| Summary : A Roman winged corridor villa constructed on the site of a palisaded Iron Age settlement. The Roman complex includes the principal residential building, two bath blocks, domestic buildings, outhouses, wells and stock enclosures. Roman finds include pottery and coins which date the site to the beginning of the 3rd century. It is the only known example of its type in West Yorkshire. Other finds from the site date to the Mesolithic to Bronze Age. In the Saxon period, building material from the villa was used to construct 4 platforms upon which timber buildings were constructed. Mid Saxon pottery was associated with these. A single inhumation and cremation vessel were found. Scheduled.The Iron Age/Roman complex of enclosures underlying the villa and extending to the east, along with field boundaries and other associated features, have been recorded from air photographs and described separately in record SE 44 SW 72. |
More information : (SE 40274453) Roman Villa (R) (site of) (NAT). (1)
The Roman Villa site at Dalton Parlours was excavated in 1855 by F Carroll. Remains of buildings were found, two with hypocausts, and the 'Medusa' mosiac pavement which was removed to York Museum. Skeletons of two adults and a child were found along with tiles, tesserae, coarse pottery, glass, querns and coins of the third and fourth centuries.
A recent (1977) rescue excavation of the site was carried out by the archaeological unit of the Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, who excavated a total of 3 1/2 acres of the site. An Iron Age palisaded enclosure was revealed cut through by the ditches of the Roman Villa. Four curved gullies, forming a circle, broken by four entrances, one entrance facing a gap in the palisaded enclosure, were found and thought to be part of a timbered structure. A second larger circle, 17m in diameter, had two or three entrances but was damaged by the later Roman buildings. The developing Iron Age farmstead produced a spread of subsidiary enclosures, some containing circular huts, extending beyond the excavated area. Quantities of sherds of hand made, beadrimmed jars were found in association with the Iron Age farmstead. The Roman occupation of the site began in the second century AD but extant remains of the villa date mainly from the third and fourth centuries. The best preserved buildings contained two rooms heated by an under floor hypocaust system with a scattering of painted plaster fragments over the floors. From a pit in the villa a bronze candelabrum, ornamented with dolphins, was recovered. Coins found on the site date from 270-355 AD.
After the fourth century the villa fell into ruin; debris from one building covered a grave of a woman buried with a seventh century annular bronze brooch. The Saxons re-used Roman building blocks to construct three platforms, over a filled in Roman ditch, upon which timbered structures were built. A fourth building, the largest, was 17m long and had a rectangular hollow of rubble constructed as its foundation. Sherds of Middle Saxon pottery were found with these. Scatterings of flints found indicate an earlier (Mesolithic-Bronze Age) occupation of the site. (2-4)
The report of the excavation carried out by the WYMCC Arch Unit (1977) revealed Mesolithic to Bronze Age occupation of Dalton Parlours site prior to the Iron Age and Roman occupation. Finds included a microlith, leaf-shaped arrowheads, scrapers, 2 polished stone axes, barbed and tnged arrowheads and waste flakes. The Iron Age settlement of linked irregular single-ditched enclosures was shown by aerial survey to extend outside the excavation area to cover a total of circa 5 acres. The Roman villa complex contained a main dwelling house of winged corridor plan facing south. There was a hypocaust in the east wing whilst the apsidal-ended west wing had contained two mosaic floors. A detached bath-house produced much painted plaster from which a large ceiling panel has been reconstructed. Other structures included two substantial aisled buildings, one incorporating a suite of 5 heated rooms and a T-shaped corn-drier. A circular well, 17.8m. deep, yielded water-logged material with the remains of 6 wooden buckets and 4th century Crambeck pottery. During the Anglo-Saxon period destruction debris from the villa was used to level the Iron Age ditches. Sealed in this were fragments of an Anglo-Saxon cremation urn with incised chevron decoration. (5-8)
SE 403446. Dalton Parlours Roman villa. Scheduled. (9)
Area under crops - no trace. (10)
SE 403 446. Dalton Parlours Roman villa site, Collingham. Scheduled. (11)
SE 402 445. Collingham, near Wetherby: the final excavations showed that the buildings overlay a large Iron Age settlement and were disposed around two yards separated by a substantial wall. They were occupied in the 3rd and 4th centuries and comprised a winged-corridor house, a detached bath-house, a long aisled range with a bath-suite, two other long ranges and a small rectangular structure; all but one had hypocausts. Six sunken buildings containing either bee-hive querns in situ, heated channels or, in one case, a T-shaped oven, were probably used for cereal processing. A second well, stone-lined at the head, seemed contemporary with the 4th century well excavated previously. Dark Age features were limited to a single inhumation and a disturbed cremation urn. (12)
Additional references. (13-20)
Scheduled. (21) |