More information : (Name SP 41041953) Roman Villa (R) (Site of) (1)
A villa (SP 4097 1948) of small corridor house type, situated in the centre of the north side of a ditched enclosure (centred SP 40971944) (2) straddling the Charlbury-Woodstock Road at Callow Hill, (see air photographs (3) and plan (4)). The villa has never been excavated and probably little of it had survived ploughing (2). Thomas (4) suggests that there was a group of buildings forming three sides of a square, facing east, with a well in the centre. The modern road (see Plan (4)) rises and falls sharply where it crosses the area of the buildings. Hereabouts in 1916 a mosaic floor, foundations and wall plaster were discovered during road work. Excavation on the enclosure ditch by Thomas, on behalf of the Oxford University Archaeological Society in 1950, showed the ditch to have been of defensive proportions, 12 ft wide x 7 ft deep, flat bottomed, with almost vertical sides and a 12 ft wide causewayed entrance on its east side with traces of an original gate. Pottery found suggested that the ditch was constructed in the last quarter of the 1st C. A.D and continued in use until the 4th C. Thomas mentions a number of other ditches and enclosures in the vicinity and concludes that this may have been the site of a flourishing farmstead. (2-4)
The site of the villa is clearly indicated both by APs and the considerable scatter of RB occupation debris within the ploughed fields. No extant ground features remain except the shallow mound shown by Thomas as the site of the building.
Sited from recent OS APs to SP 40981948. (5)
Belgic and Romano-British sherds from Mr N Thomas's excavations at Stonesfield were presented to the Ashmolean Museum in 1957. (6)
SP 410194: Callow Hill Roman villa and earthworks, scheduled. (7)
SP 408180 (incorrect): Cropmark of a large enclosures visible on air photographs (b). The buildings of a Roman villa inside the enclosure were known as early as the 17th century. (8)
OX 53 Cropmarks of a rectangular enclosure containing a considerable building at the west end, a smaller one in the middle of the north side and a large building outside the south-east corner. Surface finds of Roman brick, flue tiles and pottery. (9)
Recent cropmark photography (10a) shows the cropmarks of this site. An apparent annexe is attached to the southeast of the main enclosure and extends to one of the dykes of SP 41 NW 5. The substantial building and that to the southeast, refered to by authority (9), are not visible. Many of the apparent gaps through the main ditch seem to have indications of the ditch continuing through them, although the narrow ditch (extending along the outside of the north side) seems to join the main ditch by one of these gaps, possibly indicating a genuine entrance. (10) |