interpreted as being significant of boundaries or divisions in the landscape. As the alignment was away from any contemporary settlement and its domestic rubbish no finds were made to assist dating. By the later stages of the Iron Age (1st century BC) and into the Roman Period (after 43 AD) a sizeable community had established itself at Ferry Lane Farm between Collingham and Besthorpe. Excavations by Manchester and Salford Universities took place for several summers until 2012. Though there is no suggestion of any significant material wealth, the site revealed a well-ordered system of rectilinear fields, closely spaced enclosures and trackways supporting theories of a relative increase in population densities. Similar sites have been recorded by aerial photography. Roman Along the east side of the Valley were a range of farmstead settlements but not ‘villas’. Fieldwalking next to A1133 just south of Besthorpe revealed a dense scatter of pottery indicating one of the sites on an elevated gravel terrace safe from flooding. These sites would have had links with the Roman road system (Fosse Way) and traded to a degree with the ‘small town’ at Crococalana (Brough) and the larger urban centre of Lindum (Lincoln). At Meering there are suggestions of possible pottery kilns and a hoard of 1,347 Roman coins was found in 1964 by workers in the gravel pits at Besthorpe. Study of the coins which had been crammed into a pot showed that the dateable sequence ended abruptly in 354AD. A first century AD pot was discovered in a house foundation trench at Trent Lane. In later Roman times climatic deterioration lead to flooding and some sites like Ferry Lane Farm were buried under alluvium while others were covered by sand-blown deposits – we still have episodes of sand-blow which can cause significant build-up at field edges and on the A1133. Post-Roman In post-Roman times the area continued to be settled with the best excavated evidence coming from a site just 500 metres north of Girton. Here a settlement with wattle and daub buildings situated across the crest of a sand dune was occupied between about 650 and 815AD and archaeologists found evidence of textile processing with the discovery of loomweights and spindle whorls. The Scandinavian period is also marked in Girton churchyard by a monumental grave cover dated to c 1000AD. The Parish system established prior to 1086AD tends to create linear parishes perpendicular to the