Whitestaunton Manor is over 800 years old, but during the Victorian period the then owners, the Elton family, excavated the remains of what they thought was a Roman villa some distance from the main house. With a mass of finds relating to different building materials and pottery drawn from a wide area, the villa theory remained unchallenged over the years. That was until the young archaeologist Freya Bowles looked again at the site and came to the conclusion that the villa idea didn't stand up because of the suggested plan of the building.