The Roman settlement at Sapperton lay alongside the road from Bourne to Causennae (Ancaster), at the point where the road ran alongside a tributary stream of the East Glen River in Lincolnshire. The settlement covered an area of about 10 acres (c.4.05 ha), judging from the scatter of surface finds, which include coins, building-stones, tiles, tesserae, iron-slag, and both Roman and Iron-Age pottery. The settlement consisted of a number of rectangular buildings arranged at right-angles along a narrow lane which ran off the main Roman road, possibly indicating that the village preceeded the Roman road, the original buildings being aligned upon an original native trackway. Occupation was seemingly from the early (i.e. pre-Roman) 1st century until sometime in the late 4th, the latest coins being of Valentine (either: Valentinian I Imp. A.D. 364-375 or (Valentinian II Imp. A.D. 375-392).
There is a villa a couple of miles to the north at Haceby (TF0136), which lies on the course of a trackway running from across the fens to the east, through the settlement at Saltersford, which lay about five miles to the west, and on in a south-westerly direction towards Ratae (Leicester).
References for Sapperton
- Historical Map and Guide – Roman Britain by the Ordnance Survey (3rd, 4th & 5th eds., 1956, 1994 & 2001);
- Chronicle of the Roman Emperors by Chris Scarre (Thames & Hudson, London, 1995);
- Roadside Settlements in Lowland Roman Britain by Roger Finch Smith (B.A.R. British Series #157, 1987) p.202.
Map References for Sapperton
NGRef: TF0132 OSMap: LR130