very thin willow woven walls and reed thatch roofs. The Iron Age enclosure also features grain pits dug into the chalk earth, an Iron Age toilet construction, a 9 post structure and bread ovens. Roman Villa There is also a reconstructed Roman villa at the site. The construction is based on the western wing of Sparsholt Roman Villa which was excavated between 1965 and 1972. The building includes a functioning hypocaust system. In 2017-18 the Villa was renovated including re-painting the walls based on excavated plaster remains showing original colours and patterns, and installing a replica mosaic floor in the central room. This took over 120,000 tesserae and 1000 hours. The villa has also been furnished with items representative of Roman furniture. Saxon houses There are two houses based on excavations from nearby Chalton Saxon Village. Chalton A2 was constructed in 2017 and the house is primarily made of English oak, sweet chestnut and hazel, all sourced from local coppiced woodlands. The roof is panelled wattle hurdles into which the wheat straw thatch was laid using hazel spars to hold it in place. The timber beams were hand hewn and the posts earth fastened into the ground. No nails or screws were used apart from in the Har-hung doors, and the beams are fixed using dovetail joints secured with trunnels. Chalton A1 is being constructed with alternate walls featuring hit-and-miss boarding and a gable end roof. There is also a small Saxon tree-wrights’ workshop built using Saxon timber jointing techniques which demonstrates a shingle roofing technique. Experimental archaeology Peter Reynolds of Butser Ancient Farm was instrumental in the creation and development of experimental archaeology as a discipline, and experimental work has been carried out at Butser Ancient Farm since the site’s inception in 1972. Until his death in 2001, the research work of the farm focused specifically on agriculture, domestic and agrarian life. In more recent years, the study of buildings has become a key component of the farm’s research. Each building on display to the public today represents the conclusion of an experiment, conducted in response to theoretical hypotheses about archaeological features found in excavation, about construction methods and techniques, or a combination of these. Other considerations in experimental work on buildings can include variables such as the shape and pitch of roofing, thatching materials and techniques and the use of construction materials including wattle and daub, planking, turf