More information : [SZ 42368415] Roman Villa [G.S.] (Site of)
[SZ 42368410] Roman coins found AD 1833 [TI] (1)
Site in a field on the east of Buttlehole [sic] spring and west of Brixton [sic] shute. About 25 years previously [c 1831] remains of a hypocaust were found but soon covered up. Stone, mortared together, often met with in digging the field and a wall had been built at Pitt Place with stone taken from its centre. "Robert Cooper, a labourer, told me that when he drained the field he came to the foundations of buildings. He had traced 10 or 12 rooms, which were placed between two parallel walls 7' apart .... There was one wall 10' or 12' thick .... These buildings he thought extended over a space of 100 yards". Traces of burning and "there was a cartload of ashes in which the bones of human beings and animals of various sorts were mixed together". Deer-horn, many oyster shells, RB pottery, tiles and mortar also found. Some years before, a grave was found and measured by Wm. Dyer - 5'2" x 1'8 1/2" and 1'8" deep, walled with thin stones laid one on the other and "covered over with large flat stones, called Black Lake, from Compton Bay. The head of the skeleton was laid on a stone sculptured out to fit the back part of the skull". Finds in the field include Samian and other pottery, six Roman coins (including one of Severus Alexander) found by R. Cooper, and other coins found by another labourer and nearby a coin of Claudius Gothicus from Rock [SZ 48 SW 43] and a gold coin of Valentinian II, 1/4 mile to the east [SZ 48 SW 38]. (2)
Villa. (3)
No building debris was seen in perambulation of the pasture in which this site falls. A raised footpath crossing the field east-west appears to be of modern construction. North of it and centred at the published siting is a scarping of the south slope with an apparent slight positive lynchet at the top of the scarping giving the suggestion of a platform some 80.0m long x 20.0m wide. The site is at the foot of steep downs and is at the end of a valley or re-entrant facing the sea. A fresh water spring of copious flow is on the west of the field. (4)
No change : the platform is two 'ill-defined' for survey action. (5)
Rock Villa. Excavations carried out on behalf of the Carisbrooke Castle Museum by D. J. Tomalin in 1975. The building was located by a resistivity survey on a platform cut into the hillside 140m. east of a large spring. The corridor house measured 27.8m. by 10.2m. and was surrounded on three sides by a U-shaped ditch. The north wall remained standing to 1.4m. high. The interior walls had been decorated with painted plaster and the building roofed with Bembridge limestone tiles. A probable wing, butted on to the original structure, was located at the south-east corner; the south-west corner was too damaged for any trace of wing to remain. Coins and pottery indicate that the house was built in the period 275-300. Two infant burials were located. The T-shaped corn-drier dates to the period 375-400, when the building was dilapidated and some stone-robbing had probably already taken place. An aerial photograph of 1924 suggests that this is the only substantial building on the site; the gradient precluded large-scale stripping. (6)
Additional bibliography. (7)
IW 4 Listed as the site of a Roman villa. (8)
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