Knightshayes lies near Tiverton in East Devon..a few miles north of Killerton.
Killerton Estate near Exeter is full of archaeology, but the archaeology of Knightshayes is harder to find. Both are associated with Roman forts ..which, with Cullompton, were part of a neighbouring network of military occupation.
We proved the Killerton fort by excavation in 2021. The Knightshayes fort was excavated by Valerie Maxwell in 1981-85. The pottery finds from both sites are very similar giving a date range of c. AD 55-85 but the Knightshayes fort lies on private land about 150m west of the National Trust border.
Knightshayes is famous for its neo-Gothic mansion house designed by the architect William Burgess for John Heathcott Amory. The house was built between 1868-73 and overlooks the lace factory in Tiverton where the Heathcott Amory family made their fortune.
Surrounding the house are its wonderful gardens, set within a park containing a stable block and a huge walled kitchen garden with turrets. The whole place is full of references to medieval architecture and decoration.
Nothing actually medieval there though unfortunately. It is a place loved by its curator Stephen who thinks this place.. and Tyntesfield… the very height of architectural achievement. Too modern for me.. though beautiful in its own way.
Somewhere under the the terraced lawns are the original farmhouse and outbuildings that pre-date the house. My first task was to look for them with a resistivity meter but they are buried too deep.
10 years on, my last task would be to hunt for the potential Roman settlement attached to the fort.
In 1872, when the entrance lodge was built for the house, the workmen found a cremation burial…of an adult inside a lead box. It went to the coroner but its whereabouts is now lost.
This is just the sort of burial which would be associated with a 1st century fort and similar cremations were found at Corfe Mullen near Wimborne in Dorset.. outside the legionary fortress there. Corfe Mullen is full of evidence of a vicus. The type of settlement that grew up outside the gates of a fort to service the garrison.
The cremation was a clue… and the western park at Knightshayes may be full of evidence. Hidden under the grass between the great beeches and oaks.
So, grab a day… for Dave to train me with the National Trust’s new Bartington 601 magnetometer… and perhaps find the vicus beside the fort.
Dave, arrived before me. Sam, the Area Ranger had arranged for the field gate to be open and we parked and lugged the survey equipment to the baseline which Dave had set out with his 100m tapes.
Warm for October but with a fine misty rain. A herd of cows in the Roman fort field watched us suspiciously and made a lot of noise.
The sheep in the park were generally quiet but enjoyed the tapes. Particularly a yellow one which got chewed into pieces before we noticed.
Around us, rolling Devon hills.. deep, deep green with their network of hedges studded with oaks.
The parkland sloped up to the plateau occupied by the lodge and it was on the crest of this hill that the fort had been built 2000 years ago.
I had hoped to find something when development work took place on the car park and the cricket pitch pavilion.
The Knightshayes cricket pitch lies a little north of the lodge.. following the alignment of the north gateway of the fort. It would be good to find evidence of timber-framed houses flanking the roadway to the gate.
As the soil was disturbed for the car park extension… I hoped for Roman finds and/or.. perhaps.. a scrap or two of samian pottery from the spoil dug out of the pavilion’s foundation trenches.
The finds were… some Victorian pottery, a prehistoric struck flint and small black ceramic discs of earthenware. Apparently the remains of a clay pigeon shooting range set up by the American army at Knightshayes in WWII.
We worked hard through the day…the Bartington is a quick instrument…. dodging round the parkland trees we covered 38 grids ..though we should have done more… my training slowed Dave up.
We drove home tired but pleased that we’d covered the ground… a sample area which included the high level plateau east of the fort.
Geophys is like fishing… you are never sure of what you will catch.
Sometimes more than one fort is found. The first marching camp might be abandoned for a more permanent military site. Perhaps a roadway.. leading straight from the fort’s east gate. Pits, beam slots and settlement boundaries.. a clear pattern detected beneath Knightshayes Park.
Dave sent the plot to me the next day. We’d certainly caught some agricultural terraces and an old field boundary, a metal pipeline shone out brightly. Perhaps a straight trackway but running north to south ignoring the site of the fort.
Our Roman quest… apparently barren.
However…..Tiverton Archaeological Society will survey the fort site itself next year… perhaps the Roman remains do not stray onto National Trust land….We’ll see.
Archaeology National Trust SW 