Roman Saltfleetby

Informal Report By Stuart Sizer, Complete with Photos!

We have known for some years that the Romans had been in Saltfleetby by the amount of pottery picked up off the fields, none more so than Martin Chapman and his brother. They have been picking up shards of Roman Gray ware for years. However, last June Martin was working on a field adjacent to the Mar Dyke where he had found some pottery in the past and decided to put a trench in and see if there was anything there.

In the excavated section of land he found more pottery and oyster shells by the score. This is a sure sign of Roman occupation somewhere close by as the Romans loved their oysters. A further trench was dug and yet more pottery was unearthed. This time it included Samian Ware, Nene Valley Ware, part of an Amphora, Black Burnished Ware along with the normal Gray Ware. The pottery that was discovered has been authenticated and dated by Joanna Hambly, a Heritage Officer with Heritage Lincolnshire.

Interestingly most of the pottery dates from the Roman Occupation of Britain up to the end of the third century BC. A lack of pottery in this particular excavation after this date would indicate abandonment of the site. This fits in with the work done by the Wetlands Archaeology Unit based in Hull along with others including David Robinson. They found that changes in climate and sea level during this period made the Outmarsh a salt water marsh and as such uninhabitable. It does not preclude areas being used during the summer months for grazing and salt making.

Back to the dig. The Samian ware came from mid Gaul, central France, along with the amphora and Nene Valley ware all indicate a high status villa of some type (a phrase pinched from Time Team). It suggested habitation from the arrival of the Romans in our part of the world in AD 47 to the end of the third or early part of the fourth century. This was followed by seasonal use of the land for grazing and salt making.

This is where the story would have ended but for a chance discovery.................

During the excavation in the field I had collected a carrier bag of pottery, cleaned up most of the shards and then returned them to Martin. However, I had some chunky pieces which I had left in the bag, unwashed. During the early spring of this year I decided to investigate those unpromising pieces of pottery.

They looked un-Roman to me, perhaps very late Iron Age or much later but the Iron Age period is not one I am too familiar with. In early June I had been invited to Hull University to see a Roman Pottery expert. I took some of the pieces Martin had let me keep along with the ‘chunky’ pieces. One of these turned out to be late Iron Age, Early Roman and the other a piece was Belgic Ware from the late first century BC.

We can now say our site has had continuity of habitation since the first century BC to the early fourth century AD, around 500 years, and that the people living on that site were from a high status family, becoming part of the Romano-British during the Roman occupation.

All this from what, a few years ago, would have been described as an unimportant area of Lindsey.

I wonder how many more sites are just waiting to be discovered! Stuart Sizer.

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