Where and what
We in FEAG are very fortunate to have had the chance to explore this site. It is in a very interesting position, on the southern side, but part of, the Roman rural settlement site, known as Bullock’s Haste.
Permission to explore the main part of Bullock’s Haste is not likely to be easily given. It a Scheduled Monument and so protected. The field we worked on had, until the 1960s, similar visible earthworks but was then levelled so that it could be used for arable farming. Perhaps for this reason It is not scheduled and so it is a matter for the landowners whether any excavation takes place.
Fortunately for us the landowners, Sue and Gerald Walker, were keen to learn more about the nature of the settlement that was there and encouraged us to pursue this investigation. They ploughed the soil once when they took over the land in the 1980s in order to sow grass. It has remained in pasture since then. Following that ploughing, and while putting in new hedges over the years, they came across an impressive collection of pottery sherds, nearly all clearly identified as originating in the Roman period. A number of Roman coins had also been found on or near the site.
Although this field does not appear as dramatic on the surface as the scheduled monument, geophysical survey, using magnetometry and resistivity measurement, showed that there are features below the surface reflecting the kinds of features showing above ground in the scheduled part of Bullock’s Haste.
During two week summer seasons between 2011 and 2016 we excavated some test trenches to investigate a sample of those features.
An interim report addressing the first four years of work can be accessed via the Archaeology Data Service.
Cambridge Antiquarian Society (CAS)
We were pleased to be conducting the  excavation jointly with the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. They had not undertaken fieldwork for some time and were keen to find out what level of interest there was among their members in getting involved in this form of archaeology. About 20 members of CAS took part at some time during the excavation.
The collaboration was encouraged and made possible by the fact that Carenza Lewis has been the President of CAS for three years and the Honorary President of FEAG for a year and a half.
FEAG benefited greatly, not just from having a body of enthusiastic, and experienced, excavators but also from the opportunity to draw on the expertise of many professional and academic archaeologists who are members of CAS. A great partnership!
Mark Hinman
Mark is a professional archaeologist. He worked for a number of years with the Cambridgeshire County Council archaeological unit, through its county linked commercial phase and into Oxford Archaeology East. He is now a Regional Manager for Pre-Construct Archaeology. We are therefore very pleased that he accepted our invitation to be a professional adviser for us as we undertook the Twenty Pence Project.
Another important strengthening of the link between FEAG and CAS was that Mark was a Council member of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society..