"I had a feeling I would find something special": 2,000-year-old settlement discovered in Gloucestershire field

It’s every metal detectorist’s dream: to take part in a rally with their fellow detectorists and, instead of digging up the customary fragments of farm machinery and fizzy drink ring-pulls, to wrest from the soil something truly important. And if there’s a mystery connected to the find, so much the better.

And that’s exactly what happened to rookie metal detectorist Glenn Manning in a field near the village of Willersey in Gloucestershire. He was lucky enough to unearth not just one iron Roman cavalry sword but two.

Manning's discovery was made in March 2023 and prompted Historic England and Cotswold Archaeology to team up and conduct geophysical surveys on the site. These revealed remains dating from the Early-Middle Iron Age through to the second century AD.

One of the Roman cavalry swords dug up at the Willersey site. Credit: Historic England and Cotswold Archaeology

What has been found so far at Willersey?

Extensive excavations carried out last winter have also uncovered Iron Age ring ditches; remnants of Roman limestone that may once have been a villa; an Iron Age burial with a nearby horse skull; and the bones of an arm and a hand. News of the site and its various treasures is only now being made public.

Ian Barnes, Senior Archaeologist at Historic England, commented, "This new evidence will help us to understand more about what happened around the period of the Roman Conquest, which must have been a tumultuous time."

Peter Busby, On-site Project Officer for Cotswold Archaeology, added: “I’m very proud of our team of volunteers, professional archaeologists and metal detectorists. We turned a ploughed field, the swords, and geophysical anomalies into the story of a settlement spanning hundreds of years.’

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Footage from the Willersey dig site. Credit: Historic England and Cotswold Archaeology

Willersey swords

It’s believed that the long swords or 'spathae’ were used by Roman cavalrymen from early in the second century AD. But how they came to be buried there remains a mystery for now. The weapons were X-rayed by Historic England and were found to have been constructed differently. One has a decorative pattern and thus would have been of higher status than the other, which is plain.

"Finding two swords in the same spot was amazing!" the fortunate Manning enthused. "The morning before the rally, I had a feeling I would find something special." Remarkably – or perhaps gallingly for veteran detectorists – it was only his second time detecting.

He and the landowner have generously donated the swords to the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.

Once the final archaeological report is in, Historic England will consider whether to recommend to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) that the site be protected as a scheduled monument.