Cambourne's Story

Cambourne's Story The First Houses

Before Cambourne was built, teams A few stone tools, including a 4,500
of archaeologists painstakingly year old flint arrowhead, show that
excavated buried traces of a during the Stone Age people visited
hidden history. the area, hunting and gathering
food. At this time much of the
The discoveries made show that the landscape was covered by trees.
first settlement at Cambourne dates
back over 3,000 years, to the Bronze
Age. People continued to live here
in Iron Age and Roman times but it
seems that in Anglo-Saxon times
settlements moved to the site of
today's villages.

The new settlement Cambourne is

the first time that people have lived
here since Roman times.
Left: Excavating Roman pot containing glass jar
Main: Part of Lower Cambourne under excavation
Bottom: Excavating Roman pewter plates

Top: Reconstructed roundhouse from Westhay, Somerset

Inset: Flint arrowhead
Bottom: Roundhouse ditches at Lower Cambourne

The earliest houses – just two or

three - at Cambourne date to the
Bronze Age, just over 3,000 years
ago. The buildings are small and
circular. They would have had a
conical thatched roof.

Not many objects were found so

these Bronze Age settlements may
have been short-lived. Crops could
have been grown in woodland
clearings. Eventually, by the Iron
Age, much of the woodland cover
had been cut down.

The First Houses

Cambourne's Story
The First Farms

By 400 BC the area was permanently The farmers kept cattle and sheep
settled. There was at least one Iron and some pigs. The wear on some of
Age farm in each valley, close to a the cattle bones show that they were
stream. The farms had two or three probably used to pull ploughs. Spelt
round houses. Droveways were used and emmer wheat were harvested
to herd animals into the farmyard, using sickles and hazlenuts and
keeping them away from the crops sloes were still gathered for food.
grown nearby.
Tiny snails shells
in the farmyard
ditch show that
it was flooded
in winter as the
heavy clay soils
are slow to drain.

Main: Reconstruction showing loomweights and quernsone

Right: Whetstone

Objects found in the farms

paint a picture of everyday
life. Querns stones were
used to grind flour for
bread. Some pots were
used for storage, others
for cooking. Clay loom
weights show cloth was
woven. Stone whetstones
Top: Charred spelt wheat
were used to sharpen the
Main: Examining snail shell sample
blades of iron tools.

The First Farms

Cambourne's Story
By the Roman Road After the Romans

At first little changed after the There are few traces

Roman invasion of AD 43. Some of the Anglo-Saxons.
villas were built in the Bourn valley More emphasis on
but at Cambourne some of the old keeping cattle may have
farms continued, and the houses led to more farms being
were still round. built in the valleys and
the higher land at
Two new Roman roads ran nearby. Cambourne was not
The A428 and the A1193, which was used for growing crops.
Ermine Street, an important highway. Today's villages seem
Gradually Roman fashions were likely to have grown
adopted. Metal brooches fastened up on the site of
new styles of dress. Rectangular Anglo-Saxon farms.
buildings were built, their timber
Right: Saxon girdle hanger (belt pendant)
frames rested on the ground surface Below: Saxon cobbled causeway with cattle burial in foreground

leaving few traces.

Cattle became the most common

farm animal. Some new crops such
as beans and peas were introduced.
Some of the quern stones were
imported from Germany.

In the 12-13th centuries the land

Inset: Roman bow brooch
Main: Roman glass jar
Occasionally valuable objects were
buried, maybe as thanks to the gods.
Glass jars and pewter plates give a
rare glimpse of objects rarely thrown
away as rubbish.
at Cambourne was cultivated again.
Soil was mounded up into long
ridges, these deep seed beds create
fields with distinctive ridges and
furrows. When wool production
became important these fields were
used for sheep grazing and they
were not ploughed again until the
20th century, which slowly flattened
the ridge and furrow.
Today's new settlement at
Cambourne represents the latest
step in an ever changing history of
the way the land has been used.

The Roman Roads

Settlements at Lower Cambourne
Late Iron Age/Early Roman Late Roman

Pond/Waterhole
Roundhouse
Building

Roundhouses Roundhouse
Field
Enclosure/Field Pewter Building
w ay

plates
Drove

Roundhouses

e way
Drov

Jar and
ay

glass
ew

vessels
Dr

ov
ov

Dr
ew
ay

Cambourne's Story
 Bronze Age (2400 - 700BC)
Prehistoric
Iron Age (700BC - AD43)
trackway
Roman (AD43 - 410)
Coin hoard Saxon (410 - 1066)
Medieval (1066 - 1500)
Settlements

Moat Pottery A428

Roman Road

Flint Flint

Lower Cambourne
Flint settlements
Boundary Roundhouse
ditches
Ridge
and furrow Droveway
Holloway and enclosure
Ridge Settlement
Settlement
Roundhouse and furrow Jeavons Lane Waterhole
burials
Field boundaries
and waterhole Field
boundaries

Droveways Ridge Girdle hanger

Prehistoric and settlement and furrow
Settlement
trackway

Droveway
A1198 and enclosures
Roman
Ermine Street Hearth
and gullies

Enclosures

Jeavons Lane Roman burials

Ring

Ring
Female

Hobnails

Nail

Male

Male

Roman: brooch, iron plough, pins, tweezers and pewter plates

Cambourne's Story
Book now published

Wessex Archaeology
Face from a Roman flagon or jar

Cambourne's Story