Mansio at Weston's Farm

Reasons for Designation

Mansiones were substantial, mostly masonry, buildings of varying size and plan providing facilities, including accommodation and stabling, for travellers associated with the Cursus Publicus (the provincial postal service of Roman Britain). Constructed on or adjacent to major contemporary roads, they are usually found in urban contexts or within forts, although some examples lie between towns on roads which cross the more sparsely settled rural areas. They are found throughout England. Dating from the second to mid-fourth centuries AD, mansiones were often amongst the largest buildings of the town. The largest recorded urban example is at Silchester, where the mansio covers an area of c.0.4ha. Most examples survive in the form of buried foundations. Few examples have been positively identified and, in view of this rarity, all mansiones with surviving remains are considered to be of national importance.

Despite some disturbance, the mansio at Weston's Farm, a large example of this type of monument, survives particularly well as an upstanding earthwork. It will also contain important, buried archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the original layout and use of the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. The mansio forms one of a group of three mansiones clustered within West Sussex on major roads leading northwards from Chichester and is one of the few known examples constructed in an isolated rural context.

Details

The monument includes a mansio, or Roman posting station, situated on the course of a Roman road which ran northwards from Chichester (Noviomagus) 21km to the south. The north west-south east aligned, rectangular mansio, discovered during aerial reconnaissance carried out in the 1950s, survives as an uneven, raised area of about 0.9ha, containing the buried remains of buildings and structures. This is enclosed by a bank 8m wide and up to 1m high, levelled and partly disturbed in places by the subsequent construction of Weston's Farm, Weston's Farm Cottage and their associated gardens and outbuildings. The bank is surrounded by a ditch up to 20m wide and 0.5m deep, flanked by a low counterscarp bank on its north western and south western sides. A simple gap in the north western ramparts near the north eastern corner has been identified as the original entrance into the interior. The construction of the modern Iping-Milland road and the farm track which cross the monument have partly disturbed the remains of the mansio. A small part of the south western sector of the mansio, occupied by a modern timber mill, has been substantially levelled by modern activity and is therefore not included in the scheduling. The buildings of Weston's Farm and Weston's Farm Cottages, their associated outbuildings and barns, all modern fences, gates, walls and garden structures, the modern surfaces of all roads, tracks, hardstanding, patios and paths, the roadside bollards, signs and telegraph poles are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath all these features is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

29242

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Magary, I, Sussex Archaeological Collections in Recent Discoveries by the Ordnance Survey of Roman Roads in Sussex, Vol. 91, (1953), 3

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