Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Site of villa on cliff edge. It consisted of three blocks built on the site of a pre-Roman cemetery (TR 23 NW 109). Block A was built in the second half of the first century AD, and was then re-built at the same time as Block B was constructed Block B was later identified as comprising two sections one of which , Block C, was a bathhouse. The date of construction has been suggested as being c.AD 90, or sometime in the 2nd century AD and occupation of the site appears to continue until AD 386. The south-eastern end of Block B, Block C, has nearly been totally destroyed by cliff falls. Scheduled - Kent 82.

Monument Types

• CREMATION CEMETERY (CREMATION CEMETERY, Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• VILLA (VILLA, Roman - 50 AD? (at some time) to 409 AD (at some time))
• BATH HOUSE (Roman - 90 AD? (at some time) to 386 AD? (at some time))
• MOSAIC (Roman - 90 AD? to 332 AD?)
• SLIT TRENCH (Abandoned, Modern - 1940 AD? (between) to 1945 AD? (between))

Full description

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(TR 24073700) Roman Villa (NR) (Remains of) (1)
A Roman villa in front of Martello tower No.2 (TR 23 NW 28) on the Warren, East Wear Bay, Folkestone, was excavated by Winbolt in 1924. It consisted of two blocks (see illustration card) built on the site of a pre-Roman cemetery (TR 23 NW 109). Block A was built in the second half of the first century AD, and was then re-built at the same time as Block B was constructed. This has been suggested as being c.AD 90, or sometime in the 2nd century AD occupation of the site appears to continue until AD 386. The south-eastern end of Block B had been destroyed by cliff falls. Scheduled - Kent 82. (2-6)
The remains of the villa have been turfed over and there is now nothing to be seen. A selection of finds, both Roman and Belgic, are on exhibition in Folkestone Museum; the remainder, including the coins, are in store. Published 1:2500 survey revised. (7) Extensive remains of large villa. Part of the bath-house has fallen over the cliff since excavation. Occupation appears to have lasted from 100AD to mid 4th century. The crumbling and overgrown remains were back filled after the second world war and it was grassed over in 1957 as a public open space. (8) TR 242370. 'Not excessively large, nor luxurious, corridor villa, with an annexe containing a bath-suite'. It in fact consisted of two houses, one of which was a rebuild, but only the secondary plan is known. The walls of the earliest villa were built of calcareous tufa on flint and ironstone foundations. The later rebuild was in grey sand-ragstone on chalk and sea-pebble foundations, with brick for the furnace arches and drains. It is a type of villa not uncommon in Britain. The original house had a bow-fronted wing, but the wings on the later houses were entirely straight-fronted. It is a good example of a symmetrical plan and frontage with winged corridor and emphasis on the axial entrance and large room beyond. The room contained the only surviving mosaic; a design unique in Britain. It consisted of a fragmentary square with central medallion, with a medallion at each corner (see illustration card). The buttresses on the wings of the villa suggest height, perhaps on upper storey. The villa complex had an impressive drainage system and baths; each house having its own. There were unusually high and solid stone piers of a hypocaust. Three different stamps of 'Classis Britannicus' were found on tiles. It has been suggested that perhaps the villa was occupied by an officer of the fleet. A number of coins were discovered in the excavations, but Rigold (9) says that the coin list is misleading in its conclusions. some of the coins were not from the villa, but a nearby allotment, and no coins were found at the villa between Philip and well into the Constantinian period c. mid 3rd century into the 4th century, and this suggests a long gap in the occupation. (9-16)
Additional bibliography not consulted. (17)
Trenching in 1989 identified two IA ditches below Ro levels (20) and the two main blocks and bath house, the latter proved to have an apsidal end to room 8, a firing arch for hypocaust, a 'wartime' (WW2?) slit trench had been dug across room 12. Repairs were made to walls before backfilling. (21)
Additional Info (24 - 41)
During the excavations in 1924 some 20 greensand querns were recoverd by the excavator S. E. Winbolt. Only one is provenanced from the north corridor of Block B. This collection of querns is unusually high for a normal rural site, and with the 130 plus collected from the foreshore area, and the Kent Archaeological Rescue units excavation in 1974, does suggest an earlier settlement site which stretched further out to sea than the late villa ste (TR 23 NW 211). The material for the querns may have either been quarried from the beds exposed in the low cliffe face, or alternatively, been available in the form of boulders lying on the ground at the foot of the cliff.(42) Excavations in 2011 in front of the Roman villa revealed a layer of rubble representing the final courtyard of the villa. A trackway and a number of ditches were also excavated. There was a large assemblage of finds from the excavation. (43)
It has been suggested that this was a quernstone production site in the 1st century BC. (44)

From the National Heritage List for England:
Details
The monument includes an unenclosed Iron Age urnfield and Roman villa surviving as buried remains. It is situated on a cliff top at East Cliff in Folkestone overlooking East Wear Bay and the surrounding coastline. The unenclosed Iron Age urnfield underlies the Roman villa. Partial excavation has uncovered several cremation burials within Late Iron Age pottery vessels, together with grave goods. These cremation urns were located beneath the wall footings of the Roman buildings. The grave goods included silver brooches, a foot ring, an armlet, a bronze ring and a flint implement. The walls of an earlier Roman building underlie the main phase of occupation at the villa. It is constructed of calcareous tufa on flint and ironstone foundations. The villa was later rebuilt and expanded to include three detached buildings or blocks. The walls and foundations of these buildings survive up to about 2.4m high and are built of ragstone on chalk and pebble foundations with brick used for furnace arches and drains. These three buildings form a complex of some 60 rooms. The main block is nearly 60m long and orientated broadly north-east to south-west, roughly parallel with the cliff. The rooms are arranged off a long corridor on the seaward side. It has an axial entrance and large room beyond containing a mosaic with a design unique in Britain. It consists of a fragmentary square with a central medallion and further medallions at each corner. At right angles to this building is another block, over 40m long, orientated broadly north-west to south-east. It has a corridor on each side of a suite of rooms. The walls of this building survive to between about 0.3m and 1.2m high. The remains of a hypocaust with internal piers and a furnace arch survive in one of the rooms. These have been partly truncated by a trench dug during the Second World War. At the south-east end of this block is a detached bath house with an apsidal north-west end. The walls survive up to about 2.4m high. The apsidal wall contains a furnace arch with two large rows of bricks forming voussoirs. The furnace fed a hypocaust, which heated a plunge bath. Several of the rooms of the bath house have been destroyed through coastal erosion. The thickness of the buttressing on the exterior walls of the villa indicates that they were of considerable height and may have included an upper storey. The villa was first exposed by cliff erosion in 1923. It was partially excavated together with the unenclosed Iron Age urnfield in 1924 and then the villa only in 1989. The Iron Age burials are thought to have been deposited between about 50 BC and AD 50. The villa is thought to have been constructed from the late first century AD and abandoned in the fourth century AD. The finds indicate that there may have been a gap in occupation from the late third to early fourth century. Several Roman tiles were recovered from the site featuring three different stamps of the Classis Britannica. It has been suggested that these may indicate that the villa was occupied by an officer of the fleet. The footings of the villa have been consolidated and the site back-filled following partial excavation. The monument excludes the public conveniences, the surfaces of all modern pavements, all fences and fence posts, gates and gate posts. However the ground beneath all these features is included.
Reasons for Designation
The unenclosed Iron Age urnifeld underlying the Roman villa is a rare example of its type. Unenclosed urnfields are burial grounds without a delimiting boundary comprising two or more cremations and occasionally inhumation burials. This form of cemetery represents a return to the predominance of the cremation burial rite during the late Iron Age and beyond (from the mid-first century BC to sometime after the Roman Conquest of AD 43). The similarity of British examples to contemporary continental urnfields and the occasional presence of imported, high status grave goods, or objects deliberately buried with the body, provide evidence for the gradual assimilation of south eastern Britain into the Roman world at this time. The cremations were often placed in wheel-thrown pottery vessels and deposited in graves dug into the subsoil or bedrock. In Britain, unenclosed Iron Age urnfields are found exclusively in south eastern England and less than 50 have been positively identified. All examples with surviving remains are considered to be of national importance. The Iron Age urnfield at East Cliff holds potential for the recovery of further cremation burials and grave goods, which will provide significant information relating to the social structure, burial practice and cultural influences in the region prior to the Roman conquest.

The Roman villa was subsequently built on the site of the urnfield from about the late first century AD. Roman villas usually include a well-appointed dwelling house. Most 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 and 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. As a very diverse and often long-lived type of monument, a significant proportion of the known population of Roman villas are identified as nationally important. Despite some damage and disturbance in the past, particularly during the Second World War, the Roman villa 60m ESE of No.64 Wear Bay Road survives well. The walls survive to a substantial height and the masonry remains are among the best preserved at any Roman villa site in Britain. The villa also contains a Roman mosaic with a tessellated design which is unique in this country. The site retains potential for further archaeological investigation, which will improve our understanding of the phasing of the buildings and the history of the villa. (45)

<1> OS 6" 1962 (OS Card Reference). SKE48371.

<2> VCH Kent 3 1932 114 plan (M V Taylor) (OS Card Reference). SKE50999.

<3> Arch Cant 38 1926 45-50 plan (S E Winbolt) (OS Card Reference). SKE35061.

<4> Ro Folkestone 1925 illus (S E Winbolt) (OS Card Reference). SKE49270.

<5> AMs Eng & Wales 1961 58 (MOW) (OS Card Reference). SKE33027.

<6> Arch of Kent 1930 209-210 plate (R F Jessup) (OS Card Reference). SKE36893.

<7> F1 CFW 28.04.64 (OS Card Reference). SKE42790.

<8> DOE (IAM) Record form 2 Nov 1986 (OS Card Reference). SKE40741.

<9> Arch Cant 87 1972 31 (S E Rigold) (OS Card Reference). SKE35918.

<10> Studies RB Villa 1978 117-9 123 124 162 164 165 plan 176 200 (ed M Todd) (OS Card Reference). SKE49714.

<11> JRS 14 1924 242 246 (R G Collingwood M V Taylor) (OS Card Reference). SKE45045.

<12> Arch of Ro Brit 1969 138-141 plan 146 (R G Collingwood I Richmond) (OS Card Reference). SKE36933.

<13> Towns of Ro Britain 1975 192 (J Wacher) (OS Card Reference). SKE50612.

<14> Mosaics in Ro Brit 1973 76-77 (A Rainey) (OS Card Reference). SKE47340.

<15> Arch Cant 37 1925 209-210 (S E Winbolt) (OS Card Reference). SKE35057.

<16> Ro Villa in Brit 1969 57 58 59 60 64 153 270 plan (A L F Rivet) (OS Card Reference). SKE49278.

<17> Ro Villa Site East Cliff 1924 (S E Winbolt) (OS Card Reference). SKE49279.

<18> Field report for monument TR 23 NW 11 - April, 1964 (Bibliographic reference). SKE5597.

<19> [ROMAN VILLA] (Collection). SKE6548.

<20> Kent Archaeolological Rescue Unit, 1989, Folkestone Roman Villa Excavation, KARU 1989 Excavations at Folkestone Roman Villa (Unpublished document). SKE11889.

<21> Not applicable, SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry, KAR 99 (1990) b PHILP (Miscellaneous Material). SKE6440.

<24> Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology, 1993, Desk based study of the maritime archaeological potential in areas under proposal for the Dover & Folkeston (Unpublished document). SKE6801.

<25> EXCAVATION Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE535.

<27> EXCAVATION Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE534.

<28> EXCAVATION Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE537.

<29> 1955, PLAN OF ROMAN VILLA AT FOLKESTONE (Photograph). SKE1397.

<30> PLAN OF ROMAN VILLA AT FOLKESTONE (Photograph). SKE1412.

<31> PLAN OF ROMAN VILLA AT FOLKESTONE (Photograph). SKE1411.

<32> EXCAVATION Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE533.

<33> FURNACE ARCH Types: VILLA/HYPOCAUST (Photograph). SKE532.

<34> Southern Water Services, 1993, Dover & Folkestone Wastewater Treatment scheme Environmental Statement (Unpublished document). SKE6815.

<35> MAIN CORRIDOR AND ROOMS ADJOINING Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE529.

<36> SITE PLAN Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE183.

<37> 2ND CENT. BUILT ON THE SITE OF A CEMETERY.SEE ALSO AO55/115/1 Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE528.

<38> VIEW Types: VILLA/HYPOCAUST (Photograph). SKE530.

<39> THE SIXTEEN BUTTRESSES Types: VILLA/HYPOCAUST (Photograph). SKE531.

<40> EXCAVATION Types: VILLA (Photograph). SKE536.

<41> Southern Water Services, 1993, Dover & Folkestone Wastewater Treatment scheme Environmental Statement (Unpublished document). SKE6815.

<42> Keller, P. T., 1989, Quern Production at Folkestone, South-East Kent: An Interim Note (Article in serial). SKE12095.

<43> Canterbury Archaeological Trust LTD, 2012, Interim report on the Roman villa excavations. East Wear Bay, Folkestone, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE31116.

<44> National Association of Mining History Organisation, The Archaeology of Mining and Quarrying in England, A Research Framework (Unpublished document). SKE31636.

<45> English Heritage, Register of Scheduled Monuments (Scheduling record). SKE16191.

Sources and further reading

Related thematic articles

• Roman Kent (Thematic Essay)