The UK is filled with signs of the past, be it relics, artefacts, or shipwrecks.
In some places, entire settlements still exist, ancient towns and villages abandoned or briefly lost to time.
Chysauster Ancient Village is one of these settlements, a Roman town whose foundations were likely built even before the invaders arrived.
Sitting in southwest Cornwall, it is perhaps one of Britain’s most remote such settlements, competing with the likes of those found in northern Scotland.
Chysauster is unique in more ways than one, but perhaps its most noteworthy feature lies not in plain sight but deep beneath the ground: a secret network of passages that elude archaeologists to this day.
The village is thought to have been inhabited from around 400 BC until at least the 3rd Century AD.
It places it at around the late Iron Age and well into Roman Britain, though occupation in the surrounding areas is believed to have started much earlier.
Back then, the village primarily served agricultural purposes and was unfortified, likely lived in by members of the Dumnonii tribe, a Celtic people whose kingdom made up present-day Devon and Cornwall.
There were around 10 courtyard houses in the settlement, each 30 metres in diameter. Eight formed two distinct rows, almost like terraces but broken up to keep their space. Each dates from the Romano-British period.
All houses had an open central courtyard surrounded by thatched rooms, similar in layout to the houses themselves.
While many of these houses no longer exist, the walls that do survive are up to three metres high.
Archaeologists know the tribes used the lands for farming because of evidence of several intricate field systems in the area. The tribe would have kept farm animals and perhaps even traded the fruits of their labour.
While the introduction of the Romans meant many Celtic tribes across Britain were forced to comply with military rule, life in southwest Cornwall remained largely the same.
The Romans did build roads into Cornwall, but only three Roman forts and one villa are known to exist, and the nearest administrative centre was almost 100 miles away in Exeter.
Chysauster was probably home to 50 to 70 people, and while the Romans knew they lived there — they are the ones who gave them the name ‘Dumnonii’ — they appear to have left them alone.
Perhaps one of the most exciting and mysterious finds at the ancient site was the so-called fogou, the Cornish word for ‘cave’.
Many of these caves sit just south of the houses, though researchers aren’t entirely sure what purpose they served. Modern interpretations suggest they stored food and valuables or acted as a refuge during times of conflict.
English Heritage, which looks after the site, says the more likely explanation is that they had some sort of ceremonial or ritual purpose.
Many of the fogous have been destroyed, and the entrances to those that survive have had metal grills installed to deter the curious. None have been explored in modern times.
By the 3rd Century AD, Chysauster was abandoned. Archaeologists have no idea why the tribes left their ancestral homes or where they went. The land bears no evidence of conflict or violence. However, at the time, more and more Celtic tribes were merging to protect themselves from the Romans.
