Volume Two Appendix 1: Catalogue of Known, Suspected and Possible Villa Sites in Britain 4Ppendix 1 Introduction to the Catalogue of Known, Suspected and Possible
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Volume Two Appendix 1: Catalogue of Known, Suspected and Possible Villa Sites in Britain 4ppendix 1_ Introduction to the Catalogue of Known, Suspected and Possible Roman Villas in Britain The existence of some villas can be held to be self-evident: they have been at least partially excavated and shown to be rectilinear masonry buildings, perhaps with baths, mosaics arid hypocausts. However, before a site is actually excavated - or given a thorough geophysical or successful aerial survey - it is difficult to discern its exact nature. Any surface scatter of Roman artefacts, particularly building debris, may indicate the presence of a villa. This presents the thorniest of problems to the compiler of a catalogue of possible villa sites, for a field scatter of Roman material may also represent the site of a temple, a mansio, a small town, a 'native settlement' or even a heavily manured field. Yet field scatters must be taken into account, because they may prove to be villas. They are certainly likely to prove to be a settlement of some sort. Even a light field scatter belies a much greater amount of material beneath the surface. Ebcperiments by Ainmerman (1985) and Parker- Pearson (pers. comm.) on the relationship of surface to sub-surface artefact densities have demonstrated that a relatively small amount of material - as little as 2% of the total - is present on the surface at any one time. These results have been confirmed with Roman material in Britain by Gaffney and Tingle (1985) at Maddle Farm (BK27) and by Hayfield at 1harram (NK37)(pers. Comm.). The villa at Huntsham (HEll) was first detected through the chance discovery of some Roman tiles during ploughing; this led to excavation from 1961 onwards and the subsequent discovery of a lerge villa complex. At Thenford (NH1O4), surface scatters of Roman material such as pottery, tiles and bricks had been recorded since 1822; part excavation in 1970 uncovered a villa house. 1 At Wharram-Birdsall (NK38), fieldualking produced a dense scatter of pottery. A magnetometer survey suggested the presence of buildings which were boated by trial trenching. Excavation uncovered villa buildings and a possible bath house, all within an enclosure. In 1978 at Garford (0x24) field survey revealed a scatter of Roman pottery, tile, gravel and stone. In 1979 aerial photographs revealed the villa, showing a house of corridor plan and another building (perhaps an aisled farmhouse?) nearby. The importance of fieldwalking is still grossly underestimated, and the emphasis of Roman archaeology remains on the excavated archaeological site. This may be producing a distorted view of past settlement patterns; and, it must be emphasised, even if field survey data is included on distribution maps, we are only plotting rates of recovery and not necessarily real settlement patterns of the Roman period. One must also consider that excavation is becoming steadily more expensive and demanding and that in future it is likely to become increasingly restricted, particularly the excavation of villas which in Britain are now being given a very low priority by many archaeological units, as those who have seen the recent policy docunient of the Wessex Archaeological Committee (Ellison 1981) will realise. For better or worse, the excavation of villas in this country could well have a limited future, and this is one of the reasons why we simply cannot afford to ignore the evidence of field survey. Fieldwalking has gained in importance both because of the success it has achieved arid because together with aerial photography it is the only realistic way of responding to the now widespread destruction of archaeological evidence by agricultural practices such as deep pboughing (Renfrew 1980: foreword). Also, as only a tiny 2 percentage of the archaeological sites of any period are ever going to be excavated, to ignore fieldwalking results is to ignore crucial evidence. There is a wide range of artefacts which, being present on the surface, can indicate the presence of a villa, such as Roman building stone, bricks, tiles, tesserae, wall plaster and window glass. Even a few tesserae are significant for they are, it is logical to assume, probably part of a disturbed mosaic which must have come from a Roman building. It is clear that it is evidence for buildings which is vital at this stage. I have taken the decision that scatters of Roman pottery and other artefacts which do not constitute building materials, are not enough to suggest the presence of a villa. The greater part of the information in the catalogue was collected from the county Sites and Monuments Records of England and \'Jales over a period of two years. I aimed for consistency in the collection of catalogue entries for the various counties, and thus compiled a list of 'criteria for inclusion': if the SKR entry for a site included even one of the following terms, it was included in the cataloge: Villa Roman building / foundations / building debris / outbuilding / aisled building / agricultural building / barn / structure Roman masonary / building stone / stone / large stone / large flints / mortar / pus sininum Roman tiles / roof tiles / floor tiles / flue tiles / box flue tiles / hypocaust / imbrex / tegulas / pilae / baths / bath house / bath-suite Roman mosaic / tessellated pavement / tesserae Roman plaster / wall plaster / painted wall plaster Roman window glass / window grilles Cropmark or aerial photograph of rectilineal building 3 I do not necessarily accept all the sites listed in the catalogue as villas, but as possible villas. At present it is better, I feel, to include all possible and even doubtful sites, and then. eliminate the rogues gradually, than not to include them at all. It would be facile to exclude sites which comprise surface scatters of building debris on the grounds that they may eventually prove to be temples or small towns. These types of site will actually be fairly uncommon compared to villas anyway. The catalogue entries are listed alphabetically first by modern county, and then, with these sub-sections, by modern parish. The layout of each entry is as follows: Unique number Whether excavated PLRISH NAME, county Site name(s) if different from above National Grid Reference County SNR number County SMR classification Short descriptive text Bibliographic references The catalogue thus starts with Avon, and this sub-section starts with the parish of Abbot's Leigh. The map which is fig. 85 is a guide to the modern counties of England and Wales; it is accompanied by a key. The new county boundaries caine into force in 1974. The map which is fig. 86 shows the number of sites per county mentioned in the catalogue. It is not intended to be a distribution map. Distribution maps are usually very misleading, for they reveal more about factors such as levels of fieldwalking and even the personal research 4 interests of the County Archaeologists than they do of real ancient settlement patterns. The rapid increase in the number of known and suspected villa sites in recent years in Leiceaterehire is a reflection of the existence of over 24 amateur fieldwalking groups and the excellent relationship which exists between them and Peter Liddell of the Jewry Wall Museum in Leicester who compiles the county SMR; he also is a keen Romanist. Tony Gregory of the Norfolk Unit has likewise changed the known picture of Roman settlement in his county, at least partly because of his commitment to liase with metal detecting groups; he also is an enthusiastic student of Roman Britain. Many thousands of bibliographic references are included in the catalogue. A great deal of these have been supplied by the county SMith of England and Wales. While every reasonable effort has been made to check the accuracy of these references, the sheer size of the database collected and the fact that Ph.D. research must necessarily take place within a limited amount of time and with a limited amount of resources means that a number of these bibliographic references have been taken 'on trust'. This pragmatic approach has been taken to get this much needed database into operation. The published bibliographies in Rivet (1969), Rodwell (1978) and Whitwell (1982) have been checked. Black's recent work (1986) has been largely ignored because so much of his gazetteer of villas in south-east England was obviously incorrect. Taking the county of West Sussex as a random sample of his work, the mistakes found were so numerous and gross that I ceased referring to this tome. All other references I found myself. It should be stressed that SMR entries are rarely inaccurate, and a fortunate development for British archaeology is the current updating and computerisation of these important records. 5 Excavation is defined as 'the deliberate removal of earth for archaeological purposes'; this is the current definition used by the RCHM. Note The following sites were late addenda to the catalogue, and are therefore not in the correct alphabetical order by parish: Cobham Park, COBHAM, KE95 LITTLE MILTON, 0X65 Gatcombe, LONG ASHTON, AV85 6 AVON AV1 Excavation ABBOT'S LEIGH, Avon Avon View ST 5373 7376 844 Roman building/field system Rough stone foundations enclosed by a bank. The evidence suggests an enclosed settlement replaced in the late first century by a more substantial (though probably unsophisticated) building which itself was abandoned by A.D. 150. 1. Proc. S.A.N.H.S., 105, 1958-9, 15. AV2, Excavation ALVESTON, Avon Tockington ST 6274 8567 1472 Roman villa Excavated 1887-8. Thirty-two rooms uncovered, many with mosaics. A denarius of Carausius (A.D. 287-293) found in room 10. The main house appears to have had a corridor. There was an aisled farmhouse and an enclosed farmyard. Extensive hypocaust systems and large baths.