Pre-historic & Roman - Bawtry Heritage

Bawtry in Prehistoric and Roman times

Bawtry’s history – original content written by Bawtry Heritage Group, Bawtry census returns, and other material.

Defining the Future of Roman Bawtry

An original paper by Bawtry Heritage Group

This paper presents a snapshot of what we really know about Roman Bawtry and uses three stories about two Roman engineers and a soldier to build an image of how real events might have played out between 2000 and 1600 years ago.

Part two of the paper examines almost all of the known writings in modern times about Roman Bawtry and assesses the reliability of the theories and speculations made against the evidence we have. Part three seeks to look forward and examine how we can build our knowledge further using what we can be sure of as a sound platform to take us forward into what is yet to be discovered.

Read the paper below:

Roman Bawtry – Speculation and Theories Unproven by Archaeological Evidence

An original paper by Bawtry Heritage Group

From the 16th century onwards, there has been abundant speculation about Roman roads and forts in and around Bawtry. Some of this theorising has been proved to be correct by archaeological excavation, but much has not. Unfortunately, claims that have no evidential basis have persisted into modern times and serve to distort the reality of the area in Roman times. This is confusing and misleading for conscientious students of Bawtry’s history. This paper seeks to review the claims and theories about Roman works in Bawtry in an attempt to resolve that confusion.

Hard evidence of Roman activity in and around Bawtry does undoubtedly exist, such as the small fort at Scaftworth.These sites are not comprehensively described in this paper. Bawtry Heritage Group’s Mick Maguire has written a paper “Defining the Future of Roman Bawtry” which contains full information.

Read this paper below:

The Hunt for Roman Bawtry – Summary of Conclusions and Observations

Bawtry Heritage Group conducted an expansive project to better understand the Bawtry area in the Roman period. This all took place between June 2024 and June 2025. The group took advantage of the Bawtry Festival to launch the project and presented their findings in full during the 2025 festival. Informing the Summary paper are five desktop studies. These are:

Desktop 1 – Roads
Desktop 2/1 – Monuments, Features & Artefacts from central, north & west Bawtry.
Desktop 2/2 – Monuments, Features & Artefacts from south & east of Bawtry, & evidence from recent community activity.
Desktop 3 – The Shrine/Temple
Desktop 4 – The Scaftworth Fortlet – Morbio.

The Summary & the five desktop studies can be read in the PDF’s below: