BBC Two's Digging for Britain to feature St Neots development

The fascinating Roman past of the new community being built at the Wintringham site in St Neots will feature in the next episode of the BBC programme this Sunday (January 22).

Master developer Urban&Civic has been developing a new community at Wintringham since 2018, and ahead of construction work, Oxford Archaeology (OA) were commissioned to assess and excavate the area, which helped bring its past to light.

Eleven out of the 17 Roman burials were discovered with their heads transposed by their feet. (Image: Oxford Archaeology)

The discovery by Oxford Archaeology of decapitated bodies with their heads positioned by their feet dates back to the third century AD and captured the attention of well-known academic Prof. Alice Roberts, who brought her filming crew to the site.

Patrick Moan, OA's Project Manager, said: "Having the opportunity to work with Urban&Civic over the past half a decade at Wintringham has been excellent.

"They have worked with us to enable this opportunity, which has revealed amazing insights into the people who lived in the area thousands of years ago.

"These results add greatly to our understanding of the local landscape's history which we can now share with local communities, and nationally through our work with Digging for Britain."

Over the years at Wintringham, archaeologists uncovered evidence of Iron Age and Roman settlements, starting around 2,500 years ago and lasting into the late Roman period (fourth century AD).

Oxford Archaeology (OA) excavating at the development site in Wintringham. (Image: Oxford Archaeology)

During the 2021-22 excavations, OA's Cambridge office archaeologists uncovered numerous items, such as coins, brooches, pottery vessels and more, indicating a high level of craft and industry at the site.

Eventually, the decapitated bodies were found, which is not unusual in Roman burial contexts and does not necessarily indicate that these people were executed or encountered a violent death.

The Wintrignham site was unusual in that there were a high number of burials like this (11), which would suggest that this funerary custom could have been a local tradition.

Professional archaeologists excavated the burials with the utmost care and respect and in accordance with the conditions of a licence issued by the Ministry of Justice. 

Rebecca Britton, Regional Director for Urban&Civic, said: "The power of archaeology – particularly with the places coming forward as new communities – is it shows us the history, people, places and customs that came before us.

"It is amazing to think of the lives and industry that went on at Wintringham through the centuries and to find out more about the customs of the times.

Episode three of Digging for Britain, titled "Headless Romans and Anglo-Saxon gold", will air on Sunday, January 22 at 8 pm on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.