At some point in 2002 Kent Archaeological Field School held a course entitled 'Identifying Field Systems' at Deerton Street Roman Villa. As part of this they identified and measured one possible Roman field system. (1)

The report describes the research of the fields as follows: "This April the Field School held a course on ‘Identifying Field Systems’ and we spent two days with a large number of students measuring the fields in the vicinity of Deerton Street Roman villa with replica Roman survey chains (ours were in rope!). It came as no surprise that the fields did indeed measure up in the actus, but the greater surprise was to find that the field — now modern housing plots — to the south of the Roman villa was divided into North German perches of 15 German feet (16.5 imperial feet, 5.03 metres). Cartographic research found that the field (incidently its boundaries to the north and west are 7th-century parish boundaries) had been divided this way among many owners from at least the mid-17th century. This could suggest that the land around the Roman villa had been partitioned with early German measurements into home plots for incoming 5th-century Germans. Such a scenario is not unknown in France or Belgium, and 5th-century Frankish and Anglo-Saxon pottery has been excavated from Deerton Street Roman villa site." (1)

<1> Kent Archaeological Field School, 2002, Practical Archaeology Issue 6. Kent Archaeological Field School Report 2002 (Website). SKE31272.