This site, lying on the limestone uplands of North Somerset south-west of Bristol near Long Ashton, comprises the earthwork remains of a deserted medieval farmstead superimposed on, or adjacent to, a relict Romano-British field system. The Roman component likely represents small-scale agricultural enclosures and lynchets dating broadly to the 2nd–4th centuries AD, typical of the rural exploitation of the Failand ridge hinterland behind the major settlement at Abonae (Sea Mills) on the Avon.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site is part of the dense network of native-tradition farming landscapes that supplied the port and small town of Abonae and the wider Bristol Avon corridor, illustrating continuity of agricultural land-use from the Iron Age through the Roman period and, after a hiatus, into the medieval. It is not individually notable but contributes to understanding the survival of co-axial and aggregated field systems in this part of the civitas Belgarum/Dobunnorum frontier zone.
No formal excavation is recorded; the site is known principally from earthwork survey and aerial photography identifying lynchets, banks, and enclosure boundaries, with the Roman date inferred from morphology and surface finds rather than stratified evidence. Beyond this, very little specific material has been published for this partic
This site, lying on the limestone uplands of North Somerset south-west of Bristol near Long Ashton, comprises the earthwork remains of a deserted medieval farmstead superimposed on, or adjacent to, a relict Romano-British field system. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Deserted medieval farmstead and part of a Romano-British field system 400m north of Fenswood Farm is classified as a Roman site — 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 Gatcombe (0.6 km), Roman settlement, part of an associated field system and earlier Iron Age settlement remains at Gatcombe Farm (0.8 km), Part of the Roman Settlement of Abonae (5.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Deserted medieval farmstead and part of a Romano-British field system 400m north of Fenswood Farm