Description

In August 2005 an archaeological evaluation was undertaken by Channel 4’s ‘Time Team’ on the outskirts of the village of Withington in Gloucestershire, approximately 14km south east of Cheltenham (centred on NGR 403200 214900).
The evaluation concentrated on three areas of investigation: Site A (Manor Court Field), where a local archaeologist had recovered Romano-British finds from molehills; Site B, the Scheduled Ancient Monument of Withington Villa (SM GC200), a complex potentially dating from the 2nd - 4th centuries AD, first excavated in 1811; and Site C, an area between Sites A and B, the site of a spring and potential water management.
The project aimed to investigate the nature of the possible structures situated in Site A, and their relationship, if any, to the known villa complex to the west, while evaluation of the villa aimed to assess the nature of the surviving archaeology nearly 200 years after its 19th century discovery. It was hoped that the work within Site C would establish what type of water management was needed to tap a natural spring in order that it could be used as a well.