Chedworth Roman Villa is a Roman villa

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...

 located at Chedworth

Chedworth

Chedworth is a village in Gloucestershire, in the Cotswolds and best known as the location of Chedworth Roman Villa, administered since 1924 by the National Trust.- Roman villa :...

, Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

, 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...

. It is one of the largest Roman villas in Britain.

Siting

Among the many villas in this area , it is unusual in that it faces east and stands in a sheltered, but shady, position overlooking the River Coln

River Coln

The River Coln is a river in Gloucestershire, England. It rises at Brockhampton to the east of Cheltenham, and flows in a south/south-easterly direction through the Cotswold Hills via Andoversford, Withington, Fossbridge, Bibury, Coln St Aldwyns and Fairford...

. The apsidal

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

 shrine with a spring-fed pool in the northwest angle of the villa complex may have dictated the siting, for in it was found a crudely carved figure of Mars Lenus

Mars (mythology)

Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...

, incised [L]en(o) M[arti] (Adams 2003).

Phases

The ranges of rooms are arranged around a courtyard, with a luxuriously heated and furnished west wing, a south wing where the discovery of numerous coins has suggested a use for issuing payments (Adams 2003); the modestly equipped west and south wings do not open directly into the peristyle and seem to have been habitations of lower status. The phases of building range from the early 2nd century to the 4th century, with the early 4th century construction transforming an unpretentious workaday structure into an elite dwelling, completely enclosing the courtyard, which offered increased security, and adding porticos round the perimeter to create a peristyle

Peristyle

In Hellenistic Greek and Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building surrounding a court that may contain an internal garden. Tetrastoon is another name for this feature...

. A triclinium

Triclinium

A triclinium is a formal dining room in a Roman building. The word is adopted from the Greek τρικλίνιον, triklinion, from τρι-, tri-, "three", and κλίνη, klinē, a sort of "couch" or rather chaise longue...

 or dining room with a fine mosaic floor was also added. Unusually, a feature of the 4th-century building project was a dry-heat sauna

Laconicum

Laconicum , the dry sweating room of the Roman thermae, contiguous to the caldarium or hot room. The name was given to it as being the only form of warm bath that the Spartans admitted...

 that was added to the complex, which already was provided with the usual Roman bath. The floors of at least eleven rooms were decorated with fine 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, of which five, of varying quality, remain. Later structural changes punched holes in the mosaics.

Temple

Foundations of a Romano-Celtic temple of mid-2nd century date have been excavated about 800 meters south-east of the villa complex, on a hillside near the Coln River. The temple was square in plan, surrounded by a portico which featured stone capitals to its pillars, a luxurious, thoroughly Romanized feature. An Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

 votive pit producing human remains and the bones of a red deer show that the site had been sacred since pre-Roman times. A stone relief of a hunter with a dog and stag was one of the most notable finds from the site.

Discovery and display

The villa was accidentally discovered in 1864 by a gamekeeper digging for a ferret in a wooded valley in the Cotswolds

Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

. The former owner, Lord Eldon

Earl of Eldon

Earl of Eldon, in the County Palatine of Durham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1821 for the lawyer and politician John Scott, 1st Baron Scott, Lord Chancellor from 1801 to 1806 and from 1807 to 1827...

, built a small picturesque museum near the site to house recovered objects. It has been administered since 1924 by the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

.

External links

• Chedworth Roman Villa information at the National Trust
• Chedworth Roman Villa Information and photos of Chedworth Roman Villa
• Roman Villa - Cotswold page
• Heritage Trail page