More information : (TL 12499854) Roman Villa (R) (Site of) (NAT)
Massive wall foundations visible in the 19th century led older
antiquarians to suppose that Castor was the site of a walled Roman
town. Artis (3) carried out large scale excavations and recovered
the plans of a number of substantial Roman buildings of the villa
type. These have been interpreted as the remains of a single
large courtyard villa, but they are more likely to be the fragments
of a series of houses arranged on and around the rising ground (2).
One of the buildings was considered by Artis to be a temple and
this is accepted by Lewis, "The massive nature of the podium
and the plan of the building makes the interpretation as a temple
well-nigh certain," and he considered the site to represent a
group of small houses spread round a temple of classical type. (4)
Further excavation has been carried out on the site, and buildings,
including the bathhouse, have been re-investigated (5).
There seems to be some measure of agreement that the buildings are
associated with the pottery industry (5) (7).
(For location of buildings, from auth 2 & 5 see 1:2500 diagram.
The RCHM grid references do not correspond with the buildings
as plotted from auth 5).
The buildings probably represent a series of detached houses
erected about AD 250 on terraces in the hillside, facing south,
around a rectangular court or garden. Many of the rooms were heated
and were decorated with painted wall plaster and mosaics by the
Durobrivan school. It seems likely that the whole complex can be
regarded as a "praetorium" erected by a guild, using the profits
of the pottery industry.
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