The Muntham Court Romano-British site is an archeological site situated on the western edge of the village of Findon in West Sussex. It is a scheduled monument that includes Iron Age and Romano-British settlement.
The site was excavated in the 1950s by Mr. G.P. Burstow and Mr. G.A. Holleyman at a cost of about £50 (equivalent to £227 in 2025) with equipment borrowed from Brighton College (Junior School). It revealed an extensive late Iron Age and Romano-British settlement including housing structures, trackways, field boundaries as well as a temple or a shrine. A 76.2 metres (250 ft) deep well can be found in the adjacent field to the south.
The late Iron Age settlement is located at the top of the hill and includes several hundred post holes marking probable locations of huts and corn drying racks. A storage pit can also be found. The settlement was partially enclosed by a palisade with a shallow ditch marking an eastern edge of the site, it survives as a buried feature. Finds from the site include fragment of a Bronze Age perforated macehead, Iron Age pottery as well as spindle whorls and loom weights.
The Romano-British temple is located at the summit of the hill and can be seen as earthwork marked by a circular depression 11 metres (36 ft) in diameter. The shrine itself was constructed from wood rather than stone and consisted of two structures, one square and the other trapezoidal, both marked by post-holes. A copper alloy plaque of a boar from the site may have been associated with a Roman temple at Chanctonbury Ring. It is now located at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery alongside other artefacts from the site, including a 2nd century enamelled fish brooch and a 3rd century musical instrument mouthpiece.
A number of archeological finds from the site are held at the Worthing Museum (both on display as well as in storage). This list presents notable finds in alphabetical order.
A private burial ground of the Thynne family and the Muntham Court Estate is located within the tree clump at the highest point of the hill. It is dating back to 1925 with a death of Edward Thynne. People who lived on the estate were buried at a “staff cemetery” alongside the family.
Edwards’s parents and his brother Tom have been exhumed from Findon church by Colonel Thynne and re-buried here. A headstone for Edwards’s grave was designed by Sir Edward Lutyens (who designed many other memorials, including The Cenotaph) and the same design was used for Tom’s grave. A stone cross from the original grave can now be seen among the trees in the middle of the clump. Edwards’s parents were re-buried with their original headstone.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The Muntham Court Romano-British site is an archeological site situated on the western edge of the village of Findon in West Sussex. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Muntham Court Romano-British site 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 Chanctonbury Ring hillfort and Romano-Celtic temples (4 km), Regular aggregate field system with prehistoric and Romano-British farmsteads and a Bronze Age bowl barrow on Park Brow (4.3 km), Section of Roman road north of Rock (5.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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