More information : [SU 75658046] Roman Villa [G.S.] (Site of) [T.I.] (1)
Roman villa: "The N.E. fragment of a house was excavated by Dr. Thomas Ashby in 1909 in a garden (Harpsden Wood House) immediately adjoining the sixteenth hole of Henley Golf Links. The site is on a little plateau on the N.W. slope of the Thames Valley ... It appears to face westwards or south-westwards, and foundations, mainly of flint, were noted for over 100 ft. The actual discovery consisted of a bath building with a pillar or buttresses to the west, where the ground sloped. The baths were heated from a furnace on the west, and the hottest room, No. 2, was warmed by a hypocaust on pillars... No trace of heating could be found in the room on the east (No3) but the destroyed floor had been raised on a hypocaust. The room on the south (No. 5) had a hard floor 3 inches thick, of chalk, pebbles and clay," with a small tank or bath at its east end; there are signs of reconstruction here. "More hard cement floors were traced, but on the S.E. the ancient ground level dropped considerably; at A there appears to have been a pit which must have been outside the structure; the main remains therefore, must have extended south and west. No traces of tessellation are recorded and only a few fragments of painted plaster, found in the clay-lined depression.
The pottery included a little pseudo-Samian, a little red ware with scroll pattern painted in white, and much grey ware suggesting a 3rd or 4th century date for the site, as do six coins which range from A.D. 267 to 326 (a). (Roman potsherds and tiles in Reading Museum were said to have been discovered with foundations in a gravel pit east of Harpsden Hill in 1932, possibly the same site)" (2)
Roman House, Harpsden Wood; further excavations were made in 1951 by Mr. Stanley Day [resident at Harpsden Wood End House] and Col. C.N. Rivers-Moore. It was found that a ditch cut along the boundary fence of Harpsden Wood House had completely obliterated much of the Roman foundations. "It also appeared that a considerable amount of indiscriminate excavation had occurred in the past, of which no report can be found. The actual finds made in 1909 [see 2] which were originally kept in a small local museum on the site, were scattered and lost when the property changed hands". The present excavations showed that "the walls are constructed of rough flints, laid in regular courses set in a mortar of lime and sand. The principle outside angles are bonded with thick red tiles, 16 inches by 11 inches by 1 1/4 inches thick ... The walls have nowhere survived more than about two courses above the floors. The inner surfaces of the walls appear to have been plastered and coloured... No trace was found of any kind of tessellated paving. The plan: (fig. II) [AO/60/117/6] The evidence suggests that in the first instance there was a rectangular block ABCD on plan with a corridor on the west side about 10 ft. wide, which had a series of rooms opening from it. At some later date this corridor was divided by four cross walls, making separate rooms. Another room, DEFG, was also added later against the south east corner of the building, as evidenced by the existence of a tiled-bonded corner to the first block at the point marked D on the plan. It is possible that there was another room, corresponding to this room at the north-east corner (c).
The corridor extended northwards to link up with the bath-house and hypocaust, but here the lay-out is lost owing to the ditch already referred to. The writer believes that another wing of this villa must have existed since the hypocaust is so far from the rooms now disclosed. A search has been made on the Golf Course to the north-west, but except for a small heap of roof tiles about 100 yards away, nothing was found. It is still possible that another set of rooms existed under the orchard of Harpsden Wood House to the east of the bath-block." Six coins dating between 287 and 361 A.D. were found and with the six found in 1909 suggest an occupation dating from late 3rd to 4th century A.D. Some metal objects and much pottery were found (no Samian). (3)
Probably an aisled house rebuilt at the upper end; a bath building was put into the E. aisle and projected beyond it as a wing. (4)
SU 75658046: Harpsden Roman Villa. (listed)
(SU 75738052) ROMAN VILLA (R) (Site of) (NAT)
(Description only: no siting symbol and name badly positioned. There are no surface remains of the villa. The excavations of 1909 and 1951 planned in authority 3 show a N to S building 60m long and about 12m wide. Centred at SU 75658047, the northern half lies in a private garden and the southern half extends into a golf course, both areas under grass. (6)
OX 29 Listed as the site of a Roman villa. (7)
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