Great Wilbraham Roman Villa & Fleam Dyke

A Roman villa dating from the first to the fourth centuries AD was identified at Great Wilbraham in the summer of 1990 by John Ette, Assistant County Archaeologist for Cambridgeshire. The villa lay on the route of a new water pipeline to be laid by the National Rivers Authority. Excavation revealed a series of rectangular rooms with rammed chalk floors, one of which had substantial flint and mortar foundations, and a second which was retained by timber post holes and wall slots. There was a circular pit located some 13 metres to the south of the building, cut into a square, rammed chalk platform. The pit contained an intact Roman altar, only the third to be found in Cambridgeshire, and below the altar further architectural fragments including the base of a column. The project also recognised an extension of Fleam Dyke, and Anglo-Saxon defensive earthwork, between Great Wilbraham and Fen Ditton.