| Summary : The site of a Roman villa near Starveall Farm, Bishopstone. A tessellated pavement was uncovered during ploughing in 1880, but no record exists if subsequent investigation. Fragments of painted wall plaster, hypocaust tiles, potsherds and coins were also reported from the area in subsequent years. Trial trenching in the 1920s and 1930s relocated the site of the building. Aerial photography in 1969 revealed a series of ditched enclosures surrounding the area, and two areas were excavated in 1972. Three rooms and part of the yard of an intra-mural villa were found. Two of the rooms featured traces of mosaic floors, and one featured a channeled hypocaust. Building debris included much tile and wall plaster, plus mortared chalk and flint blocks. A rectangular building found by geophysical survey was confimed by small scale excavation. The pattern of ditches visible from the air indicates that the villa enclosure straddles the farm track and encloses a total area of 4.5 hectares. Iron Age sherds were also recovered during the excavations.The cropmark remains of a sub-rectangular enclosure at this location and further cropmarks of fragmented encolsures and ditches to the north-east were mapped from aerial photographs. |
More information : (SU 25928158) Roman tesselated Pavement found AD 1880
(NAT) (1)
"Bishopstone Downs ... Here in 1880 the Bishopstone schoolmaster
hearing that the plough had struck a tessellated pavement
proceeded to uncover it. Unfortunately no record seems to have
been kept of the work, but a faded photograph which I afterwards
obtained shows a pavement apparently about 6' square with a
rectangular pattern" Tessarae described (2).
..."The walls, judging from remaining fragments, were in part
covered with a white wash with bands of light red. Fragments of
hypocaust tiles and rough pottery occur on the site, which is
still under plough. Some coins were found here, but cannot now
be traced"(2).
"Small trial holes were made here and walls of chalk rock were
traced over a large area but no trace of the pavement described
as above (i.e in (2)) were (sic) found; the search could not be
continued because the land was about to be planted. The exact
site is 350' NNW of BM 674.8 and in the corner of a ploughed
field, W of the track Bishopstone to Russley Park"(3).
"At Bishopstone, in N Wilts, Mr A D Passmore has located the
position of the Roman house known to exist in that
neighbourhood. A tessellated pavement was partly uncovered but
was found to be in a dilapidated state and was covered up
again."(4). (2-4)
The low mounds at SU 25908155 are fairly modern animal pens.
The villa lies at the foot of the slope on which these stand at
SU 25858165 and has been accurately located by MOPBW
resistivity survey.
(SU 25928158) Building located by resistivity survey (see
illustration). (5-7)
SU 25928158. A slight ground swelling with a large amount of
small stones exposed, and a portion of red tile picked up
during field investigation, corroborates the DOE siting of a
suggested building. SU 25968153.(7) The foundations of a
rectangular building currently exposed are said by the farmer
to be a re-excavation of Passmore's pavement. It is 6.0m NE-SW
by 4.0m and the fragmentary mosaic rests on a system of heating
flues. There are indications that the building extends to the
south and west. Surveyed at 1:2500. Phillips modern animal pens
could not be located and his grid references may be in error.
At the OS 25" and 6" siting there is neither evidence of
pottery nor trace of a building, at it may be that it refers to
the DOE site 20.0m to the NE. This was possibly the area
excavated in 1880, but it seems certain that there is a complex
of buildings in the vicinity. (8)
SU25958152. Two areas were excavated in 1972. A - where a spread of tesserae had been found. Three rooms and part of a yard of intra-mural villa were found. Two of the rooms had traces of mosaics, one with a channelled hypocaust. Iron Age sherds were also found.
B - where a resistivity survey had indicated the presence of a building, a flint and chalk wall and a blocked entrance were found. (9)
This site was surveyed and mapped from aerial photographs as part of the RCHME: Lambourn Downs NMP. No trace of the actual villa could be found on aerial photographs, but traces of a sub-rectangular enclosure appearing to surround the site (Centred at SU 2592 8153) were mapped from aerial photographs. The enclosure has three sides visible, is defined by a single ditch and measures 75m across. There are traces of further ditches and pits in and around the enclosure, all probably associated with the villa site. Immediately to the south of this enclosure is a second rectilinear enclosure centred at SU 2557 8142 visible as an earthwork. It is not clear whether this is associated with the site or is part of a more recent land division.
However, when the site was photographed in July and August 2000 (during the course of the mapping project) further cropmark details of the site were seen in the field to the NE of the villa centred at SU 2598 8160. These appeared as traces of ditches, enclosures and dark patches.(12-14)
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