The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 164 • Simon Esmonde Cleary
living. It would seem that the ‘small’ towns were at their peak in the fourth century, corresponding
with the decline in commercial dominance of the ‘large’ towns, as the latter came increasingly to
be occupied by the houses of the elite.
Villas and the countryside
One of the important features of towns at any period is that they act as channels for the diffusion
of new ideas. This is evident in Roman Britain through the development in the south and east of
villas, though even in these parts of the country there are variations in distribution with, for
instance, clusters in the Cotswolds, central-southern England and the East Midlands and absences
in the West Midlands, the Fenland and the Weald. Villa is a Latin word meaning ‘farm’, but in
modern archaeological usage ‘villa’ has come to mean a rural site exhibiting Roman-style building
plans and architecture, thus evoking integration into the imperial culture and probably also a
closer involvement in the imperial economy than other, un-Romanized sites (Rivet 1969; Todd
1978; Hingley 1989). A problem is that the single term ‘villa’ is used to describe hundreds of sites
ranging in date from the late first to the early fifth centuries and in size from cottage to palatial,
suggesting in fact that form, function and social significance may have varied greatly through
time. Furthermore, many villa excavations have concentrated on the principal residence and
ignored the agricultural aspects of the site, though this is now changing for the better, and survey
projects such as that at Maddle Farm (Berkshire) show how study of the Roman period may be
integrated into and benefit from a multiperiod, landscape approach.
The development of villas
The earliest Romano-British villas, of the second half of the first century, show their continental
origins. The most famous but atypical is the great Flavian ‘palace’ at Fishbourne (West Sussex),
with its Mediterranean plan, architecture, mosaics, other decor and formal gardens with watersupply.
This is often claimed as the residence of the ‘client king’ (semi-independent native ruler)
Cogidubnus. Contemporary villas are otherwise modest, sometimes little more than a single
rectangular room—in effect a rectilinear version of the roundhouses of the preceding Iron Age—
or two or three rooms (e.g. Lockleys and Park Street, both Hertfordshire), often ranged behind a
‘winged-corridor’ façade consisting of a passage or portico with projecting rooms at either end.
This type of façade occurs commonly in Britain, Gaul and Germany, masking a whole variety of
suites of rooms, indicating a desire to conform to the accepted formal frontage, whatever lay
behind (e.g. Ditchley, Oxfordshire; Gadebridge, Hertfordshire; and Great Staughton,
Huntingdonshire). Several of these early villas show continuity from Late Iron Age sites (e.g.
Gorhambury, Hertfordshire) (Figure 9.5). Another characteristic villa building was the aisled
building or aisled barn, a rectangular structure with two internal rows of posts; some idea of the
appearance of these can be gained from the collapsed gable wall of one excavated at Meonstoke
(Hampshire). Excavated examples suggest use for storage, for craft activity and for accommodation
(sometimes all at once). Aisled buildings are known either as the principal building of a small villa
(e.g. Combley, Isle of Wight) or as subsidiary buildings in a larger establishment (e.g. Winterton,
Lincolnshire), but are not a purely rural building type as they occur also in towns.
During the second century, the plans of villas became more complex, with the principal dwelling
being extended and made more elaborate, and dependencies and agricultural buildings often
arranged more or less formally around a courtyard as at Llantwit Major (Glamorgan) or
Rockbourne (Hampshire). After an apparent lull in villa (re)construction during much of the
third century, the late third and first half of the fourth centuries saw the hey-day of the villa in
Britain. This was when the maximum number were in commission. It is also the period from
which some of the best-known, largest and most luxuriously appointed examples date, such as