Acton Scott Heritage Project
This is a two year, Heritage Lottery Fund community project run by the Archaeology Service of Shropshire County Council. Community volunteers will be given opportunities to take part in a range of archaeological and historical techniques including surveying, field walking, excavation, historical research and interpretation. The aim is to explore major questions about the settlement and land use of the parish over the last 3000 years.
The remains of an Iron Age farmstead are known from aerial photography to lie in a field to the east of Acton Scott Historic Working Farm, and other enclosures are known from crop marks to exist west of the village but little else is known of pre-Roman settlement and cultivation.
In 1817 a Roman villa was discovered during road works. This was later excavated by Mrs Frances Stackhouse-Acton in 1844. An aisled barn type building was identified complete with mosaic floor and a fragment of wall painting depicting a peacock’s head. The uncovered heated rooms are thought to have been a bath house. It is not known whether the excavated building represents the original farm house or a later conversion of an agricultural building for residential use, by a bailiff for example. Other farm buildings undoubtedly remain to be discovered.
The site of Saxon settlement is unknown as is the exact whereabouts of any late Saxon/medieval nucleated settlement, although it was probably in the vicinity of St. Margaret’s Church. Earthworks which could represent building platforms for the original nucleated village offer scope for surveying or geophysical survey. The extent of the parish’s medieval ridge and furrow ploughing also needs to be mapped.
There is a chain of fishponds between the village and Hatton, known from the 18th Century. These may however have much earlier origins and be related to Acton Scott’s mill documented in 1278. Nearby Alcaston also had a water mill but its site is unknown.
Further areas for investigation could be to trace the manner by which the parish boundary was marked over time, and the vestiges of improvements made to the Acton Estate in the early 19th Century. A tree and hedgerow survey may prove worthwhile in this respect.
It can be seen that major issues remain to be addressed by the Heritage project and it is hoped that this will provide a challenge for volunteers to continue the project in a self-funded manner beyond its “official” end in 2008.
