Rockbourne Roman Villa
Encyclopedia
Rockbourne Roman Villa is a Roman courtyard villa
excavated and put on public display in the village
of Rockbourne
in the English
county of Hampshire
, England
. The villa was discovered in 1942 by the ferret
of a local farmer and excavated by A. T. Morley Hewitt over the next thirty years.
The main structure was a large residence surrounding a courtyard, including luxurious Roman mosaic
s and bath suites. There were also farm buildings and workshops since it sat at the centre of large farming estate. Its origins lie in the Iron Age and it was occupied until the 5th century. Much of the villa is on public display and there is a site museum, with excavated artefacts, tracing the villa's history.
in Hampshire
. It is 5 km north-west of the town of Fordingbridge
. The villa once stood in the centre of a large farming estate, and is the largest known villa in the area. The villa was discovered in 1942 by a farmer digging out a ferret, and finding quantities of oyster shells and subsequently a mosaic
floor. Recognising the significance of the finds, the land was bought by A. T. Morley Hewitt who conducted excavations every summer from 1956 to 1978 Early excavators sometimes failed to excavate adequately or make proper records of the finds, which hampered attempts to understand the chronology of the site. Many animal bones and pottery fragments were also discarded during this period. Hampshire County Council
bought the site in 1979, and it was the limited re-excavations led by I. P. Horsey during the period 1978-82 which allowed a better understanding of the many changes to the villa over its 400 year history of occupation.
The villa may have formed a pair with a villa discovered at Downton 8 km to the northeast. Rockbourne and Downton may well have controlled extensive pasture land on their respective sides of the River Avon. Excavations approximately 1.5 km to the southeast of Rockbourne at Allen's Farm show that pottery was being produced in kilns during the late 3rd century. Such a close proximity to the villa at Rockbourne suggests that the pottery kilns may have been part of the villa estate.
with a chalk
floor, of a type common in the Late Iron Age
. In the 1st century this was replaced by a small rectangular stone house. Adjacent to it, and set well apart, at a right angle
, a work-hall was built.
was added to this west house. The most unusal feature of this west bath suite is that the pilae
in the underfloor hypocaust
heating system were built from curved roof tiles (imbrices
) rather than from stacks of bricks.
floors are in the north wing. The mosaics all have geometric patterns, although none are of especially fine workmanship, and none have figure decoration. At some stage (and the dating is uncertain) the south wing was established, this included an aisled building and a range of work buildings. In 1967 a hoard
of 7717 bronze
coins was found buried in a pottery jar on the site. The hoard must have been buried around 295, and perhaps suggests that troubled times struck the villa, but the reason why it was never recovered is unknown.
s were placed on the floors. Posthole
s from this period may indicate an attempt to prop up the roofs. Troubled times may also be indicated by the hoard, dating from 394-5, of 16 late Roman gold solidi
coins found just 3 km from the site in 1986. The only adult burials found on the site are two which date from the post-Roman period
, one of which seems to have been an individual killed by the collapse of the tiled roof.
, who have backfilled much of the site to prevent deterioration. Many of the finds from the excavations are on view at the on-site museum, with the remainder stored in Winchester
. The finds range from New Forest
pottery to pieces of animal bone. Of particular interest are two much-damaged Roman milestones
found re-used in the building fabric of the villa. One is of Trajan Decius (249-51 AD), and the other of Tetricus II
(272 AD). Another major find was a rectangular table or sideboard carved from stone and ornamented with chip-carved decoration on front and sides.
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
excavated and put on public display in the village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
of Rockbourne
Rockbourne
Rockbourne is a village and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire, close to Fordingbridge.-Overview:Rockbourne is a village of thatch, brick and timber houses, next to a stream now known as Sweatfords Water. The village consists chiefly of one street almost half a mile long. The church is...
in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The villa was discovered in 1942 by the ferret
Ferret
The ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...
of a local farmer and excavated by A. T. Morley Hewitt over the next thirty years.
The main structure was a large residence surrounding a courtyard, including luxurious Roman mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
s and bath suites. There were also farm buildings and workshops since it sat at the centre of large farming estate. Its origins lie in the Iron Age and it was occupied until the 5th century. Much of the villa is on public display and there is a site museum, with excavated artefacts, tracing the villa's history.
Overview
Rockbourne Roman villa is located at West Park, near the village of RockbourneRockbourne
Rockbourne is a village and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire, close to Fordingbridge.-Overview:Rockbourne is a village of thatch, brick and timber houses, next to a stream now known as Sweatfords Water. The village consists chiefly of one street almost half a mile long. The church is...
in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
. It is 5 km north-west of the town of Fordingbridge
Fordingbridge
Fordingbridge is a town and civil parish with a population of 5,700 on the River Avon in the New Forest District of Hampshire, England, near to the Dorset and Wiltshire borders and on the edge of the New Forest. It is south west of London, and south of the city of Salisbury. Fordingbridge is a...
. The villa once stood in the centre of a large farming estate, and is the largest known villa in the area. The villa was discovered in 1942 by a farmer digging out a ferret, and finding quantities of oyster shells and subsequently a mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
floor. Recognising the significance of the finds, the land was bought by A. T. Morley Hewitt who conducted excavations every summer from 1956 to 1978 Early excavators sometimes failed to excavate adequately or make proper records of the finds, which hampered attempts to understand the chronology of the site. Many animal bones and pottery fragments were also discarded during this period. Hampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council is the county council that governs the majority of the county of Hampshire in England. It provides the upper tier of local government, below which are district councils, and town and parish councils...
bought the site in 1979, and it was the limited re-excavations led by I. P. Horsey during the period 1978-82 which allowed a better understanding of the many changes to the villa over its 400 year history of occupation.
The villa may have formed a pair with a villa discovered at Downton 8 km to the northeast. Rockbourne and Downton may well have controlled extensive pasture land on their respective sides of the River Avon. Excavations approximately 1.5 km to the southeast of Rockbourne at Allen's Farm show that pottery was being produced in kilns during the late 3rd century. Such a close proximity to the villa at Rockbourne suggests that the pottery kilns may have been part of the villa estate.
History of the Villa
1st century
Originally the site was occupied by a timber roundhouseRoundhouse (dwelling)
The roundhouse is a type of house with a circular plan, originally built in western Europe before the Roman occupation using walls made either of stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels and a conical thatched roof. Roundhouses ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m...
with a chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
floor, of a type common in the Late Iron Age
British Iron Age
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron-Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, and which had an independent Iron Age culture of...
. In the 1st century this was replaced by a small rectangular stone house. Adjacent to it, and set well apart, at a right angle
Right angle
In geometry and trigonometry, a right angle is an angle that bisects the angle formed by two halves of a straight line. More precisely, if a ray is placed so that its endpoint is on a line and the adjacent angles are equal, then they are right angles...
, a work-hall was built.
2nd century
Around 150 the small house was demolished for a larger building. The new house was a larger row-house consisting of an important middle room with smaller rooms to the north and south of it. The house was aligned with the older work-hall, but kept apart from it. This was the beginning of the west wing. Later in the century a small bath suiteThermae
In ancient Rome, thermae and balnea were facilities for bathing...
was added to this west house. The most unusal feature of this west bath suite is that the pilae
Pilae Stacks
Pilae Stacks are stacks of pilae tiles, square thin tiles, that were used in Roman times as an element of the underfloor heating system, common in Roman bathhouses, called the hypocaust. The concept of the Pilae stacks is that the floor is constructed at an elevated position, allowing air to freely...
in the underfloor hypocaust
Hypocaust
A hypocaust was an ancient Roman system of underfloor heating, used to heat houses with hot air. The word derives from the Ancient Greek hypo meaning "under" and caust-, meaning "burnt"...
heating system were built from curved roof tiles (imbrices
Imbrex and tegula
The imbrex and tegula were overlapping roof tiles used in ancient Greek and Roman architecture as a waterproof and durable roof covering. They were made predominantly of fired clay, but also sometimes of marble, bronze or gilt...
) rather than from stacks of bricks.
3rd century
More ranges and buildings were added during the 3rd century creating a courtyard villa. Around 200, a new north wing was built attached to the west wing There may have been a small bath suite in the north wing, but later in the century, a separate, detached, bath house was built on the north wing. The best preserved mosaicMosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
floors are in the north wing. The mosaics all have geometric patterns, although none are of especially fine workmanship, and none have figure decoration. At some stage (and the dating is uncertain) the south wing was established, this included an aisled building and a range of work buildings. In 1967 a hoard
Hoard
In archaeology, a hoard is a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground. This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards may be uncovered by...
of 7717 bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
coins was found buried in a pottery jar on the site. The hoard must have been buried around 295, and perhaps suggests that troubled times struck the villa, but the reason why it was never recovered is unknown.
4th century
By the 4th century the villa was now a large courtyard villa enclosed on at least three sides. In total there was probably around 40 rooms in use. The house on the north wing was rebuilt in the 4th century. The bath house on the north wing was also remodelled and then apparently taken out of use, and the bath suite in the west house was enlarged and refurbished.Decline
By the early 5th century there was a rapid decline in the villa's fortunes. Some of the mosaics were broken up and rudimentary hearthHearth
In common historic and modern usage, a hearth is a brick- or stone-lined fireplace or oven often used for cooking and/or heating. For centuries, the hearth was considered an integral part of a home, often its central or most important feature...
s were placed on the floors. Posthole
Posthole
In archaeology a posthole is a cut feature used to hold a surface timber or stone. They are usually much deeper than they are wide although truncation may not make this apparent....
s from this period may indicate an attempt to prop up the roofs. Troubled times may also be indicated by the hoard, dating from 394-5, of 16 late Roman gold solidi
Solidus (coin)
The solidus was originally a gold coin issued by the Romans, and a weight measure for gold more generally, corresponding to 4.5 grams.-Roman and Byzantine coinage:...
coins found just 3 km from the site in 1986. The only adult burials found on the site are two which date from the post-Roman period
Sub-Roman Britain
Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...
, one of which seems to have been an individual killed by the collapse of the tiled roof.
The site today
The excavations which took place from 1956 to 1976 were open to visitors, but the site has since been placed in the care of Hampshire County CouncilHampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council is the county council that governs the majority of the county of Hampshire in England. It provides the upper tier of local government, below which are district councils, and town and parish councils...
, who have backfilled much of the site to prevent deterioration. Many of the finds from the excavations are on view at the on-site museum, with the remainder stored in Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
. The finds range from New Forest
New Forest
The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire....
pottery to pieces of animal bone. Of particular interest are two much-damaged Roman milestones
Millarium
The Milliarium Aureum was a monument, probably of gilded bronze, erected by the Emperor Caesar Augustus near the temple of Saturn in the central Forum of Ancient Rome. All roads were considered to begin from this monument and all distances in the Roman Empire were measured relative to that point...
found re-used in the building fabric of the villa. One is of Trajan Decius (249-51 AD), and the other of Tetricus II
Tetricus II
Caius Pius Esuvius Tetricus was the son of Tetricus I, Emperor of the Gallic Empire ....
(272 AD). Another major find was a rectangular table or sideboard carved from stone and ornamented with chip-carved decoration on front and sides.
Further reading
- Bruce Eagles, Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of EnglandRoyal Commission on the Historical Monuments of EnglandThe Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England was the body formerly responsible for documenting the records of English historical monuments. It was merged with English Heritage on 1 April 1999....
, (1983), West Park Roman villa, Rockbourne, Hampshire, Archaeological Journal 140, 129-50 - David Allen, (1989), Rockbourne Roman Villa: Guide. Hampshire County Council. ISBN 1870651375
External links
- Rockbourne Roman Villa information from Hampshire County CouncilHampshire County CouncilHampshire County Council is the county council that governs the majority of the county of Hampshire in England. It provides the upper tier of local government, below which are district councils, and town and parish councils...