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The Roman Villa at Woodchester

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Giles Clarke,
John D. Shepherd and
Valerie Rigby
Giles Clarke
Affiliation:
Box House, nr. Stroud, Glos.
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Extract

Woodchester, a small village near Stroud in Gloucestershire, is famous for the Orpheus mosaic which underlies its former church-yard. This mosaic is the largest in Britain and appropriately enough is known as the great pavement. It is however only occasionally uncovered, and, indeed, has been seen on only three occasions since the war, in 1951, 1963 and 1973. In 1973 it was comprehensively studied by Dr David Smith, it was drawn by Mr David Neal, and a full photographic record was made by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments (PL. XIV). In that year it was visited by over 140,000 people during the seven weeks it was open, and plans were mooted, and indeed still are being mooted, to place it on permanent exhibition. So far these have been thwarted by a lack of money and by the fact that the former churchyard has only recently gone out of use.

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Britannia , Volume 13 , November 1982, pp. 197 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Giles Clarke 1982. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Smith, D. J., The Great Pavement and Roman Villa at Woodchester, Gloucestershire (Woodchester Roman Pavement Committee, 1973).Google Scholar

2 Neal, D. S., Roman Mosaics in Britain (Britannia Monograph Series 1, London 1981), 115–21, pl. 87Google Scholar.

3 For colour plates, see RCHM, Iron Age and Romano-British Monuments in the Gloucester Cotswolds (London, 1976), pls. 17 and 19–21.Google Scholar

4 A full-scale replica of the great pavement is now on exhibition in the Tabernacle, Wotton-under-Edge.

5 Lysons, Samuel, An Account of the Roman Antiquities discovered at Woodchester (London, 1797)Google Scholar, hereinafter cited as Lysons. For a biography of Lysons and the background to his excavation, see Fleming, L., Memoir and Select Letters of Samuel Lysons (Oxford, 1934).Google Scholar

6 I am grateful to Miss Catherine Johns for her help in locating these finds, the most notable of which are the marble statues and architectural fragments described below, pp. 207-211.

7 The 1973 excavations were sponsored by the specially formed Woodchester Villa Research Committee. The Chairman was the Rector of Woodchester, the Rev. John Cull, and the Treasurer was Mr D. G. Lewis of Lloyds Bank, Nailsworth. Permission to dig was granted by the landowners concerned: Captain and Mrs A. Villiers (the Priory garden and Park Field), Mrs E. B. Lamplough (the Lawn Field), and the Rev. John Cull (the Churchyard). The excavations were paid for out of grants from the Department of the Environment, Stroud Rural District Council, the Cotteswold Naturalists Field Club, the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Stroud Educational Foundation, Lloyds Bank Limited, and anonymous persons. Almost all the digging was done by local volunteers, mostly recruited from the upper forms of Marling School and Stroud Girls High School. Mr Leslie Poole carried out the surveying and Mr Dennis Woolls the mechanical excavation. The supervisors were Ros Bignell, David Critchley and Colin and Susanne Haselgrove. To all these individuals and institutions I am grateful.

8 For an interim note on the excavations, which gives incorrect dating, see Britannia v (1974), 451.

9 I am grateful to the Rev. John Cull, Professor S. S. Frere, Dr Richard Reece, Professor Jocelyn Toynbee, Dr Susan Walker and Professor J. J. Wilkes for commenting on this paper in draft. Mr Simon James kindly prepared the drawings.

10 See for example below p. 201 (Rooms 14 and 16).

11 cf. Lysons, 16-20.

12 According to Lysons, Room 1 was 48 ft. 10 in. (14-87 m) square (Lysons, pl. vi; Lysons, , Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae 11 (London, 1817), pl. xxiiGoogle Scholar, a). In 1973 the limits of the room were only exposed in a few places, but measurements taken suggested it was 14.4 m (47 ft. 3 in.) square.

13 Lysons 1817, op. cit. (note 12), pl. xxii, a.

14 For the pavement, see further RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), pl. 17; Smith, op. cit. (note 1) and Neal, loc. cit. (note 2).

15 Measurement taken from Lysons, pl. vi.

16 ibid; Lysons 1817, op. cit. (note 12), pl. xxii.

17 Lysons, 5.

18 cf. RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), pl. 20.

19 Lysons, pl. xxiii.

20 Lysons, 5.

21 Lysons, 6.

22 Letter to Sir Joseph Banks dated 2 January 1794 (Letters of Sir Joseph Banks (Dawson Turner Copies), vol. 9, 2-3).

23 Lysons, pls. xi (north arm) and xvi, fig. 2 (east arm); RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), pl. 23.

24 Lysons, pl. xi.

25 Lysons 1817, op. cit. (note 12), pl. xxii, 11 and 0.

26 Lysons, pls. xiii (Room 3), xiv (Room 6), and xii (Rooms 5 and 8); RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), pls. 18 and 22.

27 Lysons, 6.

28 Lysons, 9, pl. vi, p.

29 See below, Rooms 22 and 31.

30 Lysons, 14.

31 Lysons, pl. xxiv, figs. 3-6.

32 Rooms 10, 12, 13, 15, 18 and 19: Lysons, pls. xix, xv, xvi (fig. 1), xvii, xviii and xxii (fig. 1); RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), pls. 19, 22 and 23. The mosaics in Rooms 10, 12, and 13 were uncovered in 1954 (O'Neill, H. E., ‘Woodchester Roman Villa’, Trans. Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc. lxxiv (1955), 172–5)Google Scholar.

33 Rooms 9, 10, 12 and 18.

34 Lysons, 14, pl. xxiv, figs. 1 and 2.

35 Lysons, 6-8.

36 Lysons, pls. xix and xx, fig. 1.

37 Lysons, 9-11 and pl. vi.

38 Lysons, 9, pl. xxx.

39 See below, pp. 207-211 and FIG. 4.

40 Lysons, II, pl. xxviii, fig. 3.

41 Lysons, 10, pl. xl, fig. 2.

42 Lysons, 10, pl. xxix, figs. 1-3.

43 Lysons, 11.

44 For details, see below, pp. 207-8.

45 See especially the measurements given on Lysons, pl. vi.

46 cf. Gentry, A., Roman Military Stone-built Granaries in Britain (BAR 32, 1976)Google Scholar, passim, but esp. figs. 11 (Hardknott) and 13 (Old Church), cf. also Morris, P., Agricultural Buildings in Roman Britain (BAR 70, 1979), 32-4, 114-5, fig. 29.Google Scholar

47 Lysons, 13.

48 Lysons, 12, pl. xxix, figs. 8 and 9.

49 Lysons, 12, pl. xxii, figs. 6-8.

50 Richmond, I. A., Roman Britain (London, 1963), 91Google Scholar; ‘Plans of Roman Villas in Britain’ in Rivet, A. L. F. (ed.), The Roman Villa in Britain (London, 1969), 49–70, p. 68Google Scholar; cf. also Smith, J. T., ‘Romano-British Aisled Houses’, Arch. Journ. cxx (1963), 1–30, and Morris, op. cit. (note 46), 55-56Google Scholar.

51 Lysons, 11, pl. xxviii, figs. 1-5 (western building), and 12-13, pls. xxv-xxvii and xxxviii, figs. 7-9 (eastern building).

52 Lysons, 11, pls. xxvii (Cupid and Psyche) and xxix, figs. 5 and 6 (column-fragments).

53 Lysons, pl. xxviii, fig. 8.

54 Lysons, 12, pl. xxviii, fig. 7.

55 Lysons, 12.

56 Applebaum, S., ‘Roman Britain’ in Finberg, H. P. R. (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales I pt. 11 (Cambridge, 1972), 1–277, pp. 165–7Google Scholar.

57 Lysons, 12, pl. xxxvi, fig. 3.

58 Lysons, 12-13, 16, pls. xxv-xxvii.

59 See for example Johnston, D. E., ‘Villas of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight’, Todd, M (ed.), Studies in the Romano-British Villa (Leicester, 1978), 71–92, pp. 78-82Google Scholar; and Richmond 1969, op. cit. (note 50), fig. 2.6, b, d and f.

60 Morris, op. cit. (note 46), 143.

61 Applebaum, loc. cit. (note 56).

62 For details, see below, APPENDIX I. The pottery, together with the other finds from the 1973 excavations, has been deposited in Stroud Museum.

63 See above, pp. 200 and 202; and Lysons, 9, pl. xxxi, figs. 4-7.

64 Smith, op. cit. (note 1), 1.

65 This conclusion is based on lists in Rainey, A., Mosaics in Roman Britain (Newton Abbot, 1973)Google Scholar.

66 D. J. Smith, ‘Three Fourth-Century Schools of Mosaic in Roman Britain’ in La Mosaique Gréco-Romaine (Centre Nat. Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1965), 95-116, pp. 105-11; ‘The Mosaic Pavements’ in Rivet 1969, op. cit. (note 50), 71-125, pp. 96-102; op. cit. (note 1).

67 Smith, op. cit. (note 1), 7.

68 Neal, op. cit. (note 2), 122.

69 See the account of the lifting in Trans. Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc. lxx (1952), 51–2Google Scholar.

70 Gracie, H. S., ‘Frocester Court Roman Villa, First Report’, Trans. Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc. lxxxix (1970), 15–86, pp. 24-6; Smith, ibid., 73-6Google Scholar.

71 In Britain these features occur only on the great pavement and on certain Petuarian school mosaics, notably that in Room 1 at Brantingham, dated to after c. 330. See J. Liversidge et al., ‘Brantingham Roman Villa: Discoveries in 1962’, Britannia iv (1973), 84-106: p. 86 (dating) and 95-9 (stylistic comparisons).

72 Star-of-eight lozenges on the Barton Farm mosaic and, in a simpler form, on the great pavement, are paralleled on Durobrivan school mosaics at Great Casterton (post-350) and Denton (post-370): Smith 1969, op. cit. (note 66), 107-8; but see Neal, loc. cit. (note 68).

73 Cupids with floating stoles at Chedworth and Cirencester are paralleled at Low Ham (post-330): Smith 1969, op. cit. (note 66), 101-2.

74 Wightman, E. M., Roman Trier and the Treveri (London, 1970), 107–8Google Scholar; Smith 1969, op. cit. (note 66), pl. 3.22.

75 Parlasca in Smith 1965, op. cit. (note 66), 115; Neal, op. cit. (note 2), 19.

76 I am grateful to Miss Catherine Johns and Dr Susan Walker for locating these statues in the British Museum and for commenting on them.

77 Gnoli, R., Marmora Romana (Rome, 1971), fig. 228Google Scholar.

78 For Rodmarton see RCHM op. cit. (note 3), 98-9, and references there cited. For Lysons's connection with Rodmarton, see Fleming, op. cit. (note 5).

79 Meates, G. W., The Roman Villa at Lullingstone, Kent, I, The Site (Kent Arch. Soc, 1979), 36Google Scholar; Toynbee, J. M. C., Art in Britain under the Romans (Oxford, 1964), 59–63, pls. x and xiGoogle Scholar; J. Liversidge, ‘Furniture and Interior Decoration’ in Rivet, op. cit. (note 50), 127-72, p. 155.

80 Toynbee, op. cit. (note 79), 69; ‘Roman Sculpture in Gloucestershire’ in McGrath, P. and Cannon, J. (eds.), Essays in Bristol and Gloucestershire History (Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc, 1976), 62-100, p. 79.Google Scholar

81 Toynbee in Cunliffe, B., Excavations at Fishbourne 1961-1969 (2 vols., Research Reports Soc. Antiq. London 36 and 37, 1971), 11, 156-7.Google Scholar

82 Britannia v (1974), 381-3.Google Scholar

83 To be published by Dr Susan Walker. For the site see Current Archaeology 27 (1971), 106-09.

84 Boon, G. C., Silchester, the Roman Town of Calleva (Newton Abbot, 1974), 334 and passim.Google Scholar

85 RCHM, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the City of York, I, Eburacum (London 1960), 116–35, nos. 60, 62 and 119Google Scholar.

86 Toynbee, , op. cit. (note 79), passim.Google Scholar

87 Toynbee 1976, op. cit. (note 80), 79.

88 Lysons, 9.

89 Lysons, pl. xxx.

90 These fragments were located by Miss Catherine Johns and identified by Dr Susan Walker and Mr Martin Owen.

91 Information from Mr Martin Owen.

92 cf. Liversidge, op. cit. (note 79), 153.

93 Cunliffe, op. cit. (note 81), 1, 144-55;11, 16-37. I am grateful to Mr D. J. Rudkin, Curator of the Fishbourne Museum, for allowing me to inspect the Fishbourne material and permitting the loan of a few pieces.

94 cf. VCH Sussex III, 20-3.Google Scholar

95 cf. Wilson, D. R., North Leigh Roman Villa (London, HMSO 1980), passim.Google Scholar

96 RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), 52-3; Goodburn, R., The Roman Villa, Chedworth (National Trust, 1972), 28Google Scholar.

97 Observations made at Fishbourne.

98 Observations made at Fishbourne.

99 Arch. News Letter 1 (March, 1949), 15.Google Scholar

100 Beavis, J., ‘The Use of Purbeck Marble in Roman Britain’, Procs. Dorset Nat. Hist. Arch. Soc. xcii (1970), 181–204Google Scholar.

101 Frere, S., Britannia (2nd ed., London 1974), 233-9, fig. 1.Google Scholar

102 Information from Miss Valerie Rigby.

103 RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), 70-3; Britannia xi (1980), 385, and references there given.Google Scholar

104 Antiq. Journ. lvii (1977), 319-21Google Scholar; lviii (1978), 370-1.

105 Toynbee, op. cit. (note 80), 92-4.

106 Ellison, A., ‘Natives, Romans and Christians on West Hill, Uley’, in Rodwell, W. (ed.), Temples, Churches and Religion in Roman Britain (BAR 77, 1980), 305-28.Google Scholar

107 RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), 81-4. For the most recent excavations at Minchinhampton, see Trans. Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc. xcvi (1978), 70-3.

108 RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), xxvii and xxviii, Clifford, E. M., Bagendon: a Belgic Oppidum (Cambridge, 1961), 157Google Scholar.

109 Finds summarized RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), 98. The pottery is now in the Stroud Museum, and I am grateful to Mr Lionel Walrond for making it available, and to Miss Valerie Rigby for commenting on it.

110 cf. RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), 98.

111 Lysons, 5-6, pls. v, b and vi, e.

112 Lysons, 6, pl. v, a.

113 Observation by the Rev. J. Cull.

114 RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), 81.

115 The find was reported by St Clair Baddeley in the Wilts, and Glos. Standard for 7 April 1934. It is recorded as coming from Mr Edward Wise's garden. Mr Wise lived at Elmsleigh, which is now owned by Mr E. W. Gegg. The cist and glass fragments were deposited in the Stroud Museum, where the curator, Mr Lionel Walrond, kindly brought them to my attention and confirmed the find-spot.

116 For details, see below, APPENDIX 2.

117 I am grateful to Major David Metcalfe, whose family used to own the Priory, for providing me with information about the conduit.

118 Lysons, 18.

119 Collingwood, R. G. and Richmond, I.. The Archaeology of Roman Britain (London, 1969), 124Google Scholar. For a similar conduit used in a latrine at Chedworth, see Goodburn, op. cit. (note 96), pl. 42.

120 Frere, op. cit. (note 101), 316. For aqueducts elsewhere in Britain, see ibid., 279-80 and 321; Collingwood and Richmond, op. cit. (note 119), 123-4; and Thompson, F. H., ‘The Roman Aqueduct at Lincoln’, Arch. Journ. cxi (1954), 106–28Google Scholar.

121 Information from Miss Valerie Rigby; see also APPENDIX I. The pottery included a limited amount of samian, upon which Miss Catherine Johns has kindly reported. The earliest sherds belong to the middle of the second century, but mostly they are later than this, with several which must be dated to the very end of the century. Miss Johns's report is with the finds in Stroud Museum.

122 Lysons, 16, pl. xxxiv, 7. For the dating of Hod Hill brooches see Radford, C. A. R. in J. P. Bushe-Fox, Third Report on the Excavations of the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent (Research Reports Soc. Antiq. London 10, 1932), 76-93, pp. 76-7.Google Scholar

123 cf. Lysons, 9.

124 cf. Richmond 1969, op. cit. (note 50), 50, figs. 2.1 (Park Street 1, Lockleys 1 and Engleton) and 2.2 (Hambledon); cf. also Agache, R., La Somme Pre-Romaine et Romaine (Soc. Ant. Picardie, 1978), fig. 11, and Goodburn, op. cit. (note 96), fig. 3 (Chedworth).Google Scholar

125 Richmond 1969, op. cit. (note 50), fig. 2.3, j and k. See above p. 135 ff.

126 R. Goodburn, ‘Winterton: Some Villa Problems’ in Todd, op. cit. (note 59), 93-101, esp. fig. 31.

127 Smith, op. cit. (note 1), 7.

128 VCH Sussex III, 20.

129 Goodburn, op. cit. (note 96), 15.

130 Cunliffe, op. cit. (note 81), 1, 87.

131 Wightman, op. cit. (note 74), fig. 16.

132 Payne, G., ‘The Roman Villa at Darenth’, Arch. Cant, xxii (1897), 49–84Google Scholar.

133 cf. D. J. Smith, ‘Regional Aspects of the Winged Corridor Villa in Britain’, in Todd, op. cit. (note 59), 117-48, pp. 126-8; Johnston, op. cit. (note 59), 78-82.

134 VCH Hants 1, 313; I. M. Stead, Excavations at Winterton Roman Villa (DoE Reports 9, London 1976).

135 Richmond 1969, op. cit. (note 50), fig. 2.3, a.

136 Britannia xii (1981), 337, fig. 9.Google Scholar

137 R. E. M., and Wheeler, T. V., Report on the Excavations of the Prehistoric, Roman and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire (Research Reports Soc. Antiq. London 9, 1932), pl. li.Google Scholar

138 Smith, op. cit. (note 133), 120.

139 Richmond 1969, op. cit. (note 50), fig. 2.2, b and c.

140 Percival, J., The Roman Villa (London, 1976), 127, fig. 41Google Scholar.

141 cf. Agache, op. cit. (note 124), figs. 14-32; and Leday, A., Rural Settlement in Central Gaul in the Roman Period (BAR International Series 73, 1980), pls. xv and xxvi.Google Scholar

142 ibid, passim. Often there is a winged-corridor house in a lateral position in Gallic villas (Smith, op. cit. (note 133), note 26).

143 Agache, op. cit. (note 124), fig. 13.

144 Wightman, op. cit. (note 74), fig. 20; Percival, op. cit. (note 140), 175.

145 J. T. Smith (‘Villas as a Key to Social Structure’, in Todd, op. cit. (note 59), 149-85) has recently argued that some villas were in multiple occupation. This hypothesis is unlikely to apply to Woodchester, for there is no evidence that different parts of the villa duplicated each other in function. There may however have been several self-contained suites, such as would be expected in any large house.

146 See above, p. 213.

147 Compare the ‘audience-chamber’ at Fishbourne (Cunliffe, op. cit. (note 81), 1, fig. 23) and the central room at Konz (Wightman, op. cit. (note 74), fig. 19).

148 For cross-bow brooches and belt-fittings, see Clarke, G., The Roman Cemetery at Lankhills (Winchester Studies 3, ii, Oxford 1979), esp. 262-3 and 289-91.Google Scholar

149 Frere, op. cit. (note 101), 240-2.

160 The evidence includes inscriptions from Bath and Cirencester (RIB, 110, 140 and 149) and the statue of Lenus Mars at Chedworth (Toynbee, op. cit. (note 80), 81). See also the discussion of the Lyppiatt altar by Green, M., Trans. Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc. xcix (1981), 109 ffGoogle Scholar.

151 As suggested in Cunliffe, op. cit. (note 81), 1, 153.

152 For the Fishbourne Dykes, see id., 14-36.

150 Wilson, op. cit. (note 95), 7.

164 The evidence of this includes the Bodvoc coins with Roman lettering and the statement in Dio that part of Dobunni surrendered to Plautius (Frere, op. cit. (note 101), 79-80). Wacher, J., The Coming of Rome (London, 1979). 74Google Scholar, has suggested that Bodvoc's capital was at Minchinhampton.

155 I am grateful to Miss Valerie Rigby for identifying this pottery. It includes some shell-gritted sherds and the bowl, FIG. 9, No. 17.

156 Hawkes, S. C. and Dunning, G. C., ‘Soldiers and Settlers in Britain, Fourth to Fifth Century’, Med. Arch. v (1961), 1–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pp. 59-60; see also Clarke, op. cit. (note 148), 276-7.

157 cf. ibid, 276-7 and 286-7.

158 For this, see above, p. 202.

159 See above, pp. 200 and 201.

160 Lysons, 20.

161 cf. RCHM, op. cit. (note 3), pl. 20.

162 VCH Glos. xi, 302.

163 Lysons, pl. v.

164 VCH Glos. xi, 297.

165 ibid., 294-6; Watson, C. E., ‘The Minchinhampton Customal and its Place in the Story of the Manor’, Trans. Bristol Glos. Arch. Soc. liv (1932), 203–384Google Scholar.

166 See above, p. 215.

167 R. Morris and J. Roxan, ‘Churches on Roman Buildings’, in Rodwell, op. cit. (note 106), 175-209, p. 185; Smith, A. H., English Place-Name Elements, Part I (English Place-Name Soc., vol. xxv, 1956), 85–7Google Scholar.

168 Morris, J., The Age of Arthur (London, 1973), 100Google Scholar; Applebaum, op. cit. (note 56), 24.

169 cf. VCH Glos. XI, 101.

170 Meates, op. cit. (note 79), 23; Toynbee, J. M. C., ‘Pagan motifs and practices in Christian art and ritual in Roman Britain’, in Barley, M. W. and Hanson, R. P. (eds.), Christianity in Britain, 300-700 (Leicester, 1968), 177–92, p. 186Google Scholar.

171 Morris and Roxan, op. cit. (note 167), 188-9.

172 Wacher, J. S. and McWhirr, A. D., The Early Roman Occupation at Cirencester (Gloucester, 1982)Google Scholar.

173 Isings, C., Roman Glass from Dated Finds (Groningen, 1957), 63, form 50Google Scholar.

174 Espérandieu, É., Recueil géneral des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule Romaine viii (Paris, 1922)Google Scholar.