Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Romano-British settlement immediately south west of Camel Hill Farm

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1020936
Date first listed:: 14-Jul-2003

User submitted image — Uploaded by Information Analysis This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1020936
Date first listed:: 14-Jul-2003

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Somerset
District:: South Somerset (District Authority)
Parish:: Queen Camel
National Grid Reference:: ST 58473 25535

Reasons for Designation

Romano-British roadside settlements, as the name suggests, grew up alongside some of the major roads which were laid down following the Roman Conquest of AD43. These roads often had a military origin but later they connected the newly built Roman cities and towns which were the hallmark of Roman civilisation and which sprang forth in the decades following the Conquest when the Romanisation of the country was under way. Those areas most adapted to the Roman way of life saw increased prosperity based upon a market economy in which villas, farms, and towns all played their part. The ability to travel and communicate across the unified Roman province and the need to move and trade produce between towns was clearly important and roadside settlements offering overnight accommodation and facilities for changing horses or pack animals are known to have been in existence on Roman roads from early on in the Roman period. Other settlements between major towns are likely to have become trading posts or small market towns in their own right. Excavation of the roadside settlement at Fosse Lane, Shepton Mallet, in Somerset has produced evidence of a flourishing occupation by the fourth century which was taking advantage of its location between Bath and Ilchester. Further up the Fosse Way towards Bath, excavation of another roadside settlement at Camerton has revealed a scatter of buildings the majority of which are of stone and of simple rectangular plan. The most prosperous period for this type of settlement in the South West appears to have been in the third and fourth century. The Romano-British settlement immediately south west of Camel Hill Farm, although its full extent is not known, appears to parallel in style and date those roadside settlements excavated at Shepton Mallet and Camerton. The monument is known from partial excavation to preserve archaeological information which will be informative about the level of prosperity and the economy of the Romano-British period of the third and fourth centuries as well as providing insights into the lives of the inhabitants of the settlement.

Details

The monument includes the recorded extent of a Romano-British settlement of late second/early third to fourth century AD date which is located just to the north of the modern A303 on Camel Hill. The settlement location commands extensive views in all directions particularly to the west where it overlooks the Somerset Levels. The site was first identified by a geophysical survey leading subsequently to archaeological excavation which revealed the presence of several Roman-style buildings and at least one cremation burial. Pottery evidence also revealed an occupation phase in the early Iron Age (perhaps seventh to sixth century BC) but no certain buildings associated with this earlier occupation were recorded. The excavation, in the form of evaluation trenches, was conducted in 1993 by Wessex Archaeology on an area adjacent to the A303 on its northern side. The A303 is believed to preserve the road line of the Roman road between Andover and Ilchester (Roman Lendiniae). The stone foundations of at least three buildings were recorded, one of which was of substantial construction with a recorded width of around 5.5m. The wall foundations were found to have survived in good condition and they were interpreted by the excavators as dwarf footings for timber-framed structures. The most extensive building exposed contained at least three rooms and an exterior metalled surface indicated the presence of a yard associated with one of the smaller buildings. In addition, a Romano-British cremation burial was encountered at the eastern end of the area explored by trenching. The cremated bone had been placed in a pottery vessel sealed by a limestone roofing tile and set within a small pit. The partial excavation at Camel Hill has demonstrated the presence of Roman buildings covering an area of at least 130m in length flanking the northern side of what is considered to be the route taken by a major Roman road leading into Ilchester; such occupation is usually indicative of a roadside settlement. This settlement lies only 7km north east of the Roman town of Ilchester upon which it may have been dependent for its economic survival. The density of the Romano-British rural settlement around Ilchester has long been known and research in the latter part of the 20th century has suggested that Ilchester, by the third century, may have become a subsidiary civitas capital (administrative centre) for an area occupying the former northern tribal territory of the Iron Age Durotriges in what is now Somerset. The earlier civitas capital of the Durotriges at Dorchester in Dorset appears to have continued to function in the same administrative role but perhaps for a smaller area from the third century onwards. It may be significant that the settlement at Camel Hill appears to commence fully in the third century during the period of Ilchester's suspected enhanced political status. All modern fencing and fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath these features is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 33061
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Leach, P, Roman Somerset, (2001), 52-83
Other
Noel, M J, A303 Sparkford-Ilchester Road Improvement Geophysical Surveys, 1993, GeoQuest Associates, unpub report
Wessex Archaeology: report W530.02, Coe, D and Seager-Smith, R and Newman, R, A303 Sparkford-Ilchester Road Improvement Archaeological Eval, (1993)

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.