Tackley History Mysteries No. 2
Was There a Second Roman Villa in Tackley?
On 4 November 1938 the West Bridgford Times and Echo, a
Nottingham newspaper, carried an item about the diamond wedding
celebrations of Mr and Mrs John George Shepherd. He came from a farming
family near Spalding in Lincolnshire. In his early twenties he moved to
Sheffield where he married and then founded a general drapery business. In
his fifties he decided to return to farming, and rented a farm in Tackley.
The article continues:
“While cultivating the land there, Mr Shepherd made a discovery
of much historical interest, unearthing an old Roman settlement which
contained a pond in which were found four small islands designed in the
shape of the aces of diamonds, clubs, hearts and spades.”
Adverts in local Oxfordshire papers show that Mr Shepherd rented Court
Farm from William Evetts from Michaelmas (29 September) 1909. He only
stayed three years, selling his farm stock in September 1912, before going
back to Sheffield and eventually living in Radcliffe-on-Trent.
What had he found, and where? There are several possibilities.
First, that this is a garbled reference to the Harborne fishponds with
their geometric shapes. Unlikely, since they were well known, visible, and
he could not have ‘unearthed’ them.
Second, that it is the description not of a pond but of a mosaic floor,
whose geometric patterns could look like hearts, diamonds etc. If a couple
of courses of stone wall surrounded it, a mosaic floor could certainly look
like a pond. This would explain why he decided that the pond was Roman —
how else would he have done so?
Third, that he had uncovered the
Street Farm mosaics.
Unlikely, since two of the three mosaics there were destroyed soon after the
villa was abandoned; and the third that has partially survived does not show
what could be designs of hearts, clubs, etc. In addition, the Street Farm
villa was not on the land Mr Shepherd rented.
The fourth option is that it was a mosaic floor, but of a second
villa. This is not impossible, since David Sanchez who directed the
archaeological excavation of the Street Farm villa has often said he
thought there was another large Roman building to the south or east —
perhaps under the school, St John’s Road or the playing field and possibly
connected to the bath house at the south-eastern corner of the site.
However, William Evetts – from whom Shepherd rented Court Farm –
was an amateur archaeologist who had
contacts with the Oxford archaeological community and had donated artefacts
to the Pitt Rivers Museum. He and Shepherd knew each other socially; both
were keen cricketers and were president and vice-president of Tackley
Cricket Club. Evetts would surely have been told about such a discovery, but
he has left no mention or memory of it. But, equally, if this was nothing
more than a fanciful family story, why did the local paper mention it in a
short article about a diamond wedding anniversary? That they did suggests
that it was something important to Shepherd.
Research and text: John Perkins.
Published: 2020
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