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The Stanwick Villa, Northants: An Interim Report on the Excavations of 1984–88

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

David S. Neal
David S. Neal
Affiliation:
Central Excavation Unit, Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, 23, Savile Row, London WIX IAB
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Extract

The Roman villa at Stanwick (GR SP 972716) is situated on the west side of Stanwick village and the newly constructed A405 bypass. It occupies a gravel terrace on the east bank of the River Nene close to a point where the river swings west to join a secondary canalized channel on the west side of the floodplain. The area immediately west of the villa was partially disturbed in 1845 by the construction of an embankment for the now disused Blisworth-Peterborough railway. The south side of the site is bounded by a stream which rises as a spring east of the village: other springs issue from the valley slope close to the villa where the gravels give way to a bedrock of clay and cornbrash, a decomposed oolitic limestone. Beds of limestone occupy the higher slopes and were quarried in Roman and medieval times. Both the availability of fresh water and of building-stone probably influenced the location of the site.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 20 , November 1989 , pp. 149 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © David S. Neal 1989. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

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