Archaeological survey detects Roman villas and iron age farmsteads in Shropshire
An archaeological survey of more than 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) in Shropshire has identified a wealth of previously unknown features, including two grand Roman villas and multiple earlier iron age farmsteads.
The geophysical survey, the largest ever conducted by the National Trust, used ground-scanning technology to map undetected features close to the site of the Roman city of Wroxeter, just south of modern day Shrewsbury.
As well as the two buried villas, characterised on the scan by their highly distinctive shape, and eight prehistoric farms, archaeologists also found evidence of a Roman cemetery, Roman road network and new features associated with a previously identified Anglo Saxon great hall.
The National Trust, which owns the land, said the “one of a kind” survey was carried out to help it plan for future nature conservation and tree-planting schemes across the landscape, as part of its ambitious targets to address climate change.
Viriconium Cornoviorum, or Wroxeter, was the fourth most important city in Roman Britain and experts fully expected the grounds of its stately home, Attingham Park, near to the city’s ruins to be archaeologically significant, said Janine Young, an archaeologist with the trust. Crop marks on the landscape in dry summers had also hinted at buried sites.
