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Monument details

HER Number:TQ 76 SW 10
Type of record:Monument
Name:Eccles Roman Villa, Eccles

Summary

A large Roman Villa complex was excavated at Eccles by AP Detsicas from 1963-1976. The first building dates from around AD 65 and was palatial from the beginning. It had 12 rooms (5 tessellated), a verandah and possibly a second storey. A large, sumptuous bath house, with mosaics reminiscent of Fishbourne Roman Villa, stands nearby. There is the possibility of military influence in the architecture, such as the circular laconium. It was possibly the property of a local philo-Roman magnate or the home of a government official. Large scale pottery manufacture may support the former theory. See TQ 76 SW 36 The first house was replaced by another with marked civilian characteristics and then by a grandiose structure. Between AD 150-290 a cold plunge bath, large enough to be a swimming pool, was added. The final reconstruction turned the house to face south west. It had a main range of rooms with two projecting wings enclosing an inner courtyard.

Geophysical surveys in 1996 showed that the site may have extended to the north of the villa.


Grid Reference:TQ 7223 6055
Map Sheet:TQ76SW
Parish:AYLESFORD, TONBRIDGE AND MALLING, KENT

Monument Types

  • HUT (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
  • BATH HOUSE (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
  • MOSAIC (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
  • TESSELLATED FLOOR (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
  • VILLA (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
Protected Status:Scheduled Monument 1011770: ROMANO-BRITISH VILLA, ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AND ASSOCIATED REMAINS AT ECCLES

Full description

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(TQ 7210 6061) Roman Building (R) (site of) (NAT). (1) (Centred TQ 7216 6054) Extensive villa at Eccles, TQ 722605, on the east bank of the Medway, excavated by A P Detsicas from 1963-1976. It dates from circa AD 65 (although it is suggested that an iron age hut was found beneath the eastern end of the villa) and was built on a palatial scale from the very beginning, consisting at first of a strip house of ten or more rooms (three tessellated) and a verandah. It was however accompanied by a large and sumptuous bath building with mosaics strongly reminiscent of Fishbourne (SU 80 SW 5). Certain features such as the circular laconium are thought to betray the influence of military architecture. The discovery of large-scale pottery manufacture in the immediate post-conquest period (TQ 76 SW 36) suggests the probability of industrial installations such as workshops, stores and wharves along the Medway, and is taken by Detsicas to indicate ownership by local philo-Roman magnate, although alternatively is is suggested to have been the home of a government official. The first house which may prove to have been far grander than present evidence suggests, was replaced by another with marked civilian characteristics, and a third followed on a more grandiose scale; these being merely the earliest phases in a long and complicated history. Between AD 150 and 290 the villa was given the added luxury of a cold plunge bath large enough to serve as a swimming pool. The final major reconstruction involved re-orientation of the house to face south west, and it gave it the shape of a building consisting of a main range of rooms with two projecting wings enclosing an inner courtyard. From several points of view this is one of the most important villas in Britain. The pre-villa occupation of the site was not fully traced and the Romano British cemetery was not located. (2-18) The length of the house at Eccles, which extended to c111.75m overall in the period c120.180 and c124.0m thereafter, is exceptional in Britain, but not so on the continent (19). The villa begins as a striphouse with corridor, about the year 65. It has 12 rooms, 5 with mosaic pavements and probably a second storey. There are 3 bipartite suites. About 55 years later a projecting wing was added comprising 5 rooms. 60 years later another wing with new rooms was erected, and a further wing with hypocaust added, both together comprising 7 rooms (20). (19-20) Late Roman defixio from Eccles villa. (21) Possible pottery lamps from ditch X at Eccles. (22) Knife handle and 3rd century AD pottery found in 1974, immediately outside the north east area of the villa. (23) TQ 722 606. Three British inscribed coins from Eccles Roman Villa. (24) Mosaic from Roman Villa at Eccles. (25) TQ 722 605. Corn Drier from Eccles Roman Villa. (26) Additional bibliography. (27) SCHEDULED 26.6.98 (28)

Geopyhsical survey of the northern area around the villa in 1996 showed that the IA occupation of the site seems to have extened to the north of the villa. There was no direct evidence for the A-S cemetary extending into the survey area. No evidence of the Medeival site extending into the survey area south east of the villa.(29)

From the National Heritage List for England:


"The monument includes a Romano-British villa, an earlier Iron Age farmstead, a later Anglo-Saxon cemetery and traces of medieval occupation situated on low- lying clay on the eastern bank of the River Medway, around 6km north west of Maidstone. The remains survive in the form of below-ground archaeological features, some of which are visible as crop marks on aerial photographs. Investigations carried out between 1963-76 confirmed that the large villa complex, in use between around AD 55 to AD 400, took the form of a group of north west-south east aligned domestic, agricultural and ancillary buildings, situated on the north eastern side of a rectangular courtyard. Traces of a contemporary, north west-south east aligned track were found to the north west of the main buildings. The villa underwent at least four main phases of construction, preceded by an earlier phase represented by a small, rectangular granary and an associated length of boundary wall, dating to AD 55-AD 65. The first known villa was in use between AD 65-AD 180, and its domestic range took the form of a north east facing, rectangular building 75.5m long and 13m wide, constructed upon ragstone footings. The building contained at least 12 rooms flanked by a wooden verandah to the rear. A detached, ancillary building containing workshops lay to the north west and utilised a well-preserved water-supply system constructed of wooden pipes held together by iron collars. The villa was served by an unusually elaborate detached bath house, with mosaic floors and a loconicum, or circular bath, heated by a hypocaust, or underfloor heating system. This first bath house was found to have been damaged by fire, leading to the construction of a replacement bath building. Enclosing the villa buildings at this time was a boundary ditch 3m wide and around 1.4m deep. The second main phase, from AD 120-AD 180, involved alterations to the domestic range, including the replacement of the wooden verandah by a stone built corridor and the construction of a servants' wing adjoining its north western end. A period of radical rebuilding and alteration took place between AD 180-AD 290, when the villa was reorientated to face the river to the south west. A further corridor was built on the north eastern side of the main range, and large projecting wings were added to either end. Each new wing contained grain drying ovens and, along with the rooms at the south eastern end of the main range, was found to have been used for agricultural and industrial processing. The bath house was extended and linked to the main range by a roofed corridor. A cobbled courtyard and garden were laid out to the south west, and a stone boundary wall enclosed the courtyard and villa complex. Building phases between AD 290 to AD 400 involved the modification of existing structures, and by this time the main range contained at least 37 rooms. However, from around AD 367, the villa complex appears to have been occupied on a reduced scale. The 1963-76 investigations revealed a number of human burials of Roman date deposited beneath the villa floors, a common practice during this period. Further finds included fragments of Roman pottery, coins and building debris, and a rare lead defixio, or curse tablet, dating to Late Roman times. A group of regular linear features visible on aerial photographs in the south eastern sector of the monument, and also identified by a geophysical survey carried out in 1996, may represent a contemporary, associated field system. Situated beneath and around the villa are traces of an earlier, Iron Age farmstead, represented by a group of linear boundary ditches and pits. A later Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery was found to have partially disturbed the eastern end of the main range of the earlier villa and the adjacent ground. The cemetery is formed by at least 200 east-west aligned graves containing extended human skeletons. Some later graves were found to have been superimposed upon earlier burials, suggesting that the cemetery was in use over several centuries. Some of the earliest burials were accompanied by grave goods, or artefacts deliberately deposited with the bodies, indicating pagan burials during the period AD 450-AD 600. Towards the south east of the cemetery are a group of post holes which have been interpreted as a shrine, temple or small chapel. Signs of the subsequent reuse of the site during the medieval period include cesspits and rough cobbling beyond its courtyard boundary wall. Analysis of pottery shards associated with these features has dated them to the 13th century. During this period the earlier villa was disturbed by the systematic removal of Roman building material, much of which was reused in the construction of the monastery at Aylesford 2km to the south east. A group of indistinct crop marks and magnetic anomalies picked up by the 1996 geophysical survey in the area beyond the monument to the south west may represent further, associated archaeological features, although these are not well enough understood at present to merit inclusion in the scheduling.

Romano-British villas were extensive rural estates at the focus of which were groups of domestic, agricultural and occasionally industrial buildings. The term "villa" is now commonly used to describe either the estate or the buildings themselves. The buildings usually include a well-appointed dwelling house, the design of which varies considerably according to the needs, taste and prosperity of the occupier. Most of the houses were partly or wholly stone-built, many with a timber-framed superstructure on masonry footings. Roofs were generally tiled and the house could feature tiled or mosaic floors, underfloor heating, wall plaster, glazed windows and cellars. Many had integral or separate suites of heated baths. The house was usually accompanied by a range of buildings providing accommodation for farm labourers, workshops and storage for agricultural produce. These were arranged around or alongside a courtyard and were surrounded by a complex of paddocks, pens, yards and features such as vegetable plots, granaries, threshing floors, wells and hearths, all approached by tracks leading from the surrounding fields. Villa buildings were constructed throughout the period of Roman occupation, from the first to the fourth centuries AD. They are usually complex structures occupied over several hundred years and continually remodelled to fit changing circumstances. They could serve a wide variety of uses alongside agricultural activities, including administrative, recreational and craft functions, and this is reflected in the considerable diversity in their plan. The least elaborate villas served as simple farmhouses whilst, for the most complex, the term "palace" is not inappropriate. Villa owners tended to be drawn from a limited elite section of Romano-British society. Although some villas belonged to immigrant Roman officials or entrepreneurs, the majority seem to have been in the hands of wealthy natives with a more-or-less Romanised lifestyle, and some were built directly on the sites of Iron Age farmsteads. Roman villa buildings are widespread, with between 400 and 1000 examples recorded nationally. The majority of these are classified as `minor' villas to distinguish them from `major' villas. The latter were a very small group of extremely substantial and opulent villas built by the very wealthiest members of Romano-British society. Minor villas are found throughout lowland Britain and occasionally beyond. Roman villas provide a valuable index of the rate, extent and degree to which native British society became Romanised, as well as indicating the sources of inspiration behind changes of taste and custom. In addition, they serve to illustrate the agrarian and economic history of the Roman province, allowing comparisons over wide areas both within and beyond Britain. As a very diverse and often long-lived type of monument, a significant proportion of the known population are identified as nationally important.

Partial excavation and geophysical survey have confirmed aerial photographic evidence for the survival below-ground of Eccles Roman villa, a particularly large and grand example of its kind. Its association with contemporary pottery wasters, discovered at the nearby site of a later, medieval pottery kiln (since destroyed), helps illustrate the nature of the mixed industrial and agricultural economy necessary to support the sophisticated lifestyle of the villa's inhabitants. The investigations also revealed an earlier Iron Age farmstead, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery which reused the site of the abandoned villa, and traces of subsequent occupation in the medieval period. Taken together these remains provide important evidence for changing settlement and land-use over a period of almost 2000 years." (35)

Archive material (36)


<1> OS 6" 1968 (OS Card Reference). SKE48376.

<2> Arch Cant 78 1963 125-41 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35627.

<3> Arch Cant 79 1964 121-35 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35657.

<4> Arch Cant 80 1965 69-91 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35700.

<5> Arch Cant 81 1966 44-52 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35725.

<6> Arch Cant 82 1967 162-78 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35738.

<7> Arch Cant 83 1968 39-48 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35777.

<8> Arch Cant 84 1969 93-106 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35797.

<9> Arch Cant 85 1970 55-60 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35826.

<10> Arch Cant 86 1971 25-34 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35871.

<11> Arch Cant 87 1972 101-10 (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35879.

<12> Arch Cant 88 1973 37-80 (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35960.

<13> Arch Cant 89 1974 119-34 (A Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE35966.

<14> Arch Cant 91 1975 41-5 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE36059.

<15> Arch Cant 92 1976 157-63 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE36077.

<16> Arch Cant 93 1977 55-59 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE36158.

<17> Current Arch 2 1969-70 286 (D Johnston) (OS Card Reference). SKE39524.

<18> SE Eng 1970 187-8 (R Jessup) (OS Card Reference). SKE49423.

<19> Studies in the RB Villa 1978 121 200-1 161 fig 53 (M Todd) (OS Card Reference). SKE49706.

<20> BAR 103 2 1982 RB Countyside 442 and 444 (D Miles) (OS Card Reference). SKE37466.

<21> Arch Cant 102 1985 19-25 illus (RSO Tomlin) (OS Card Reference). SKE34607.

<22> Ant J 54 1974 305-6 (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE33210.

<23> Arch J 55 1975 406 407 illus (AP Detsicas) (OS Card Reference). SKE36657.

<24> Supp Gaz of Find Spots of Celtic Coins in Brit 1977 1978 77 (C Haselgrove) (OS Card Reference). SKE49728.

<25> Ro Mosaics in Brit 1981 76 (DS Neal) (OS Card Reference). SKE49276.

<26> BAR 70 1979 Agric Bldgs Ro Brit 104-5 114 118 (P Morris) (OS Card Reference). SKE37553.

<27> Ro Brit 1978 113 (J Wacher) (OS Card Reference). SKE49265.

<28> Not applicable, SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry, Pers Comm EH to KCC 26.6.98 (Miscellaneous Material). SKE6440.

<29> Stratascan, 1996, A Report for Lawson-Price Environmental on a Geophysical Survey carried out at Eccles Roman Villa (Unpublished document). SKE7142.

<30> EXCAVATED BY A.P.DETSICAS.SEE ARCH CANT 78/1963,79/1964 (SITE 'B' TQ 7212 6061) Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE507.

<31> MOSAIC 43:GLADIATOR Types: MOSAIC (Photograph). SKE396.

<32> EXCAVATED BY A.P.DETSICAS.SEE ARCH CANT 78/1963,79/1964 Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE508.

<33> MOSAIC 43:GLADIATOR Types: MOSAIC (Photograph). SKE472.

<34> Detsicas, A. P., 1965, Recent Excavations: Eccles, Pages 6 - 8 (Article in serial). SKE8115.

<35> English Heritage, Register of Scheduled Monuments (Scheduling record). SKE16191.

<36> Historic England, Archive material associated with Eccles Roman Villa Scheduled Monument (Archive). SKE54077.

Sources and further reading

Cross-ref. Source description
<1>OS Card Reference: OS 6" 1968.
<2>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 78 1963 125-41 illus (AP Detsicas).
<3>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 79 1964 121-35 illus (AP Detsicas).
<4>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 80 1965 69-91 illus (AP Detsicas).
<5>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 81 1966 44-52 illus (AP Detsicas).
<6>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 82 1967 162-78 illus (AP Detsicas).
<7>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 83 1968 39-48 illus (AP Detsicas).
<8>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 84 1969 93-106 illus (AP Detsicas).
<9>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 85 1970 55-60 illus (AP Detsicas).
<10>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 86 1971 25-34 illus (AP Detsicas).
<11>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 87 1972 101-10 (AP Detsicas).
<12>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 88 1973 37-80 (AP Detsicas).
<13>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 89 1974 119-34 (A Detsicas).
<14>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 91 1975 41-5 illus (AP Detsicas).
<15>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 92 1976 157-63 illus (AP Detsicas).
<16>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 93 1977 55-59 illus (AP Detsicas).
<17>OS Card Reference: Current Arch 2 1969-70 286 (D Johnston).
<18>OS Card Reference: SE Eng 1970 187-8 (R Jessup).
<19>OS Card Reference: Studies in the RB Villa 1978 121 200-1 161 fig 53 (M Todd).
<20>OS Card Reference: BAR 103 2 1982 RB Countyside 442 and 444 (D Miles).
<21>OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 102 1985 19-25 illus (RSO Tomlin).
<22>OS Card Reference: Ant J 54 1974 305-6 (AP Detsicas).
<23>OS Card Reference: Arch J 55 1975 406 407 illus (AP Detsicas).
<24>OS Card Reference: Supp Gaz of Find Spots of Celtic Coins in Brit 1977 1978 77 (C Haselgrove).
<25>OS Card Reference: Ro Mosaics in Brit 1981 76 (DS Neal).
<26>OS Card Reference: BAR 70 1979 Agric Bldgs Ro Brit 104-5 114 118 (P Morris).
<27>OS Card Reference: Ro Brit 1978 113 (J Wacher).
<28>Miscellaneous Material: Not applicable. SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry. Pers Comm EH to KCC 26.6.98.
<29>Unpublished document: Stratascan. 1996. A Report for Lawson-Price Environmental on a Geophysical Survey carried out at Eccles Roman Villa.
<30>Photograph: EXCAVATED BY A.P.DETSICAS.SEE ARCH CANT 78/1963,79/1964 (SITE 'B' TQ 7212 6061) Types: VILLA. P29048. Black and White. Print.
<31>Photograph: MOSAIC 43:GLADIATOR Types: MOSAIC. BB81/05315. Black and White. Negative.
<32>Photograph: EXCAVATED BY A.P.DETSICAS.SEE ARCH CANT 78/1963,79/1964 Types: VILLA. P29049. Black and White. Print.
<33>Photograph: MOSAIC 43:GLADIATOR Types: MOSAIC. FF86/00336. Colour. Negative.
<34>Article in serial: Detsicas, A. P.. 1965. Recent Excavations: Eccles. Vol 1 Pages 6 - 8. Pages 6 - 8.
<35>XYScheduling record: English Heritage. Register of Scheduled Monuments. [Mapped feature: #347 roman villa, ]
<36>Archive: Historic England. Archive material associated with Eccles Roman Villa Scheduled Monument.

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