ARCHAEOLOGISTS may have found the site of an ancient Roman villa, near North Waltham, which they hope the crew from the TV series Time Team will excavate.

The site was last excavated in 1849 by Greville J Chester, who reported several archaeological finds in the Archaeological Journal, including a bronze bull's head, and then recorded the site as destroyed.

Since then, the site has never been marked on any map, and a series of archaeologists have searched in vain for the site, including George Willis, of The Willis Museum, Basingstoke.

Local archaeologists have been actively searching for the site for the last 18 months and hope test results from March will reveal the exact location of the villa.

Richard Tanner, from the North Waltham History Society, said: "I am pretty certain we have a corner of this building, and I hope we will be allowed to dig there properly.

"The excitement I had a year ago has been reinforced with this discovery. I have an anxious feeling because we would love to do a dig with Time Team and see what is really there. I'm very gripped by the situation."

Last spring archaeologists completed a field walk, near the Wheatsheaf pub, North Waltham, collecting brick and tile fragments to establish the location of the bulk of the material.

Then, last month, the team of eight volunteers from North Waltham History Society and Basingstoke Archaeological Society carried out tests with a restivity meter, like those used in Time Team.

The device sends an electric current into the ground and records water levels in the soil.

Any archaeological remains usually hold more water than the surrounding earth, and are recorded on the meter.

A table of results from this test has been sent to the University of Southampton for analysis and the results are expected back within the next few weeks.

Richard Tanner said: "The building could be a mansio, which is a lodging house for officials who were probably travelling from Silchester to Winchester, or we might be looking at a part of a small town as a lot of Roman-British remains were found on the other side of the A30."