More information : (SU 71730532) Roman Villa (GS) (Remains of) (1)
The remains, apparently of a large villa, fall in the grounds of a house on the N side of Langstone Avenue. Much building material was moved when the house was built in 1909 and a garden on the east and a meadow (Longmead) on the north have also yielded tesserae and tiles. Mr Own Adams, the owner, has dug the site and part of a room with tiled floor and cement quadrant-skirting round the walls is recorded up to 1923. A long drain ran from this room and other walls were found 56 feet away and foundations of a wall on the north boundary of the garden. Up to 1927 Mr Owen Adams had cleared part of the sudatorium of the baths with an apse, 16' x 10' heated by hypocaust. Plans and detailed notes of the finds are in the Haverfield Library. Finds include worn coins of Pius Tetricus and some Constantinian Samian ware of the Domitian-Trajan period, early T-shaped fibula and another enamelled and sandal shaped, fragments of window-glass and other glass - some 2nd century. Coarse pottery, mostly 2nd and 3rd century, and including fragments of a very coarse, thick grey-black ware with regular finger depressions inside; coloured plaster, tesserae and finally a tile inscribed `.....ORIS' (2) and (3). Remains at SU 71720534 have gradually become completely covered since 1936. At SU 71720532 is a shallow depression from which the tiles were removed c1936. At SU 71730532 is a shallow tiled depression (4). Similar information (5). (2-5)
In November 1967, extensive trial trenching was carried out, on behalf of the M of PB & W, in the garden of "Spes Bone", Langstone Avenue, N of the baths excavated 1924-27 by the late owner, Mr Owen-Adams, before the site was sold for redevelopment. Evidence of two periods of Roman buildings were discovered.
Period One: a building aligned N-S across the W half of the site, probably of wood, constructed on a trench-built foundation of dry flints and rammed chalk in the L 1st c. Demolished before the construction of the second buildings.
Period Two: In E 3rd c two masonry buildings with an alley between aligned N-S. The easterly consisted of a courtyard surrounded by a corridor with a suite of baths to the S. The building extended E and N beyond the limits of the site. W of the alley, two walls of similar construction were found and can be traced as cropmarks across the adjacent site in summer months. (6)
SU 71900535. Ro wall plaster, tesserae and mortar fragments found in the roots of a tree blown down 200 yards E of the villa site, October 1962. (7)
SU 7185037. Large quantity of RB coarse and fine ware and some Samian found during building operations by T H Midgeley, August 1964. (8)
The remains of the bath house and hypocaust are still visible in the garden except where recently covered in by a drive alongside the house. They are much overgrown and are deteriorating rapidly. There is nothing to be seen of the 1967 excavations which were filled in afterwards. The ground is waste and not yet developed. Finds from this site are in Portsmouth City Museum and include an AE stater, uninscribed Durotrigan, type C, Evans GS-6, Mach 318 and an AE Gallo-Belgic E-Morini Evans B8, Acc Reg No 128/47. Ro brick and tile fragments were seen in the roots of several trees blown down along the edge of a wood over a distance of 22.0m, centred at SU 71900536. Mr Midgeley could not be traced. He was not the builder nor an owner of the new house in the garden of which the siting falls. (9)
HA 44 The plans and notes of the villa are in the Haverfield Library, Oxford. (10)
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