Possible Roman Farmstead, Nebsworth, Lark Stoke

1 A small earthwork with perfectly square-cut corners of uncertain date and function. The monument is about 34m square and covered in rough grass. The banks stand about 0.6m to 0.9m above the surrounding ground. The central area is hollowed out below ground level in some places and there is a hollowed area about 3m across in the NE side.
2 Vertical RAF photos of 1946 revealed a small rectangular earthwork at Lark Stoke, surrouded by ridge and furrow. It was a platform, surrounded by a bank, about 80m x 80m., on rising ground below a high ridge. Though now cultivated, traces of this feature survive, but although the earthwork resembles a Medieval house platform or minor moated site, the finds consist only of Romano-British pottery, suggesting that this was a Romano-British earthwork site, most likely a farmstead. It is most unusual for such sites to have survived as visible earthworks until recent times.
3 OS Plan.
4 The condition of the interior is sound, but the outer bank is being encroached upon by ploughing.
5 High up on the hill above Ilmington is a small double-moated enclosure locally called “The Camp”. It is in a large open field known as Nebsworth. The works are square with slightly rounded corners, covering 0.3 ha. The ditch enclosing the area is ‘very perfect’ and within its interior is another ditch. These small remains have frequently been described as Roman. This is however unlikely; it is more likely that the site is an early moated homestead.

See WA2704 and WA9200 for alternative interpretations of this site.