Catsgore was a Romano-British rural settlement in south Somerset, occupied from the mid-1st century AD through to the late 4th century. It developed from a loose late Iron Age/early Roman farmstead into a substantial nucleated village of stone-built rectangular houses arranged along a roadside, reaching its greatest extent in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site is significant as one of the best-excavated examples of a peasant village in the agriculturally rich Ilchester hinterland, illustrating how small native farming communities prospered in the orbit of the regional centre at Lindinis (Ilchester) and the surrounding villa estates such as nearby Lufton and Pitney. It exemplifies the lowland Somerset pattern of dispersed, modestly Romanised agrarian settlement on the limestone soils.
Major excavations by Roger Leech in the 1970s revealed multiple successive farm units with stone footings, yards, paddocks, and corn-drying ovens, alongside finewares, coins, and ironwork indicating mixed arable and pastoral farming with some craft production. Leech's published report (1982) remains a benchmark study of a Romano-British village and demonstrated three main phases of development, with apparent abandonment around AD 380–400.
Catsgore was a Romano-British rural settlement in south Somerset, occupied from the mid-1st century AD through to the late 4th century. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Catsgore is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Melbury Roman villa (3 km), Northover House, late Roman cemetery (3.5 km), Ilchester Mead (3.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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