More information : TQ 8286 6397: Roman Villa [R] (site of) [NAT] (1)
A scattered group of Roman buildings situated in the southwest corner of Lower Dane Field first opened in the middle of the 18th century, again in 1845 and finally in 1848 by C Roach Smith. The plan AO/61/285/5 shows the relative position of the various buildings, of which only those marked I, K and L, M are described in detail. It is a bath building 50 feet by 25 feet with furnaces, hypocausts, plastered walls and a lead drain pipe. K is a barn or "barn-house" 70 feet by 50 feet with buttresses to support the roof. L-M appears to part of a house under which there was a 2 roomed cellar containing several bushels of burnt and scorched wheat.
Associated finds include a carved sarcophagus, coins, a folding
balance, part of a scale beam, fibulae, toilet set, iron sickle, knives of all kinds, an adze, keys, a stylus, pieces of window glass,
Samian, "Upchurch" and other pottery. The date of occupation is about the 3rd and 4th centuries. Most of the objects are in the Kent Archaeological Society Museum. (2)
The site of this villa falls within a well established orchard and
there is nothing to be seen on the ground. The field name "Dane Field" is confirmed by an Estate map of 1844 which also has the entry "Site of a Roman Villa" written across the area centred TQ 827 6404. Brigadier Orr of Queensdown Warren in whose possession the map lies, could offer no further information on the site beyond the fact that in a dry summer the apparent line of a road is visible in the field to the southwest of the villa, running away in a south-westerly direction. (3)
Two crop marks observed in field to east of villa site (during flight by Alan Ward, December 1992). Indistinct rectangular mark (at TQ831 56412) orientated east to west open at west end with enclosed area at east. Measures approximately 150 x 50 metres. Interpreted as walls of possible bath house and 'barn'. South of this (TQ832 06401) a second, more distinct, mark of an approx. 50 metres square building (or ditched enclosure) with a short right-angled section adjoining north side and a long linear feature (a ditch or water course) leading from the south side away south west to the belt of trees to the south of the villa site. This linear feature intepreted as a continuation of the bath house drain. (4)
KE 41 Listed as the possible site of a Roman villa. (5) |