17th August 2012:

A small excavation took place over three days in August 2012 at the site of the old Library, Yaxley, a small town to the south of Peterborough, which lies around 6km from the Roman town of Durobrivae.

The excavation uncovered a pottery production site dating to c AD 70-85 (the time of Emperor Vespasian), and recorded 18 kiln bar fragments and other kiln furniture, some 400 pottery sherds, as well as animal bones. What makes these finds all the more remarkable is that the artefacts have come from a single ditch and constitute a potentially nationally important Roman pottery assemblage.

Within the assemblage there was most of a Roman cheese press, made all the more fascinating by the fact that Yaxely lies less then two miles from the village of Stilton, and very close to a Time Team investigation, which was also centred on the discovery of a Roman cheese press.