NHER 5205 (Monument record) - Roman villa and bath house at Little Oulsham Drove

A 4th century Roman villa and bath house were excavated in the 1960s. The villa was a simple corridor-type building with five rooms and a corridor. Inside, one collapsed wall lay relatively intact. Finds included Iron Age pottery, a steelyard and two objects made from elephant ivory. The bath house was a separate detached building with the usual suite of hot and cold rooms and a pillared hypocaust. An important Early Saxon sword in its scabbard was found under the floor in one room, between the pilae (tile pillars) of the hypocaust. This may be the earliest Germanic sword found in Britain, dating to the first half of the 5th century AD, and hidden in the ruined building by an Anglo-Saxon warrior. The two buildings appear to have been the nucleus of a small fen-edge estate, and the unpretentious nature of the buildings suggest that these belonged to a working farm rather than a luxurious establishment. It may be related to a larger Imperial Estate in the fens. The bath house was destroyed by the construction of the Cut-Off Channel, but the remains on the villa were reburied.