Fish Stews

The Roman settlement at Fish Stews sits quietly on the Cambridgeshire flatlands east of Peterborough, revealing itself slowly as you walk the site. What you're looking at are the earthworks and foundations of a Romano-British community that thrived here around the 1st to 3rd centuries - not dramatic ruins, but the kind of archaeology that rewards patience and a bit of imagination.

The site itself is modest. You'll see ditches, crop marks if conditions are right, and the occasional tell-tale pottery shard if you're lucky. It's the sort of place where standing in the middle of a field suddenly connects you to nearly two thousand years of ordinary life - people farming, trading, building. There's no visitor centre or signposting, which means you need to do your homework first.

This is absolutely for the archaeology-minded rather than casual day-trippers. Kids might get restless after twenty minutes unless they're genuinely into Roman Britain. If you're based at one of the nearby campsite options - Castle Farm or Ferry Meadows are both five miles out - and you're already keen on the Romano-British period, it's worth the drive. Combine it with Peterborough's Cathedral or other local museums to make a proper day of it.

Best approached in dry conditions when crop marks might be visible from higher ground. Allow an hour if you're thorough, half that if you're just passing through. Free to visit, naturally - it's a working agricultural landscape first, archaeological site second.