Romano-Celtic temple 590m south east of St James's Church

A small Romano-Celtic temple stands in farmland 590 m south-east of St James’s Church in Wicklewood. The remains lie beneath a grassy field about 2.4 km north-west of Wymondham in Norfolk. Cropmarks first revealed the buried structure in 1959, and a brief excavation confirmed its shape and contents. Archaeologists found the temple’s rectangular footprint and traces of its painted walls. The inner chamber measured roughly 8.5 m square and was built of mortared flint rubble. Yellow and black designs on a red ground once covered the plastered surfaces. Fragments of mosaic tesserae and a circular base, about 1.8 m across, suggest a central cult statue once stood there. Nearby, Roman coins, brooches and figurines show the temple served a local community from the first to fourth centuries. Ornate brooches hint at votive offerings left by worshippers. A short distance away, evidence of metalworking appears in the form of scrap metal and slag, while earlier Iron Age coins point to an earlier settlement on the same site.