Update on huge homes site halted after Roman village found

Show homes are now open for inspection at a new housing development in Thornton – but a ward councillor says a chance has been missed to preserve a precious archaeological site on the land.

Eccleston Homes is working on the site at Bourne hill, off Fleetwood Road, to complete the 154-unit development after being granted planning permission by Wyre Council in June 2023.

Potential buyers can now visit to check out a small number of completed show homes for the Centurion Park development.

Eccleston says the new estate will offer modern, energy-efficient homes designed to blend in with the local environment.

However, the site on which the houses are being built was found to contain evidence of an Iron Age settlement and later Roman occupation.

This led to a condition that an archaeological survey be completed before work could begin. This has now been carried out by Oxford Archaeology North (OAN), who finally sent a report to Wyre Council last month.

With the site to be fully built on, Bourne ward councillor Victoria Wells says an opportunity to ringfence and protect the archaeological area of the site has gone.

Labour member Cllr Wells said: “This land had been designated in the previous Local Plan for potential cemetery use and it would have been much easier to preserve the historical site in one piece.

“But in 2021 the Cabinet at Wyre designated it as housing land and it was sold.

“Iron Age pottery and Roman round houses have been found there. If handled properly, this could have been properly preserved and even turned into an educational visitor attraction.

“Now it is too late. It is such a shame that an opportunity has been missed.”

Concerns that the new estate would compromise the archaeological studies led to the creation of a campaign group, Save Bourne Hill in 2023, with more than 2,000 members.

However OAN, which visited the site in September 2023 and found Iron Age bowls and Roman pottery, says the finds are being catalogued and will  go on show to the public at some stage.

Last month OAN submitted a report to Wyre as part of the planning requirements.

It reported: “The excavation recovered a small quantity of mostly residual worked flint of Mesolithic to Bronze Age date, which provides limited evidence.

“The main evidence for settlement dates, however, to the Roman period, which is evidenced by a series of inter-cutting archaeological features on the summit of Bourne Hill.

“ Evidence of Roman artefacts is limited, though the small pottery assemblage suggests activity occurred during the third and fourth centuries AD.

Assessments indicated that there were “several roundhouses, close to the edge of a large pond, in the central part of the site. The settlement then developed with the establishment of an irregular system (or systems) of ditched enclosures and further roundhouses.

“All of the data recovered by the archaeological excavation have been examined in a post-excavation assessment, in line with standard procedures and guidelines. This document provides a summary of the results of the assessment and presents an updated project design and timetable for undertaking a programme of analysis and publication that will ultimately meet the full potential of the data, and enable the results to be presented to the public in an accessible format. “

It is understood that the house-building will continue into 2026 to complete the new estate. The development consists of 1, 2, 3, and 4-bedroom energy-efficient homes, designed with Arts and Crafts architecture, open-plan living spaces, and modern features like smart technology, low-energy lighting, and triple glazing.

Eccleston Homes was approached for a comment.