Spaxton Roman Mosaic

Spaxton Roman Mosaic Somerset Historic Environment Record 10802 Site Name: Roman villa, W of Roughmoor Farm, Spaxton Public access: The public accessibility of this site is unknown or has not been checked. Please ask locally and do not visit without permission. [Information last updated on 21 May 2003] Details: Bridgwater Archaeological Society were notified in 1963 of the existence of building foundations on Roughmoor Farm. T.J Miles excavated the site at ST 2417 3622 in 1963-4. It was found to have been a building of three rooms, each with a plain tessellated floor and the whole had been damaged by ploughing. No plan was made. There were few finds: some coarse ware sherds dated by Taunton museum to the C3-C4, two illegible coins and some fragmentary iron, possibly handles. Some finds are in Taunton museum. All the remains were removed for hardcore and the site cannot now be identified on the ground. {1} Plan completed in August 1977 shows extent of excavations and indicates a range of rooms aligned E-W, one with an elaborate mosaic with a floral motif, and a possible N-S building range running N. {2} Members of the Bridgwater Society field-walked the villa site at (?)ST 246365 the invitation of the owners, Mr and Mrs Dosson. A grid system was laid out and finds located on this; some 3rd/4th century pottery including sherds of redware and black burnished, a cornice rim of a "pie dish", iron nails, roof and floor tiles and fragments of lias and local sandstone. It is thought that the lower courses of the stone walls found in 1962/3 are still in existence and that the present ploughing does not reach them; "robber trenches" of removed walls may still exist at some depth. A few tiles were scattered across the field but no definite evidence of further buildings was found. {3} The grid reference given above (ST246365) appears to be incorrect as the site is to the S of the barn W of Roughmoor Farm at the NGR given in reference 1. {4} References: 1 Detailed records - Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division 1964 ST23NW12 (SCC Planning Department) 2 Measured plan - HBC 1.45.1 (1977) 1:48 SCC 3 Description - Langdon, M in Webster, CJ and Croft, RA "Somerset Archaeology 1992" Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 136 (1992),168-9 4 Personal communication - Polack, J (23/9/1999) Record created in April 1983