An Outline History of Stanford in the Vale By Teddy Cuff & James Brooks
Browse Chapters: Introduction Prehistory Romano-British Anglo-Saxon Domesday Stanford Medieval Stanford Reformation and Tudor Stanford	Civil War Stanford Early Modern Stanford 19th Century Stanford The Great War The Inter-War Years The Second World War Post-War Stanford
Church and Chapel Schools and Libraries Civic Administration Newsletters Health and Social Services, and Young People	Village Halls Fairs, Festivals and Fetes Clubs and Societies Businesses Acknowledgements & Further Reading

Romano-British

In A.D. 43 the Romans invaded this country, reaching this area about A.D. 44-45. The Vale appears to have been extensively cultivated, with small settlements and farmsteads linked by trackways. There were villas, for instance, at Woolstone and East Challow. In Stanford parish, there was a small Romano-British settlement or farmstead within the present-day village, near the Ock, of which a series of boundries or stock enclosures have been identified and dated to the 2nd century, and a more substantial Romano-British settlement near Bowling Green Farm. There, a 2nd century villa within an enclosure, associated with late Iron Age farmsteads, was succeeded by a large settlement, perhaps even a small market town, in the late 3rd-4th century A.D. Evidence has been found or the presence is inferred of a villa or bathhouse, a shrine or temple, ovens and kilns, and buildings of various construction and status. Roman coins, pottery and other artefacts, and indications of buildings have been found elsewhere in the vicinity, suggesting other Romano-British settlements, such as in the Frogmore Brook valley of Hatford parish. The evidence for 'Julianum', at Chinham Farm, needs to be treated with caution.