The Roman landscape in the Milton Keynes area was a settled, intensely farmed rural area, with a mixture of native farmsteads and romanised villas. Within two kilometres of Bancroft, two villa sites (Stantonbury and Wymbush) and two native farmsteads (one on Abbey Hill Golf Course, and one between Heelands and Bradwell Common) have also been discovered. The inhabitants of the "Roman" villas were probably natives copying the Roman lifestyle, not new settlers.


All these sites were engaged in mixed farming. Cattle and sheep were the most common animals kept, and wheat and oats the favoured crops.

The markets for this produce were the nearest towns, LACTODORUM (Towcester) and MAGIOVINIUM (Fenny Stratford) both located on the Watling Street (now A5). These had grown up on the site of forts established by the X1V Legion during the Roman conquest in AD 43. It was in these towns that the inhabitants of Bancroft and other rural sites would have been able to buy luxuries, such as imported foods, which were typical of life in Roman Britain.

In 1967 fragments of Roman pottery were noticed in the bank of Loughton Brook. This was the first clue to the existence of a Roman site at Bancroft. Four years later its position was pinpointed under an extensive scatter of Roman tile, pottery and other material on the ploughed surface of the adjacent field. Extensive excavation during the period 1973 - 1985 revealed the site to be a 4th century Roman villa with an earlier Roman house beneath it.

A Roman mausoleum (burial monument) and cemetery overlying earlier Bronze Age and Iron Age farming settlements were also discovered, 300 metres to the north of the house on the hilltop in Blue Bridge.

The first house built at Bancroft, in about AD 100, was a substantial structure, with limestone foundations supporting timber-framed walls. The weight of its thatched roof was carried by ten large timber posts. The interior was very basic, with floors of beaten earth and mainly undecorated walls. There were two rooms at the eastern end, and a corridor on the north side, leading to a bath suite decorated with sea creatures.

This house remained in use until about AD 170, when it was destroyed by fire. Afterwards, the remains were levelled and a new house was constructed at right angles to the original house, on the same site. It was built entirely of stone, with a tiled roof, and faced onto a cobbled trackway leading to the farm buildings. Inside there were three principal rooms, one with underfloor heating and a bath suite at the south end of the house. Floors were of mortar, painted red or black, and the walls were also brightly painted. There may also have been an upper floor.

The people who lived at Bancroft and farmed the lands around it, were almost certainly native Britons who had adopted Roman customs and dress. They may have been direct descendants of the Iron Age farmers who lived on the nearby hilltop. It is possible that they sold the farm in the fourth century (AD 340) to a wealthy new owner, perhaps a merchant.

The house by then was becoming dilapidated and large-scale alterations were carried out. The bath suite was rebuilt and extended, a corridor and two service rooms were added at the front and a second bath suite was built at the rear. Mosaic floors, some of very high quality, were laid in nearly every room by craftsmen from as far away as CORINIUM (Cirencester). In front of the house a walled ornamental garden was set out, with a fishpond and octagonal summerhouse. Nearby a small cottage was also built.

Seen farm building have also been discovered at Bancroft. All probably built at the same time as the first house (AD 100). Those around the farmyard remained in use throughout the life of the site. But the outlying buildings seem to have been abandoned at the same time as the fire which destroyed the first house (AD 170).

A cobbled farmyard surrounded by four buildings lay to the north of the house. A trackway ran from the yard, probably linking the villa to Watling Street, 1.5 km away, and thence to the nearest markets.

The farm workers at Bancroft, like its owners were also native Britons local to the area. Whilst accommodation was at first provided for them close to the farm, it seems that following the fire they lived elsewhere on the estate.

NEOLITHIC/BRONZE AGE
A variety of stone tools found during excavations at Bancroft suggest the earlier presence of Neolithic hunters (4500 -2000 BC)
Around 900 - 700 BC, during the Bronze Age, settlers built a farmstead on the hilltop at Blue Bridge. This was centred on a large circular timber-framed house. The position of this building was found on the site as three concentric circles of holes, which had held the posts supporting the conical thatched roof.

IRON AGE
The farmstead continued in existence during the Iron Age (700 BC - AD 100) Numerous smaller circular timber huts spread across the hilltop and ditched enclosures and boundaries were dug for controlling livestock and for drainage. The discovery of bronze coins and imported pottery from this period points to a growth of trade, and a more sophisticated society.

ROMAN VILLAS AND MAUSOLEUM
Following the establishment of Roman rule in Southern England the windswept hilltop farmstead at Blue Bridge was replaced in about AD100 by the first Bancroft villa, situated on lower ground near the brook. The hilltop farmstead site then became the cemetery for the family now living in the farm house. Each burial included pottery vessels containing offerings, and some also contained personal belongings, such as brooches and beads. This farm house was destroyed by fire in about AD 170 and replaced by a new stone structure. This second house continued in use until about AD 340, when it was refurbished and extended, and mosaic floors were laid in nearly every room. At the same time a walled garden was laid in front of it, with a central fishpond and an octagonal summerhouse.

A large stone mausoleum (burial monument) was erected on the hilltop cemetery. This consisted of a square burial vault two metres below ground level and a central stone tower rising about it that would have been visible for miles around.

POST ROMAN
On the hilltop, the mausoleum was demolished around AD 400, for building materials. However, the site was still used as a cemetery. To the west of the mausoleum a line of eight burials was found. The graves were lined with stone, including large pieces of decorative masonry from the demolished mausoleum. To the south-east was a small rectangular building of early Saxon date (AD 400 - 600), probably the las6 structure to be erected on either site. The village continued in use beyond AD400, but sometime between AD400 - 500 the nearby towns of Lactodorum and Magiovinium collapsed, probably as a result of plague epidemics. Without markets to sell their produce, the owners of the villa would not have been able to afford to maintain such an elaborate house, and it would eventually have been abandoned. Nearly seven hundred years later, the ruins of the villa probably provided materials for the monks who built Bradwell Abbey

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