Site Code.

TESTON12 Site identification Hop Garden Stables, Teston, Maidstone and address County, district Kent and / or borough O.S. grid ref. TQ699532 Geology. Hythe Sandstone & Atherfield Clay Project number. SNUFFLER1205 Fieldwork type. Geophysics Site type. Date of fieldwork. June 2012 Sponsor/client. Linda Dale & Simon Elliot Project manager. David Staveley Project supervisor. Period summary Project summary. An earth resistance survey on the site of Teston Roman villa (100 word max) Roman

A Geophysical Survey on Teston Roman Villa

by David Staveley
Introduction The site sits on the northern bank of the River Medway, and rises up to the north. A Roman bath house had previously been excavated to the north-west (TQ697533) and evidence of Roman building material had been found in the ploughed field to the north (TQ699533). This building material extended to the south into the site under investigation, and some of it is visible eroding out the side of the hill. The hill itself slopes down gently towards the valley floor, with the upper third composed of Hythe Sandstone and the lower two-thirds Atherfield Clay. The owner was interested to find out how far the archaeology extended into her land, so an earth resistance survey was commissioned to attempt to find the walls of any Roman buildings. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Linda Dale and Simon Elliot for making this survey possible and Brian Powell for helping out with the survey. Methodology The survey was undertaken using a TR Systems earth resistance meter, sampling every one metre square. The first survey area, Area A, was done in response to the masonry visible in the narrow track to the north, where high resistance readings were found adjacent to that masonry. It was then decided to scan the rest of the site without recording, to see if there were similar high resistance readings, indicating further walls. Whilst there were some broad areas of high and low resistance, none were as strong as in area A, and may have been due to geological changes. Scanning in the final field checked, Area B, revealed a slight high resistance linear running northsouth, plus strong high resistance in the steep north-east part, where Linda indicated that masonry had been found. It was decided to target this area for a further survey. The data was processed using Snuffler geophysics software, with despike and interpolation filters applied.

Positioning The 20 metre grids were set out using tapes on an arbitrary grid and recorded using a total station. Two resection points and the survey area are described in the table below. The location of these points are also shown on the interpretation image. Description RS1: NE corner of small building in SW corner of site RS2 : W side of large post jutting out in NE corner of site A1 A2 A3 A4 B1 B2 B3 Grid North 365.59 595.99 477.46 478.75 438.88 437.57 590.84 550.92 551.32 Grid East 642.84 525.51 530.91 501.17 501.17 530.99 561.88 561.19 501.43

Results

Area A

Area B

Interpretation

Strong high resistance features are shown in light green. Weak high resistance features are shown in dark green. Area A The area of strong high resistance at the top of Area A relates to the masonry found at the northern edge of the field. It only extends about 5 metres into the field, but it is about 24 metres wide. While it is difficult to judge from such a small area, it looks to represent at least 2 rooms of a masonry building. This feature is the highest resistance feature in area A, but there are other linear features. Attached to the southern part of the western end of the main feature is what looks to be a room roughly 9 metres square, with linear features heading off to the east and west. The eastern linear seems to be crossed by a further linear features in the eastern part of Area A.

Area B The area of strong high resistance at the top of Area B sits on or near what looks to be an old stream like depression, rising slightly to the west and steeply to the east. It is larger than the high resistance area in Area A, and extends much further into the field, though individual rooms cannot be made out. Just as with Area A, there are further ephemeral features surrounding the main high resistance feature. To the west and east, there are features which seem to broadly follow the same alignment as the strongest feature, but to the south, there are a number of linear features on a different alignment, describing what looks to be a number of rooms, one of them possibly apsidal, and with an entrance to the south. A pair of linear features head south from the western side of this, almost like the wing of a villa, which is the north-south feature picked up during scanning. Discussion The features found seem to be part of a complex series of buildings, perhaps representing different phases, given the different alignments found in Area B. Due to their ephemeral nature, the exact form of the building is difficult to discern, and the interpretation image should only be taken as a rough guide. The ephemeral linear features in Area A and B may appear as such due to either a lighter construction, greater depth or stone robbing. The strong features found may only show as such because they are eroding out of the side of the hill, whereas the rest of the features are further buried by colluvium from higher up. The scanning performed between the two surveys would have little chance of picking up features as slight as these, so there could well be more building across the site that were missed.