The remains of the Roman settlement at Fleet Marston along Akeman Street Roman road

Summary

A section of Akeman Street Roman road and an associated settlement evidenced by conjoined ditched roadside plots along the line of the road, evidence of building remains and good survival of artefacts. Another Roman road running south-west, potentially connecting Dorchester-on-Thames to Fleet Marston, joins Akeman Street in the north-west of the site.

Reasons for Designation

The remains of the Roman settlement at Fleet Marston, on the route of Akeman Street, Aylesbury, are scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Period: the remains include evidence of activity from the early Roman period, with the initial construction of Akeman Street, as well as later modifications in the mid-late Roman period, in association with the establishment of the roadside settlement, all of which are strongly representative of the period;
* Survival: although partially under plough, the below-ground remains of the core of this roadside settlement survive well as shown in recent geophysical surveys and excavations;
* Documentation: the recent archaeological work provides good evidence for the national importance of the settlement;
* Diversity: the area includes the remains of the major Roman road of Akeman Street and an adjacent Roman roadside settlement, including ditched enclosures, and potential for evidence of structures and buildings, together with at least one further minor Roman road and evidence for Iron Age occupation activity;
* Potential: the unexcavated areas have the potential to retain important archaeological features, enviromental deposits and artefacts which will contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the form and construction of Roman infrastructure and settlement, and social and economic aspects of Romano-British life.

History

Later Iron Age and Romano-British occupation in Britain included a range of rural settlement types. The surviving remains comprise farmsteads, hamlets, villages and hillforts, which together demonstrate an important sequence of settlement. They typically consist of clusters of roundhouses and rectangular timber structures within curvilinear ditched enclosures, although not all farmsteads were enclosed. Farmsteads predominated as a settlement form through the Roman period.

Romano-British settlements began to emerge in the mid-C1 AD, and increased in scope and size through the C2 to C4 AD, with settlements varing enormously in site type and size from Romano-British farmsteads, small-scale nucleated settlements including compact villages with more densely concentrated rectilinear compounds, with structures and open components linked by a series of streets and lanes; and linear villages which developed as strings of farmsteads within rectilinear plots arranged along tracks, droveways and Roman roads, frequently sited close to spring lines. Both the buildings and associated field systems also tended to be rectilinear in form, although the earlier tradition of round houses sometimes persisted.

Fleet Marston, to the north-west of Aylesbury, lies on the route of Akeman Street, the Roman road running north-west to south-east which connected St Albans, Hertfordshire with Cirencester, Gloucestershire, passing through Alcester, Oxfordshire, and at the junction of another Roman road. Scatters of Roman material have been found in Fleet Marston since the 1950s and the immediate surrounding area has subsequently been the subject of considerable archaeological investigation.

In 1997 an archaeological evaluation by AC Archaeology for part of the Billingsfield housing development, immediately to the east of Fleet Marston site, found late-Iron Age and Roman activity in the form of pits, postholes, cremation burials, clay quarry pits and enclosure or field boundary ditches. Dating evidence ranged from the early C1 BC to the C4 AD with emphasis on the later Roman period. It was suggested that the evidence represented the eastern fringes of a larger roadside settlement at Fleet Marston to the west. In 2002, another archaeological evaluation and geophysical survey for the Berryfields housing development, just to the north of the 1997 evaluation, by Oxford Archaeology, revealed a row of ditched rectangular ('ladder') enclosures adjacent to a north-east to south-west aligned trackway. Pits and possible beam slot gullies were also located. Pottery finds followed the date range of the earlier survey. The lack of domestic debris from the evaluation suggested that these were likely to have been stock enclosures alongside a droveway, lying to the north of the main roadside settlement of Fleet Marston.

In 2009, an archaeological evaluation by Pre-Construct Archaeology, covering an area of 176ha to the north-east of the site, included 41 trial trenches and geophysical surveys. The very far north-western part of the area was subject to geophysical survey. This overall area revealed further Roman enclosures and other features thought to most likely be outlying agricultural enclosures rather than settlement. A northerly rectangular enclosure was dated to the late-Iron Age or early Roman period. Further south lay a complex of rectangular enclosures dating from the C2 to the C4 AD. Other features comprised pits, postholes and possible beam slots. The site was believed to possibly represent outlying stock enclosures and field boundaries of a roadside settlement along Akeman Street, thought to have existed just to the east. An excavation in 2010 by Oxford Archaeology immediately to the north of Aylesbury Vale Parkway station uncovered early-Roman ditches and a system of enclosures and boundaries laid out with reference to Akeman Street. A cremation burial was assigned to the mid-Roman period and two late-Roman inhumation graves also recorded. Good quantities of pottery and coins were found. The lack of hearths, structures, and any other evidence of settlement, suggested a rural/industrial area peripheral to the putative roadside settlement to the west and north-west of the Aylesbury Vale Parkway site.

The most recent archaeological investigation of the site was carried out for High Speed Two (HS2), along the line of the HS2 route running along the western boundary of the site, and was preceded by several geophysical surveys between 2014 and 2016. In 2021, the excavation of 5.8ha was undertaken by Cotswold/ Oxford/ Pre-construct Archaeology (COPA) on behalf of the enabling works contractor Fusion. In 2022 excavation of a section across Akeman Street, covering 0.9ha, was undertaken by Headland Archaeology for the main contractor EKFB. The fieldwork identified an Iron Age settlement of roundhouses and enclosure ditches, the Roman road of Akeman Street and associated roadside plots and enclosures, minor Roman roads joining Akeman Street from the south (also with associated enclosures) and a pair of late-Roman cemeteries (the largest identified in Buckinghamshire) with around 400 burials. Evidence of small-scale industrial activity includes small bowl furnaces or ovens, metalworking debris and pits of mid-late Roman date. Considerable amounts of Roman pottery and coins were also found. The excavation recorded but removed the archaeological remains. This area is not, therefore, included in the scheduled area, but provides important evidence relating to the archaeological remains surviving to the east indicated by geophysical survey.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: the buried remains of a section of Akeman Street Roman Road and an associated settlement comprising conjoined ditched roadside plots along the line of the road, evidence of building remains and good survival of artefacts. Another Roman road running south-west, potentially connecting Dorchester-on-Thames to Fleet Marston, joins Akeman Street in the north-west of the site.

DESCRIPTION: the monument encompasses the core of the settlement along Akeman Street which runs from west-north-west to east-south-east across the site. The scheduled area consists of two irregularly shaped areas which are bisected by Putlowes Drive (this access road is not included in the scheduled area). The total area covers around 35 ha.

The site consists mainly of farmland, gently sloping towards the south-east where a winding tributary stream of the River Thame, also known as the Fleet Marston Brook, cuts across it, broadly from north to south; alluvium deposits are present along the route of the brook. The western edge of the site is bordered by workings relating to the construction of HS2. The northern side of the site is currently (2024) under plough.

One of the principal features of the monument are the buried remains of Akeman Street Roman road which extends across it from approximately NGR SP7751315684 to NGR SP7865515288. It is defined by its roadside drainage ditches and evidence of its surface. The excavated drainage ditches showed multiple phases of construction from the early to late Roman period.

Along the length of the road, on either side, are the remains of a Roman settlement, comprising a series of conjoined rectangular enclosures delineated by ditches. These are indicated in a geophysical survey of the length of the road and confirmed by the HS2 excavation of its north-western end (excavated area not included within the scheduled area). The enclosures are predominantly of mid-to late-Roman date based on artefactual data from the excavations of the adjacent area. The excavated plots contained beam slots or possible stone post-pads constituting the remains of structures. Others are likely to represent livestock paddocks. Artefactual evidence including Roman ceramic building material indicate the presence of tiled-roof buildings in this area. Artefacts such as coinage and pottery are very likely to be present within the monument.

To the south of Akeman Street, joining it at roughly NGR SP7785015567, are the remains of a secondary Roman road (with its flanking drainage ditches), potentially between Fleet Marston and Dorchester-on-Thames, running east-north-east to west-south-west. This road is probably of early-Roman origins, and has roadside rectangular plots delineated by ditches. The excavations of the adjacent land showed the road is joined by a number of ditched enclosures with some evidence of occupation including postholes, remains of possible hearths and a possible floor surface.

In the south-west corner of the monument, there is evidence of Iron Age settlement remains in the form of a number of curvilinear features shown on the geophysical surveys. Also, in this area is a flat-topped earthen mound which has been identified as a possible prehistoric barrow, although it may also be a post-medieval windmill mound.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the scheduled area consists of two irregularly shaped areas which are bisected by Putlowes Drive. The houses and gardens of 1 and 2 Putlowes Cottages, Putlowes Drive, including land either side within the limits of the HS2 Act area, and the houses and gardens of 1 to 6 at its north end, all lie outside the scheduled area, and are not included in the scheduling.

The west area is bounded on its west end by the boundary of the limits of the HS2 Act. The northern boundary crosses open fields from NGR SP7749315708 in the west to SP7800115625 in the east. The southern boundary extends from SP7803215158 in the west to SP7820615174 in the east.

The east area runs across open fields and is partially bounded by the area within the Transport and Works Act for East-West Rail (TWA/18/APP/04). The northern boundary extends across open fields from SP7819315544 in the west to SP7856715379 in the east. The southern boundary extends from SP7823815152 in the west to SP7864915030 in the east, before turning up to the north to SP7875115185.

EXCLUSIONS: there are a number of exclusions from the scheduling. All benches, fences, posts, signs, way markers, shelters, gates, walls, water troughs, drain covers, telegraph and other poles, and all modern road and path surfaces are excluded from the scheduling; the ground beneath all these features is, however, included in the scheduling.

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, Alexander, Allen, Martyn, Brindle, Tom, Fulford, Michael, The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain (2016),

Websites
Oxford Archaeology, Berryfields, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire: Archaeological Excavation (28 May 2002), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://eprints.oxfordarchaeology.com/3713/1/AYBF02.pdf
P W Cox, AC Archaeology Ltd, An archaeological evaluation of a proposed housing development sites at Billingsfield, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (1997), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1120141&recordType=GreyLitSeries
Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd, An Archaeological Evaluation on land at Fleet Marston, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (2009), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1115945&recordType=GreyLitSeries
A Simmonds, Oxford Archaeology, Roman and Medieval Field Systems at Aylesbury Vale Parkway Berryfields MDA Buckinghamshire. Interim Report (2010), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1119400&recordType=GreyLitSeries
Martyn Allen, Nathan Blick, Tom Brindle, Tim Evans, Michael Fulford, Neil Holbrook, Lisa Lodwick, Julian D Richards, Alex Smith, The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain: an online resource (2018), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/romangl/results.cfm
Buckinghamshire's Local Heritage List: Fleet Marston (25 October 2023), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://local-heritage-list.org.uk/buckinghamshire/asset/3136
Buckingham Council Heritage and Archaeology Blog: HS2 Excavations at Fleet Marston Roman town (6 September 2023), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/blogs/archaeology/hs2-fleet-m
HS2 archaeologists reveal secrets of small Roman town excavated near Aylesbury (5 February 2022), accessed 29 April 2024 from https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/hs2-archaeologists-reveal-secrets-of-small-roman-town-excavated-near-aylesbury

Other
EKFB, Post Excavation Assessment Report for Archaeological Recording at Fleet Marston Cottages and Putlowes (2024)
Buckinghamshire Historic Environment Record 0066301000. Possible medieval or post-medieval windmill mound seen in aerial photographs and field survey
Buckinghamshire Historic Environment Record 0066300000. Possible prehistoric barrow recorded in field survey but probably a windmill mound

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