How a detectorist uncovered one of the largest Roman villas ever found in Britain The outline of the ancient house is almost as large as Buckingham Palace

A detectorist has uncovered one of the largest Roman villas ever discovered in Britain – and with it, a wealth of artefacts including coins, coffins and ever an enormous boar tusk.

The 85m by 85m villa’s foundations lie beneath a crop in a field a stone’s throw from Broughton Castle near Banbury in Oxfordshire, on one of the estate’s farms.

Magnetometry scans showed the outline of the terraced villa is not much smaller than Buckingham Palace.

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The exciting find was confirmed as a magnificent example of a large courtyard villa to rival any in the country. A secret trial dig by Oxford Archaeology found a wealth of artefacts that promise a trove of antiquities if the villa were to be fully unearthed.

“We only uncovered one per cent of the site so the possibilities are huge,” said the detectorist, Keith Westcott.

Martin Fiennes of Broughton Castle has been central to the operation and took part in the dig. “The next step will be for me to reach out to various universities, starting with Oxford, to see if they are interested in leading a project to do a full excavation over a period of years,” he said.

“Obviously we would like someone to do it who can involve the local community as much as possible as well as comprehensively recording the site.

“If no-one wants to do it, then it stays happily undisturbed for another 50 or 100 years until someone comes up with the money and interest.”

The opportunity this find offers is a large villa, unencumbered by any nearby buildings or roads, that could become an important visitor and educational centre. The site’s exact location remains confidential. The five trial trenches were re-covered after two weeks and a crop now grows above them.

Scans show that to one side are the walls of a large, aisled hall, most likely to have held the most precious of commodities – grain.

Eureka moment

The ‘Eureka’ moment for Keith Westcott as he walked over the site of the Roman villa, searching for clues, was when he found a 1,800 year old tile.

A European specialist in heating engineering, he recognised the broken slab as part of a hypocaust tile – one used to take hot pipes up walls in high-status Roman buildings.

It was then he knew that whatever ruins lay beneath the soil were of unimaginable quality and significance. During the subsequent trial dig, 178 items of significance were found, cleaned and catalogued.

Among them were coins, one bearing the mythological twins Romulus and Remus, a coin made into a pendant, high-status ‘samian-ware’ – the bone china of its day – (one piece decorated with an etching of a hare), a sherd of a flagon and tiles made to a roofing method still used today. One of the most fascinating finds was a very large tusk from a wild boar.

A very large boar tusk

“It is an extraordinarily large tusk and it might mean that hunting would have been an important part of the activity at this villa. We need to study this because the tusk is so large.

“There is so much for us to learn about what the villa was being used for. It may be that Roman dignitaries visited for the sport. It’s something that needs to be looked at in the coming years.”

Mr Westcott said the magnotometry indicates various possibilities in areas in and around the villa, including even a smelting works. Mr Westcott also found a very large key on the site and tests are being done to find out whether this goes back to that Roman era.

He said excavation of the site would take ‘years and years’ and if done commercially could cost £2 million or more.If a university took on the project at Broughton its archeology students could also benefit from other Bronze Age and Iron Age features on the estate.

“All other sites of this significance – with the exception of North Leigh near Witney – have a visitor centre and/or museum,” he said.

How a farmer’s handshake was key to the discovery

One spring day in 1963, Broughton farmer John Taylor’s plough hit a large stone. Leaving his tractor he found a hole had been made in the stone. He reached inside and pulled out a human bone.

His extraordinary discovery turned out to be a sarcophagus – the tomb of a high-status woman, who died in the third or fourth century. She was in her 30s, just over five feet tall and was buried in the lead-lined stone coffin.

As detectorist and historian Keith Wescott describes it was the key to his discovery of the Broughton Roman villa – one of the biggest ever found in Britain. “The only bigger one is at Fishbourne Palace (West Sussex) – but that is a palace,” he said. The future of this incredibly important archaeological site is yet to be determined.

To evaluate the site, Oxford Archaeology spent two weeks on the field in April, digging five trial trenches to gauge the potential of the remains.

“With this project, already we have been able to use modern technology like magnotometry, which acts like an ex-ray through the soil.”

The resulting subterannean plan shows walls, room outlines, ditches and other imagery that has told archeologists without digging an inch that this is an exceptional find. The villa’s discovery also poses questions and has left historians revising their beliefs about the extent of Roman activity and involvement. It is by any standards a vast building – not much smaller than Buckingham Palace.

A real centre of rural industry

“To my surprise the geophysics showed that on the off side of the villa was a fantastic, aisled building of 25m x 15m and when we excavated it, it had some of the best dressed stonework on the site.

“I think it’s probably a barn but possibly the most important part of their day-to-day life because these villas are so huge there was much more to it than just residential use.

“The villa would be the real centre of rural industry and agriculture and although the persons living there would have been very wealthy and powerful there would have been all sorts of things going on from the cooks to slaves – but grain was vitally important to them.

“Aisled halls were the forerunners of churches and if we had found this alone it would have been thrilling – a really significant find – but to have this set off the side of an enormous courtyard villa is just a dream come true,” he said.

“The more we’re finding out about this part of north Oxfordshire, we’re realising at the head of the triangle between Fosse Way, Akeman Street and Watling Street was a very important Roman area.”

A unique site

The only comparably- sized courtyard villas are at Bignor, Chetworth, Bradon (Isle of Wight) and Woodchester. If the universities being approached are unable to excavate the site the English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund could be appealed to for the cost, along with Roman archaeology associations. The cost of such a project could be in the region of £2m.

“This is our first chance to look at a full site using modern techniques and from a modern perspective. It is unique; unlike others, nothing has been built on top,” said Mr Westcott.

The villa’s accommodation includes a bath-house possibly with a domed roof and mosaics, a grand dining room, kitchens and living accommodation. It had under-floor and intra-wall heating. Its occupants would have been Romano-British.

Keith Westcott describes his discovery The theory which lead to my discovery of the Roman villa, was first influenced by the creative teachings of my history teacher. Mike Hargate brought the subject to life and instilled in me a desire to understand our past through interesting facts and stories, rather than just a series of dates and events. Years later, diving on shipwrecks with Banbury Subaqua Club, knowing not just when, but how and why the ship had been lost, I could create a picture and perspective – often harrowing and tragic. With an ability to imagine historical scenes, my interest in metal detecting developed. In 1996, with the support of Lord and Lady Saye and Sele, I investigated possible trackways from a long demolished, second crossing of the moat at Broughton Castle. The coin hoard I discovered was to become the last case in the 1,000-year-old Common Law of Treasure Trove, which put me ‘in the dock’ at Oxford Crown Court under inquest judge and jury. ‘The Broughton Hoard’ of coins is on display at the Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. For many years I had been captivated by the knowledge of a little known, high status third to fourth century burial of a Romano British woman. Who was this woman of such importance? I started to feel a connection to this person, believing her to have been ‘lost’ from a contextual landscape. On October 31, 2016 I set out, armed only with a theory, convinced she lay in context to a home befitting her status. Within 20 minutes I stood staring at a huge plinth-like setting that was not of natural topography. I had found her home – the villa – and 1,700 years after her interment in a lead-lined sarcophagus, this woman of eminence and of native stock, will be known in perpetuity, buried in a considered context to her home of almost palatial proportions.

The material above first featured on our sister site, the Banbury Guardian, where further updates will be found.