Monument record MDO985 - Dewlish Roman Villa

A large and elaborate 4th-century Roman corridor style villa which represented the final stage in a series of alterations and rebuilds. The villa unlike others in the area appears to be a county retreat and not the centre of a farm as no outbuildings exist in the near vicinity of the main building. The main body of the villa, following a fairly symmetrical plan, consists of a single range of rooms fronted by a corridor with a bath house at one end, a private suite at the other. Situated behind the main building and accessed via a corridor is a series of kitchen/service rooms. The main feature of the building, apart from the large multi roomed bath house, is a central placed ornate porch behind which is an elaboratly decorated apsed dining/audience room. A high level of decoration, for Roman Britain, in both wall painting and mosaics can be found throughout the villa. A number of the mosaics are especially of significant note in their design and style. The villa is visible as earthworks and potentially some partial wall outlines on Environment Agency lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Cerne and Piddle Valleys AI&M project. The site indicates the retreat of the political elite from the towns and into the countryside. It further reflects the growth in elaborate villas in both scale and design throughout the West Country of England, at a time when villas in others areas of the Western Empire were being abandoned.

Roman villa, SY 768972. The earliest reference to the site was that a black and white tessellated pavement had been found in a meadow a little south of Michel's Farm about 1740. <2>

Trial excavations in 1969 and 70 confirmed the existence of a mosaic and full excavation began in 1971 and is continuing.
Eleven rooms and a corridor have been discovered. All of the rooms appear to have some evidence of a floor covering and mosaics have been found in two rooms. Two hypocausts have also been found. Comparatively little pottery has been recovered, mainly black burnished ware and occasional New Forest sherds. Roof tiles and painted wall plaster were found in large quantity, and thirteen coins of the 4th and early 5th century were uncovered. A few bronze and iron fittings, bone pins, styli, an iron knife, a glass bead and an almost complete hamstone finial were also found. The only burial was that of an infant inside the building. <3-5>

Continued excavations in 1973 revealed ten more rooms of the villa, including a bath suite, making a total of twenty-four rooms so far; while trial trenching indicated further extensions including a range running along the SE of a supposed courtyard. Finds will be transferred to the County Museum (there were very few, owing to the short life of the villa and the fact that it was cleared before abandonment). <6>

Excavations continued in 1974, 1975 and 1976, and the unusual drought conditions of the latter year caused parch marks which revealed a number of buried pits and ditches. There were extensive traces of a system of small square or rectangular fields, which were dated by a trial excavation to the 1st or 2nd century AD. The quantity of finds in a ditch toward the south corner of the field suggested the presence of an earlier villa or farm in that direction. An irregular pattern of enclosures, together with a large number of circular pits on the north-west side of the field, was found to be of late pre-Roman Iron Age date. One pit excavated was characteristic of Iron Age grain storage pits. The site thus provides three main settlement areas - Iron Age, early Roman and late Roman - and the settlement may have been continuous over 400-500 years. The major excavation of 1976 was in the southwest side of the presumed courtyard of the third-fourth century villa, where an aisled barn of at least four building phases was found.<7-9>

DO 11 Listed as the site of a Roman villa. The latest coins, of Honorius, have been found in association with cooking hearths built directly onto patterned tessellated floors. <13>

According to feedback received via the ADS catalogue, this site was excavated for eleven seasons from 1969-1979 inclusive. <15>

According to feedback received via the PastScape website, a recent geophysical survey revealed that the villa comprised three wings and not two as orginally thought, and that the site included a romano-celtic temple and possible priest's house. A new post-excavation project is due for completion in early 2012. <15>

The villa is visible as earthworks and some partial structures on Environment Agency lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Cerne and Piddle Valleys AI&M project. The outline of the villa complex was best defined on its west and south sides, where possible wall sections were indicated. The west side was largely visible in outline as a soilmark and earthwork and was interpreted as partly the villa outline and partly the result of disturbance during excavations of the main villa building. The extent of outline on the south side was crisper and also contained some possible wall sections, although individual buildings could not ve identified. A suggestion of a wing on the northeast side was identified on lidar imagery, which would have created a fairly equal three sided courtyard complex of some form. There was also the possibility of additional buildings on the east side, perhaps features associated with a possible gatehouse complex. A series of rectilinear field enclosures to the east of the villa are visible as earthworks on lidar imagery and cropmarks on aerial photographs and these might be associated with the phase of earlier Roman occupation and the possible early Roman farmstead in this area. <16-18>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 88 (Monograph). SDO146.

'(11) Roman Building, near Dewlish House. A black and white mosaic pavement was found c. 1740, and reopened c. 1790, on a slope S. of Dewlish House and probably W. of the Devil's Brook (near 770973). The measurement of 65 paces by 15 paces implies that more than one room was discovered. On the lower side the pavement was bordered by a gutter of red tiles. A coin of Faustina was found (Hutchins II, 607).'

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1970, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1969, 186-187 (Serial). SDO69.

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1971, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1970, 146-147 (Serial). SDO70.

<4> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1972, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1971, 157 (Serial). SDO71.

<5> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1973, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1972, 81-86 (Serial). SDO72.

<6> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1974, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1973, 89-91 (Serial). SDO73.

<7> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1975, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1974, 59-62 (Serial). SDO74.

<8> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1976, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1975, 54-57 (Serial). SDO75.

<9> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1978, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1976, 54-55 (Serial). SDO76.

<10> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1980, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1977, 120 (Serial). SDO77.

‘DEWLISH. W. G. Putnam reports that excavations continued in 1977 for the Dorset Institute of Higher Education. A small residential building was found post-dating and partly overlying the aisled barn found in 1976. This must indicate a considerable change in the layout of the villa complex in one of its later periods. Work in the area is not complete and a fuller report will be made in 1978.’

<12> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1980, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1978, 113-114 (Serial). SDO78.

‘DEWLISH. W. G. Putnam reports that the tenth season of excavation of the Roman Villa for the Dorset Institute of Higher Education took place during July and August 1978.

Excavation was concentrated on the area between the main villa building and the aisled-barn found in 1976, which had been destroyed to make way for a small residential building. In line with the residential building, and of similar dimensions front to back, lay a small building 7 m square with a large porch on the north-east side.

Unhappily, in common with other buildings on the south-west side of the courtyard, it has been ploughed to well below floor level. The topsoil downhill from the building contained a large number of tesserae and a complete limestone half-column. It is difficult to see any explanation for such a building rather than that of a small temple, with the residential building found in 1977 serving as a priest’s house or accommodation for visitors. All this replaced the farming complex at the final stage in the villa’s history, late in the 4th century.

Extensive efforts were made to find 1st and 2nd century buildings suggested by the presence of samian and early black-burnished wares in filled-in field ditches, but without success. These probably lay outside the area under investigation.

It now seems likely that the 1979 season, which will be devoted to clarifying some outstanding problems, will be the last. In the light of this, publication of final plans and a summary of the excavations will be delayed until the next issue of the Proceedings.’

<13> Scott, E, 1993, A Gazetteer of Roman villas in Britain, 52 No 1 (Bibliographic reference). SWX1795.

<14> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 2013, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 2012, 157-8 (Serial). SDO16328.

<15> National Record of the Historic Environment, 454480 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<16> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

<17> J R Boyden, 22-JUN-1976, JRB 3087/11 (Aerial Photograph). SDO20913.

<18> J R Boyden, 08-JUL-1976, JRB 3302/15 (Aerial Photograph). SDO20915.

Record last edited

Jan 27 2025 10:38AM