Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 147-213 



Excavations in 1999 on Land Adjacent to 

 Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road, Devizes 



by John Valentin and Stephen Robinson 1 



with contributions by Jane Bircher, 2 Kate Brayne, 3 H.E.M. Cool, 4 Mark 



Corney, 2 Claire Ingrem, 5 M. Laidlaw, 1 Jo Mills 6 and Roger Tomlin 7 



During excavations ahead of residential development on land adjacent to Wayside Farm, Nursteed Road, 

 Devizes, evidence for later Iron Age and early Romano-British settlement and 4th-to 5th-century Romano- 

 British activity was identified. The later Iron Age and early Romano-British activity is confined to the 

 northern portion of the site where a cluster of storage-type pits, flanking ditches for an east to west aligned 

 trackway and other features indicative of settlement were identified. The 4th to 5th century deposits comprised 

 an extensive midden, a pit containing large quantities of artefacts and at least three inhumation burials. The 

 nature of some of the objects recovered (e.g. coins, cattle skulls, iron objects, a lead curse and a bronze 

 garment collar) indicates that Wayside Farm may lie close to a site or building with a more specialised 

 function such as a temple or a shrine, as it is not unusual for such places to have associated pit or midden 

 deposits. Other late Romano-British deposits more typical of settlement-based activity were also present 

 on the site. The results from the excavation indicates that there is still some considerable archaeological 

 potential for the area surrounding Wayside Farm. 



INTRODUCTION 



An archaeological excavation of a late Iron Age and 

 Romano-British site on land adjacent to Wayside 

 Farm, Nursteed Road, Devizes (centred on 

 SUO 16603), was carried out by AC archaeology 

 during November and December 1999. The site is 

 located to the southeast of Devizes on the outskirts 

 of the now expanded town (Figure 1). Prior to 

 residential development the site was pasture, on 

 land which is generally level but slopes gently down 

 to the south. The development area is bounded to 

 the north by the Nursteed Industrial Estate, to the 

 east is the A342 Devizes to Andover road, to the 

 south is open farmland and to the west a prominent 

 linear bank of a now dismantled railway. The site 

 lies on Upper Greensand at around 1 20mOD. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL 

 BACKGROUND 



Prior to a preliminary archaeological evaluation of 

 the site (see below), there was no direct evidence 

 for settlement of Romano-British date in this area. 

 However, a number of artefacts have been 

 discovered close by. These include several finds of 

 Romano-British material to the north and west of 

 the site, including coins, pottery, box flue tile and 

 several burials. Neolithic flint axes have also been 

 found to the north. 



The site has been the subject of a previous 

 evaluation by means of machine-excavated trenches 

 (Valentin 1999). Work initially comprised the 

 digging of 1 5 trenches, each 30 x 2m, followed by 

 the excavation of a further 90m 2 of contingency 



1 AC archaeology, Manor Farm Stables, Chicklade, Hindon, Salisbury SP3 5SU " School House, Church Street, Norton St Philip BA2 

 7LU 'The Rudyard Consultancy, 2 Green Lane, Codford St Peter, Warminster BA12 0NY 4 16 Lady Bay Road, West Bridgford, 

 Nottingham NG2 5BJ Centre for Human Ecology and Environment, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO 17 1BJ 

 1 Prospect Place, Dark Lane, Seavington St Mary, IlminsterTA19 0QW Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Linton Road, Oxford 

 OX2 6UD 



