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RURAL VOICES with Teffont Archaeology - THE CHALKE VALLEY ROMAN VILLA: A COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT
4th October 2025
Welcome to Rural Voices, our monthly series of carefully curated talks served with a full cooked breakfast!
Get your weekend off to a fantastic start - arrive at 9am for a delicious home-cooked breakfast (vegetarian/vegan/gluten free options available) made with locally sourced produce. We work with what is seasonally available, so alongside bacon & sausages from Horningsham’s own September House smallholding, we have also used produce from Pythouse Farm, Till Valley Eggs, Moonacre Farm, Vallis Veg, White Row Farm and Ivy House Dairy. Whilst you enjoy a cup of fresh-ground coffee, we will lay on a talk exploring our theme of 'creative and resilient rural communities'. We are inviting a range of fascinating and eclectic speakers including farmers, writers, artists, historians and much more - many of them local - who are collectively weaving an amazing narrative tapestry about rural life and resilience.
This month's speakers are Dr Denise Wilding and Dr David Roberts, co-founders of Teffont Archeology which began in 2008 as a research project collaborating with the local community in Teffont and has grown into a major archaeological research effort. In recent years their scope has expanded to cover Roman sites across South-West Wiltshire, including widespread geophysical surveys, recording legacy metal-detected finds collections, and the excavation of Iron Age and Roman settlements at Coombe Bissett, and a Roman villa in the Chalke Valley.
Denise and David will be talking to us about the Chalke Valley Roman Villa, their most recent project in which their excavation - conducted with the support of community volunteers - uncovered the remains of an amazing main villa, a bath house and a large barn. They will be able to tell us about the history of the site, the amazing luxury that the villa and bath house afforded its Roman residents, with painted plaster on the walls and a mosaic on the villa floor and they will also talk about the process of working on a community dig!
Please arrive promptly at 9am for breakfast, the talk will begin at 9.45am.
BOOK NOW! Tickets are £12.50 or £10 for Horningsham residents (use promo code 'horningsham' at checkout) - All profits go to the Village Hall Regeneration Fund.
If you need any help with booking please contact cherry@horningshamvillagehall.com