The Lullingstone Roman Villa, Second Interim Report

Archaeologia Cantiana Vol. 65 1952 THE LULLINGSTONE ROMAN VILLA SECOND INTERIM REPORT By LiEtTT.-CoLONEL G. W. MEATES, F.S.A., E. GREENFIELD and EDWYN BIRCHENOTTGH, M.A. INTRODTIOTION THIS Second Interim Report deals with the results obtained during the 1950 and 1951 seasons of excavation and is concerned in particular with the northern part of the building where an important complex of ramps and stairways has been revealed. The Basement Room has also been excavated a further 5 ft. towards the east in the hope of reaching its limit in this direction. The limit has not been reached, however, and the presence of the road and underlying sewer defers further excavation. It is essential to obtain complete access to all the evidence contained in the filling of the Basement Room, as without it not only are we prevented from working out its successive purposes, but, even more important, we cannot complete the unique Early Christian paintings that adorned the upper room and which are contained in the filling below. Both northern and southern walls of the fourth century house have now been obtained, and most of the western edge has been defined. As the work on the south and south-west has not yet been completed, the results of this have not been incorporated in this Report. Work has also been carried out on the short corridors north and south of the Mosaic Rooms to obtain more precise dating, and this work is being carried forward into the 1952 season. The evidence here is sparse, but what has come to light suggests an early to mid-fourth-century date for the mosaics themselves. Room 15 is dealt with in detail, and a transverse section is recorded, together with an architectural section west to east along the line of the main flight of steps and extending through rooms 14, 15, and 16. The stratification in Room 15 provides a large quantity of evidence in relation to the neighbouring rooms and especially in relation to the Basement Room, whose chronology is rendered clearer, although its successive purposes, while suggestive, yet remain obscure ; its con- ceivable parallels may perhaps be found in the neighbourhood of the Rhineland. A second architectural section has been recorded from south to north throughout the house and passes through Rooms 11 and 15. This section, when compared to the west to east section, the plan, 26 THE LTJLLINGSTONE ROMAN VILLA and the diagrammatic sketch, will render the stairway complex under- standable. In all these matters our thanks are due to Mr. D. A. Broodbank, A.R.I.B.A., Mr. C. B. Mears, A.R.I.B.A., and Mr. Downs. As regards dating, no attempt has been made to obtain precision dating of the north stairway complex by interference with its construction. The evidence provided by the fillings that sealed it in Rooms 15 and 16 and supported by the state of wear of its tile facings place it probably in the second half of the second century, and perhaps later in that period. A suitable examination technique for these stairways is a complicated matter and their preservation undisturbed must first receive weighty consideration. Generally, it may be said that as a result of these seasons' digging, the dating and periods of construction of the house confirm those advanced in the First Interim Report (Arch. Cant., LXIII). It is still uncertain if the plan of the house before the period of abandonment at the end of the second century represents that of the main dwelling, or whether at that time this part of the building was a wing of a more extensive house whose plan we do not yet know. It is, however, sufficiently clear that towards the turn of the third-fourth centuries, the foundations of which we have knowledge were used for a smaller house, compact and symmetrical, the Mosaic Rooms later forming its central point. We have clear evidence that the Antonine house extended north, and this extension will be found entered on the plan. It is also continued towards the north-east, where a further building is known to exist; and this will be investigated during the 1952 season. Some very interesting work on the superimposed floors of Room 5 has been carried out; but beyond mentioning-that coins of Claudius II, Allectus and Constantine II as Augustus, were found stratified in this room, report on this apartment and its relation to the remainder of the Bath Block must await complete excavation. It remains to thank all our workers who once again by their keenness and efficiency have made the "seasons under review so successful, and to acknowledge the continued interest and support both of the owners of the site and of archaeologists generally. We wish particularly to thank Miss M. V. Taylor, O.B.E.,'M.A., F.S.A., and Professor J. M. C. Toynbee, M.A., D.Phil., F.S.A., for their helpful suggestions and provision of parallel data; to Dr. F. Oswald, D.Sc., F.S.A., for his detailed report on the Samian ; to Mr. B. W. Pearce, M.A., F.S.A., who again reports on the coins ; to Mr. Bernard Middleton, F.R.S.A., who again reports on the glass; to Professor A. J.B. Cave, M.D., D.Sc., of the Department of Anatomy, St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, for his report on the infant burial in Room 8; to Dr. H. J. Plenderleith, M.C., B.Sc., Ph.D., F.S.A., Keeper of the Department of Research Laboratory, 27 THE LTJLLINGSTONE ROMAN VILLA The British Museum, for his report on the contents of the mortarium found in Room 16; to Mrs. B. L. Macrory for the pottery drawings; to Mr. A. G. Bell, I.S.O., F.G.S., who once again organized the site lectures, and to Mr. C. D. P. Nicholson, F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S., F.S.A.(Scot.), F.S.G., for the great pains he has taken in assembling the painted wall plaster from the filling of the Basement Room, a project which by his patience and skill is taking shape with dramatic results, showing as it does that the plaster decorated a room where Romano-British Christians worshipped in the late fourth or early fifth centuries, perhaps 200 years before the arrival of St. Augustine. The two great ehi rho monograms and the row of Orante figures facing the east sufficiently testify to the existence in the villa of the earliest place of certain Christian worship in Britain. A report on these wall paintings will form a separate publication in the future. The imperative protection of the site during the winters of 1950 and 1951 was supplied by the Kent County Council who generously defrayed the cost of necessary materials ; and a further grant of £50 by the Administrators of the Haverfield Bequest, is gratefully acknowledged. Finally, our thanks are due to Mr. John Matthew, the Secretary of our Organization, for his efficient work in the field of organization and administration. THE NORTHERN COMPLEX Boom 11 (The Basement Room) As has been indicated, the presence of the road and sewer prevented any further large scale exploration of this room. It was possible, however, to excavate five feet onwards towards the road and to obtain an important section (PI. la and Fig. 1). Two additional plinths were discovered, forming a rectangle with the two discovered last season (see plan, Fig. 2). All four bore on their surfaces the remains of completely carbonized wood, probably horizontal plates to support uprights of some kind of framework fitting closely inside the walls of the room and supporting the room above. The discovery was also made, half-way between, and in line with, these two plinths, of a shallow sump or water channel lined with shaped chalk blocks. This is a significant construction, as it seems to indicate that water was at one time present in the Basement Room. The bottom of this sump or channel, whose limit eastwards has not been reached, lies three feet below the present bed of the river, and the whole had become silted to within a foot of its top when the villa was finally destroyed. Reference to the section at Fig. 1 will show.the method of construction of this channel, and it is possible to give some chronplogy and to equate the construction with the deposit of the marble busts in the room. The sequence is as follows : . 28 THE LULLINGSTONE ROMAN VILLA 1. The second-century concrete floor was roughly cut into and the sump or channel was dug to a depth of three feet below its level, being lined with shaped chalk blocks. 2. The clay floor was laid over the entire concrete floor and packed up against the box of chalk blocks. 3. During the second half of the third century, the bottom became filled to a depth of some twelve inches with clay and fragments of brick, and this was finally sealed by a thin tip of carbonized material. 4. Immediately above this ash tip was found a potsherd of dating importance. It is described at Fig. 8, No. 33. Similar potsherds have been found at Colchester and Silchester, at the latter place being said to appear during the first half of the third century. This is the only datable object from the filling and from this single potsherd the construction of the sump or channel is placed tentatively about the middle of the third century. It was accompanied by a complete box-flue tile similar to those in situ in Boom 15, which is a third-century construction, and a large portion of a patterned box-flue tile (Group 5 of " A study of the patterns on Roman flue tiles and their distribution " by A.

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