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A Heritage Lottery Funded Scheme, the Darent Valley Landscape Partnership Scheme (DVLPS), is enabling new fieldwork to be undertaken at the site of Lullingstone Roman Villa. This is a very welcome opportunity for those of us researching the Villa to learn more about its archaeology and history. There will also be projects in which the local community can become involved.
Fieldwork at Lullingstone Roman Villa © Caroline Mackenzie
The £4 million scheme is in its early days and is running until summer 2022. More information can be found on DVLPS' website: www.darent-valley.org.uk. In February we undertook a magnetometer survey in the field adjacent to the English Heritage owned site, by kind permission of the private landowners. The purpose of this was to identify possible features and the results will be analysed together with those of a resistivity survey now being planned for March.
These photographs show the Scheme's Community Archaeologist, Dr. Anne Sassin, at work in the field. We were fortunate to be conducting the survey during the unseasonably high temperatures and glorious sunshine in February. Nestled in the picturesque Darent Valley, with the river flowing alongside, the setting of Lullingstone Roman Villa comes into its own on days like these. Working in the fields by the Villa helped us imagine how the landscape might have appealed to the Villa's inhabitants in Roman times in a manner similar to our saying 'Location, location, location' when choosing our homes today.
In the summer, there will be a community dig at Lullingstone, allowing volunteers of all ages to become involved. Details will be provided on the DVLPS' website mentioned above, and in further blogs here.
© Caroline Mackenzie
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