Abbey Farm, Minster-in-Thanet, Kent: Romano-British Villa Complex
SiteDirector: Keith Parfitt, B.A.
[Click on the pictures with a blue border to see them full size]
Report of 2002 season Report of 2003 season
The villa which was located by aerial photography in 1979, had a commanding
view of the Wantsum Channel and the Saxon Shore Fort of Richborough (Rutupiae).
Since the start of the project: the extensive villa; a latrine to the
north-west; an impressive bath-house and a fourth building to the south-east
have been excavated.
Excavation started in 1996 as a training excavation and has continued most years since then. It had previously been identified by aerial photography and trenching.
Site location
The site is located on an almost flat hilltop overlooking the village of
Minster in Thanet at TR 31356463 and at an elevation of about 16.30 m. O.D. The
geology is Thanet sand beds. Nearby in a narrow valley a spring emerges, feeding
medieval fish ponds belonging to Minster Abbey.
To the south the site would have had a panoramic view of the Wantsum Channel separating Thanet from mainland Kent, with the Roman seashore only about 500 m. away below the building. The fortress of Rutupiae on its island would have been in direct line of sight as too, on a fine day, the cliffs of France. Northwards behind the building the ground rises to the chalk downland escarpment that marks on the skyline the course of 'Dunstrete', a prehistoric trackway lined with Roman cemeteries and iron working sites.
Excavation: First impressions
The aerial photographs taken in 1979 (RHCM) indicated that building remains
were present throughout an area
of roughly 60 m. by 24 m.. However it beacme
clear that the remains are rather more extensive than as indicated in the photo.
Avariety of materials were used to construct foundation courses, and there is
also a variation of the depths to which these were cut, At least three phases of
expansion and modification to the building seems indicated, perhaps culminating
in the insertion of the Room V foundation, possibly the stairwell and load
bearer for a tower or upper storey.
Pre-Roman archaeology
Prehistoric and Belgic horizons and features were encountered. Worked flints and small pot sherds in a Neolithic or Early Bronze Age fabric were found in the area of Rooms 12 - 14 of the villa, presumably as residual materials re-deposited during Roman construction work. A length of ditch cut into undisturbed Thanet Beds sand was observed in Rooms 12 and 15, where its fill yielded clear evidence of on-site flint-knapping. Evidence of Belgic occupation took the form of a shallow pit close to Building 2 containing midden materials and large sherds from two storage jars.
Roman Archaeology, Building 1, the villa
Parts of the west wing had suffered less plough damage than the east wing
remains, with occupation and demolition horizons preserved in places. Sections
cut to the west and south of Room 18outher wall chalk foundation disclosed the
presence of the deep-sunk floors and surviving walls of Rooms 19,20 and 21.
Subsequent to the discovery of Rooms 20 and 21, a re-examination of the cropmark
aerial photograph suggests the true width of the west wing may be double that of
the east wing
The role and function of of the complex constituted by Rooms X and XI, which
has a stoke-hole and is floored and lined with
opus signinum, would appear to be an hypocaust fed from Room XI which has a
floor of mortar at a lower level and a back wall of mud bricks laid in mortar.
The complex does not attach to the main range of the building and appears to
have been demolished to ground level before the east-west wall north of room VII
was built. Most of the finds of wall and floor mosaic and painted plaster were
obtained from the demolition layers within these rooms.
The excavations in 1998 exposed a bath house with an hypocaust system, and an internal latrine having a long sluice leading into a field ditch, see Rooms 20 - 27. It was not, as first supposed, a western extension to the west wing of the villa but a separate building connected to the villa's outer corridor by a short piece of masonry, perhaps a butress.
Also revealed was a southward apsidal extension from the end of the west
wing, Room 28
Another discovery was that the villa had an inner corridor running around the courtyard formed by the east and west wings and main range
Examination of the 'garden areas' to the north, east and west by trial trenching revealed a number of interesting features, amonth them pebble laid 'paths', a possible well shaft and, beyond and parallel to the northern 'garden wall' foundation a ditch of possibly defensive function. The latter had been back-filled during a demolition phase on the villa site, and its fill proved rich in sherds and artefacts.
Roman Archaeology, a latrine?
Forty metres north west of Room 10 was a small one room rectangular building (Building 2) about seven
metres square with wall courses of hard chalk and an opus signinum floor It has
two tiled sluices sloping at about 4º to the horizontal (1 in 6) to join
another similarly angled sluice that exhausts through a butress at the
north-west angle of the buildinginto the end of a ditch. The plough truncated
section of this was of open U-profile, about 1.5 m. wide and 0.7 m. deep,
aligned to run north away from the villa complex. The lower ditch fill contained
midden materials and layers with black, ?ash or organic, discoloration. An
obvious interpretation of Building 2 is as a latrine, although these are very
uncommon on villa sites. The building abutted an alternatively buttressed chalk
foundation that could be traced for more than 20 m. The latter was tentatively
interpreted as the foundation of a boundary wall, with Building 2 being
attached on the outside.
Another building
Remains of a building situated about 100 m. southwest of the villa, close to
Bedlam Court Lane, proved much more extensive and impressive than had been
expected. A stripped area of roughly 15 x 18 m. exposed a series of partly
robbed out wall foundations, overlaid in one place by (presumably Roman)
masonry. No estimate of the extent of 'Building 4' could be made from this
investigation, but it became clear from the presence of a hypocaust, tesserae,
and painted wall plaster, that it had been a building of some importance.
Conclusions
Pottery suggests the villa was established early in the Roman period but went out of use about 200 - 220 AD. Coins tend to confirm this but indicate some 4th century activity.
Acknowledgements
The excavations have been organised by the Kent Archaeological Society and the Thanet Archaeological Society. They were directed for the first few years by David Perkins of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology and in 2002 by Keith Parfitt. We are grateful to the landowner, Mr Jack Clifton, for his co-operation and kindness. Minster Parish Council and the staff of Minster Agricultural Museum have been very helpful. Most of the photographs are by Richard Hoskins.
References:
Archaeologia Cantiana: CXVI (1996) pp 325-9, CXVIII (1997) pp 260-4,
CXIX (1999) p 393, CXXI (2001) pp 43-60
CXXIV (2004) pp 25-49 (Introduction and report on the bath house)
K.A.S Newsletter: 36 (winter 1996) pp 1-2; 39 (winter 1997) pp1-2; 42 (winter 1998) pp 4-5; 49 (spring 2001) pp 1 & 8; winter 2003;
Current Archaeology: 38 (August 2004) p.193
Page last updated on 04 November, 2006