Baylham House Farm - Rare Breeds Farm Suffolk

Combretovium (Baylham House) is just within the parish of Coddenham though it is 2 - 3 miles away from the village of that name. Unfortunately several archaeological publications refer to the Combretovium site as Coddenham and this leads to some confusion due to the distance between the two locations. Baylham House is a much more appropriate and accurate location name.

The settlement at Combretovium (Baylham House) was very large and included two Roman army forts of different sizes built at different times on the same site. The Roman road which ran from Camulodunum (Colchester) to Venta (Caistor by Norwich) ran through the middle of the smaller fort. The civilian settlement which developed around the fort covered a huge area and traces of occupation in the Roman period are found for several miles around Baylham House.

Combretovium was in a strategic location and was possibly the administrative headquarters responsible for the tribal border between the British tribes of the Trinovantes to the South and the Iceni to the North. It was the junction of five or six Roman roads leading to Colchester, Norwich, Long Melford, possibly Felixstowe and two roads towards the coast in the region of Snape & Dunwich.

There is virtually nothing of the Roman presence to be seen on the ground at Baylham except for crop markings which occasionally show up for a few days in the summer if the recent weather conditions have been favourable.

One theory which might explain the presence of the two forts, though it is pure speculation, is that when the Iceni, under their Queen Boudica,revolted and sacked Colchester, London and St Albans in AD 60, they came through Combretovium and drove the army out. Local folk memory has it that Boudica's army camped for the night in a large field in a small valley on the other side of the high ground ridge to the North East of Baylham House.

The larger fort, estimated to have held 1,000 troops, could have been built during the Roman military response to the Boudican revolt after the Iceni had been defeated in a final clash in the Midlands. The Roman response was quite ruthless and they slaughtered and burnt their way through large areas of East Anglia giving a clear message that revolt against Rome would not be tolerated.

The other possible explanation for the two forts, again with no supporting evidence, is that the larger fort was built to accommodate the large numbers of troops involved in the conquest of the South East of England after the Roman invasion of AD 43 and that the smaller fort is later in date having been built to accommodate a garrison based here to impose local control rather than take part in a conquest.

A display of our collection of Roman artefacts and more information about the Roman occupation of this site can be seen in the Baylham House Visitors' Centre. We always keep our eyes open when wandering round the local countryside and have various trays and pots round the house where unidentified bits and pieces are put when found. For several years one of these bits was thought to be just a bit of junk metal from recent times.

Whilst watching a Roman archaeological dig on TV I watched the diggers become quite excited about a find which reminded me of the "bit of junk metal" that was lying around somewhere in the house. I found the piece and sent a photo off to our county archaeologists who replied with a page copied from a reference book and confirmation that it was part of a rosette brooch from the Roman period.