More information : [SD 93955351] Roman Villa [GS] (Site of) (1)
The site has nothing to commend it either militarily or residentially. Excavns. by Dr. Villey confirmed the existence of a ditch, approx. as shown on 6" and also an outer quadrilateral double ditch, probably for drainage. Walls found inside the enclosure did not suggest military buildings. Finds include roof and flue tiles, possible tesserae, wall plaster, coal, animal bones and 10 pieces of pottery, with one of Samian (2nd half of 2nd cent.) and post - 250 mortar rims. Plan of ditches, wall fragments and suggested area of buildings. (2)
"...... the buried remains of a Roman villa called Kirk Sink from a tradition that some great ecclesiastical edifice had there been swallowed up.... the inequalities of the surface prove it to have been a parallelogram about 300' long and 180' wide. In modern times it was first dug into about 70 years ago; and the fame of a tessellated pavement discovered at that time, of which I had seen some remains, induced me to apply for permission to open the ground again. But the walls had been so completely grubbed up to the foundation, that though it was just possible to ascertain the size of the apartments, which had been very small, no masses of cohering pavement could be taken up, and the whole lay in heaps mingled with mortar, consisting of cubes of various colours, some 1", others not more than 1/2" in diameter, together with floor tiles of about 3" square. (3)
Attention is drawn to three long, low mounds, forming three sides of a parallelogram open on the NE side, and with dressed stones at the S. corner. "It is suggested that they represent the house mentioned by Whitaker. Their size is much the same [each being approx 150' long on plan], and their plan suggests nothing so strongly as a R-B Courtyard House like that at Northleigh". Three mounds lie NW. of those excavated. The contents of Dr. Villy's mounds regarded as "suggesting the outbuildings of a country house" [implying that Richmond's site is near enough to be part of the same complex.] (4)
Mosaic Pavement found (5).
Air photographs show parallel ditches to E and N of the site - presumably those mentioned by Villy (2) as "probably for drainage". (6).
Resurveyed at 1:2500. The site is under pasture, and is ill defined. Both the ditch of the main enclosure and the outer drainage ditches are visible as superficial depressions only, with a maximum depth of 0.4m. (7)
Survey of 16 10 62 checked and still correct. (8)
The villa at Kirk Sink is at present being excavated by Mr B R Hartley for the Yorks Arch Soc. Probably early in the 3rd century two east-west rectangular buildings, approx 23m by 8m, were built. These began as four-roomed structures, one with a transverse and one with a longitudinal corridor, and both with tessellated floors. They were later joined by a single-roomed building and covered corridor, subsequently decorated with tessellation and painted wall-plaster. The north house had a back range of three rooms added along its length, and a hypocaust, carrying a geometric mosaic, was added to the south-western room.
The building found in 1910 was proved to be a bath-house. It was 22m long, possibly Antonine in date, it had a dressing room, cold, warm, and hot rooms. All rooms seem to have been tessellated and all had painted wall plaster. (9)
A structural sequence, gained from Hartley's excavations suggests an unromanized settlement not much before AD 140, including round huts and a few rectilinear structures with daub walls. By AD 160 a stone built, front corridor house with a bath suite in an extension at the west end had been built "and the bath house was soon added". In the early 3rd century the two houses (referred to in authority 9) were added at the west end of the enclosure, though the 2nd century one was abandoned in the late 3rd or early 4th century. The two western houses and the baths were probably in use until the end of the Roman period. It seems likely that farm buildings occupy the south east corner of the enclosure where late Roman stockyards have been found. An elaborate series of ditches to the north and east of the main site are probably part of an extensive Romano British field system. (10-12)
Additional references to excavations 1968-69, 1971, 1973-75. (13-17)
SD 940535. Kirk Sink Farm. Enclosures and fields, possibly Roman, round Roman villa. (18)
The reference in Whitaker 1st Ed 1805 is identical to the 3rd Ed 1878 (see Authority 3) and therefore renders the date "first dug into about 70 years ago" as circa 1735. Whitaker's excavation would be about 1805. (19)
SD 939535. Site of Roman villa at Kirk Sink. Scheduled. (20)
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