAT); (SY 2376 9087 - `B') Roman Building (R) (site of) (NAT); (SY 23769086) Roman Well (R) (remains of) (NAT); (SY 23899088 `C') Roman Bath House (R) (site of) (NAT). (1)
(SY 23809091-`D') Barn complex (SY 23899095-`E'). Timber buildings. (2)
Excavation at Honeyditches has revealed 1st century AD occupation in the Iron Age tradition followed by Roman buildings. The occupation possibly started before the Roman conquest of South West Britain but it certainly continued after it because of the grey-ware sherds found in association with Durotrigan material. The evidence from excavation suggests scattered settlement with at least two enclosures used as farmyards, and some form of occupation in the area of the Barn complex. The Roman buildings so far excavated consist of the Bath-house, the `Barn' succeeding a demolished hypocaust structure, the Timber Buildings and the `Stone Building' excavated in 1921 (a), in one room of which a tessellated pavement overlay a stone-lined well. The layout of the site is that of an embryo courtyard-villa with the main Roman-style buildings grouped around a central space. A structure in the west range would be assumed to have been amongst the earliest Roman buildings on the site, possibly dating to the late
first or early second century. The hypocaust structure beneath the Barn complex presumably relates to an early Romano-British building phase. The Timber Buildings might be any date from the late first to
third century. The Bath-house was built in the second or third century, had substantial additions and was demolished in the late third or fourth century. There seems to have been some re-organisation of buildings but the site definitely did not expand in the 4th century. Some early Medieval pottery was found on the site of the bath-house and also in a flat-bottomed ditch running east-west
and cutting through the extreme north end of the bath house. (3-4)
Ditches, banks and enclosures visible on air photographs. (5)
Honeyditches Roman building complex.
`A'. Area of amorphous ground swellings and depressions, no building debris. Site under pasture.
`B'. No visible remains of building; under pasture. The 0.8 metre diameter rim of the Roman well, now completely flint filled, remains visible at ground level.
`C'. Exposed remains of the bath-house are now very weathered and friable. The most northerly room (7.3m. by 2.6m. internally) is still recognisable by walling up to 0.5 metre high. Elsewhere the features are grass covered, denuded and now generally unintelligible. The site remains fenced off and surrounded by excavation dumps.
`D' and `E' - Areas of disturbed ground, under pasture.
No exposed building remains. (6)
Excavations at the villa in 1978 revealed evidence of earlier Neolithic, Beaker and later Iron Age occupation. A large number of gullies covering the C1st-C4th AD, and extending over 2.4ha on three sides of the villa were examined, as well as parts of three semi- circular building terraces and three stone built rooms, two of which probably represented the end rooms of the main villa range. A sequence of developments from late Iron Age farmstead to full Roman villa estate is suggested, and the possibility that some of the buildings excavated in 1969 relate to a settlement other than the villa is considered. (7)
Trial excavations in 1987 revealed a continuation of the features discovered in 1969 and then interpreted as beam-slots for two timber buildings. These now appear to be the flanking ditches of two trackways which led to the C4th enclosure. It is also argued that the stone buildings at Honeyditches may have formed a mansio rather than a villa, as previously thought. (8)
DE 15 Listed as the site of a Roman villa. (9)
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