More information : Trial trenches across cropmarks seen from the air near Brickkiln Farm at SU 835125, Chilgrove, revealed a long rectangular building c 40 x 140 ft with heated rooms, mosaics, stone columns and roof tiles and bounded by a deep ditch. Coins and pottery are of E 2nd - L 4th c. (1)
The villa was preceded by a timber structure and an oven. The main range of the villa ran NE - SW with a corridor on the SE side and baths at the SW end, which saw at least one series of alterations before being demolished mid 4th c. A circular flint foundation, probably an oven, was laid at this time on the tessellated floor of a living-room and iron-smelting took place not far away. The lower part of a statuette of Fortuna was found. (2)
The timber building under the villa is tenatively dated to AD 130-150. Fallen daub and roof tiles attest the presence of sheds in the adjoining yard. (3)
A farmyard extended over 200ft N-S and was entered through a timber gateway on the E side. Timber structures of several dates are indicated by post-holes inside the yard and a circular hut of 28ft diam lay outside the N wall. A further set of shallow post-holes outside the N wall of the main range of buildings is provisionally considered to indicate a granary. Excavations directed by A Down for the Chichester Excavations Committee. (4)
On Brickkiln Farm, Chilgrove, traces of a second circular hut have come to light at the Well Meadow villa. Both are now assigned to the Iron Age. A large quarry, over 10ft deep, at the N end of the site, has been nearly filled with domestic rubbish in the mid-to-late 4th c before being covered with a dump of building material, perhaps derived from the demolition of the bath-house. (5)
Visible on oblique A/P. (6)
Excavations have been completed and the outline of the villa has been left exposed at SU 8344 1244 and can be seen as low flint walling at present under rough pasture. Excavation report pending.
Surveyed at 1:2500. (7)
Earliest occupation on the site was represented by Mesolithic and Neolithic flints. Occupation evidence in the form of a hearth, a rectangular building and a circular hut belongs to the late Iron Age and may be associated with the pattern of small rectangular fields to the south. The earliest masonry buildings belong to the late 1st century AD. The number and quality of buildings increases on into the 4th century, towards the end of which part of the villa had been burned down. Occupation probably continued into the 5th century. See also SU 81 SW 60. (8)
WS 101 Listed as the site of a Roman villa. In the late 4th century the bath house was robbed for building stone and one of the rooms given over to iron working for a time before the villa was totally abandoned. (9)
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