![Folkestone Roman Villa, Wear Bay Road (geograph 2573346)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Folkestone_Roman_Villa%2C_Wear_Bay_Road_%28geograph_2573346%29.jpg)
Folkestone Roman Villa, also referred to as the East Bay Site, is a
villa
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...
built during the
Roman Occupation of Britain
Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered was ...
, and is located in
East Wear Bay
East Cliff and Warren Country Park is in Folkestone, in Kent, England.
This country park is formed of the East Cliffs of Folkestone, the sandy beaches of East Wear Bay and the land-slipped nature reserve land between the cliffs and the sea.
H ...
near the port town of
Folkestone
Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...
, in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, England. The villa is situated on a cliff top overlooking the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
, with views of the French coast at
Boulogne
Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...
on a clear day. It is situated near the start of the
North Downs
The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. Much of the North Downs comprises two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs): the Surrey Hills and ...
Trackway
Historic roads (historic trails in USA and Canada) are paths or routes that have historical importance due to their use over a period of time. Examples exist from prehistoric times until the early 20th century. They include ancient trackway ...
, and the area has been inhabited for thousands of years, with archeological finds in the area and at the villa site dating back to the
mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
and
neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
ages. The villa was built around A. D. 75, and was almost certainly built within the confines of a preexisting
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
settlement.
The villa was rebuilt and expanded in probably the second century A. D., this time as a more substantial structure with
mosaics
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
, a
bath-house
Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
, and a second block, possibly connected by a courtyard. The villa was abandoned sometime in the third century, though archeological evidence suggests that it was briefly reoccupied in the fourth century.
Geology of the site
![Shingle Beach - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Shingle_Beach_-_geograph.org.uk_-_726708.jpg)
The Roman villa and earlier Iron Age workshop are located on the head of a low, slumped cliff, overlooking a
shingle beach
A shingle beach (also referred to as rocky beach or pebble beach) is a beach which is armoured with pebbles or small- to medium-sized cobbles (as opposed to fine sand). Typically, the stone composition may grade from characteristic sizes ranging ...
. The cliff here is composed of a band of
gault
The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in Fol ...
clay that is nearly 100 feet thick, which overlies the
Lower Greensand
The Lower Greensand Group is a geological unit present across large areas of Southern England. It was deposited during the Aptian and Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous. It predominantly consists of sandstone and unconsolidated sand that were ...
stone formation.
The greensand is not actually sand: it is a loose, unconsolidated sandstone bed that forms part of the underlying structure of southeast England. The exposed greensand at Folkestone, referred to as the
Folkestone Formation
The Folkestone Formation is a geological formation in the United Kingdom. It forms part of the Lower Greensand Group, and dates to the early part of the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous. It primarily consists of medium to coarsed grained unco ...
or the Folkestone Beds, is a unique geological feature of the area, and is rich with fossils and
ichnofauna Ichnofauna is the diversity of fauna based on the ichnological ( tracks and footprints) evidences. This term is often used by vertebrate paleontologists.Mateus, O., & Milàn, J. 2010. A diverse Upper Jurassic dinosaur ichnofauna from central‐west ...
.
The formation extends about 5 miles to the northwest of Folkestone to town of
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
.
At the junction where the gault meets the greensand, the gault is nearly liquid, resulting is major erosion and landslides over the years.
This erosion has threatened to destroy the villa site, which was another 400 – 500 meters from the sea during Roman times, but which now sits near the edge of the cliff.
The site is crumbling into the sea at about a rate of 6 inches per year.
Numerous rescue excavations have been undertaken over the years, as archeologists race to rescue the site from slow destruction.
History
Mesolithic to Neolithic: c. 10,000 BC – c. 2000 BC
Scattered evidence of human habitation near the Villa site has been uncovered during archeological digs, suggesting that the area was lived in or traveled through since
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
times. In 2010, excavators uncovered Mesolithic worked flints below the Roman villa site.
Although these flints probably originated from a nearby location and were washed into the villa site, they do establish human presence in the area during the Mesolithic period. Tools dating to the
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
period have been discovered at the Bayle in Folkestone, and there is some evidence to suggest that there was a Neolithic settlement at nearby Castle Hill (sometimes known as Caesar's Encampment, though there is no evidence or Roman activity at this site).
Bronze and Iron Age settlements
![Copt Point, Folkestone - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Copt_Point%2C_Folkestone_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1412719.jpg)
On the outskirts of Folkestone, an important early
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
settlement was discovered at
Holywell Coombe in 1987 and 1988 during archeological excavations in advance of the construction of the
Channel Tunnel
The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...
.
Findings included "round houses", fields, trackways, and pottery fragments.
During the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
, an extensive, pre-Roman native settlement occupied the eastern headland of the bay, on what has come to be known as the East Bay Site, or Roman Villa Site.
[Youtube: Iron Age Quern Factory East Wear Bay, Folkestone, Kent Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVKrBEqMg88) & Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Yef965s9U)] Beneath the remains of the Romano-British villa was probably an Iron Age
oppidum
An ''oppidum'' (plural ''oppida'') is a large fortified Iron Age settlement or town. ''Oppida'' are primarily associated with the Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread across Europe, stretchi ...
. Remains beneath the Roman villa suggest that
querns
Quern-stones are stone tools for hand-grinding a wide variety of materials. They are used in pairs. The lower stationary stone of early examples is called a saddle quern, while the upper mobile stone is called a muller, rubber or handstone. The ...
, or stones used to grind cereal crops into flour, were produced here during the Iron Age on an almost industrial scale.
Over 60 quern-stones have been recovered from the site of the villa and the lower cliff area.
The querns are made of the local
greensand
Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and c ...
stone, most likely collected or cut from nearby Copt Point and taken to the headland to be worked. The majority of the found querns are unfinished, with partially worked surfaces, or incomplete hoppers and spindle holes.
In many cases, the querns appear to have been damages and discarded, many seeming to have fractured during the hole boring stage. In addition to the numerous broken or unfinished querns, a layer of the excavation strata at the Villa/opidum site is entirely composed of greensand dust, which is almost certainly stone-working debris,
suggesting that this was the location of the Iron Age quern workshop.
![Quern stones](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Quern_stones.JPG)
Querns constructed of Folkestone greensand have been found in numerous other archeological excavations, including local Kentish sites such as
Wingham and Dosset Court in
Upper Deal, as well as more distant sites such as
Hunsbury Nortants,
London,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, and possibly France.
Archeological evidence suggests that in return for the querns, fine pottery from Gaul and wine from Italy were imported through the bay.
The Roman Era
Evidence of trade between
Roman Gaul
Roman Gaul refers to GaulThe territory of Gaul roughly corresponds to modern-day France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and adjacient parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century ...
and the wealthy community who lived at Folkestone, seems to suggest that they were on good terms with the Romans in the years before the Roman occupation,
and that when the Roman Emperor
Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusu ...
invaded Britain in AD 43, his troops did not come ashore at Folkestone. By c. 75 AD, the Iron Age settlement had been replaced with a Roman villa. The first version of the villa to be built consisted only of block A, and was built of
tufa
Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes. Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less porous) carbonate deposits, which are known as travertine. ...
blocks laid on foundations of flint and ironstone.
Main rooms had ''
opus signinum
''Opus signinum'' ('cocciopesto' in modern Italian) is a building material used in ancient Rome. It is made of tiles broken up into very small pieces, mixed with mortar, and then beaten down with a rammer. Pliny the Elder in his '' Natural Histor ...
'' flooring, and were possibly painted with frescoes.
![Mosaic fragment](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Mosaic_fragment._%28FindID_69499%29.jpg)
The villa was rebuilt sometime in the second century, and when
S. E. Winbolt
Samuel Edward Winbolt (1868–1944) was a British classics and history teacher, author and amateur archaeologist.
He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he subsequently returned as a master in classics an ...
excavated room no. 41 in 1924, he found over 2 inches of burnt material beneath the flooring, suggesting that the villa may have been gutted by fire.
This second villa was more luxurious, and was complete with mosaics, painted walls, a bath house, and underfloor heating. The villa was rebuilt in roughly the same plan as before, but with enlarged rooms and corridors, an enlarged bath suite, and the addition of more rooms. Instead of tufa blocks, it was rebuilt with quarried and faced
greensand
Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and c ...
stone, and on footings of rounded sea-stones laid on the gault clay.
Tufa blocks were taken from the old building, and in some cases used to build portions of Block B. In all, over 60 rooms have been discovered in three separate blocks.
Classis Britannica
The ''Classis Britannica'' (literally, ''British fleet'', in the sense of 'the fleet in British waters' or 'the fleet of the province of Britannia', rather than 'the fleet of the state of Britain') was a provincial naval fleet of the navy of anc ...
tiles found at the site indicate that the villa might have a connection to the Roman Navy in Britain, or that the villa was possibly some sort of signalling station.
It is unclear who inhabited the villa, but such villas were high status, and would have been occupied by important or wealthy Romans or by the Romano-British elite.
For reasons that are unclear, the villa seems to have been abandoned sometime in the late third century.
It was briefly reoccupied in the 4th century, before it was abandoned and buried under sediments.
The Roman Villa
Block A Building
The Block A building is thought to be the earliest part of the villa built, although it was renovated or rebuilt at the time block B was constructed. Block A is around 212 feet long, and consists of two corridors, or verandahs, with wings at each end.
The entrance to the villa was on the seaward side, and through the corridor into the best room in the villa, room no. 40. The rooms to the north and west of this are all furnished with hearths and fine flooring, and were probably the bedrooms of the villa.
The west end of the villa was probably the working end of the villa, and contained the furnace, bathing rooms, kitchen, and lavatorium. Room no. 28 was probably a kitchen, and a short passageway led to a
lavatorium
A lavatorium (plural ''lavatoria''), also anglicisation, anglicised as laver and lavatory, was the communal washing area in a monastery, particularly in medieval abbeys and cathedral cloisters. Monks were required to wash before meals; thus the la ...
, or washing room, containing a big basin. A drain in the floor of the lavatorium probably led used water off to a drain in the south-west corner of the house. Adjacent to the kitchen suite was the bathing suite.
Room no. 29 featured a
hypocaust
A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm th ...
heating system, which probably had a
caldarium
230px, Caldarium from the Roman Baths at Bath, England. The floor has been removed to reveal the empty space where the hot air flowed through to heat the floor.
A caldarium (also called a calidarium, cella caldaria or cella coctilium) was a room ...
, or hot plunge bath above it.
The adjacent room no. 30 would have received indirect heat from the hypocaust, and was probably a
tepidarium
The tepidarium was the warm (''tepidus'') bathroom of the Roman baths heated by a hypocaust or underfloor heating system. The speciality of a tepidarium is the pleasant feeling of constant radiant heat which directly affects the human body from t ...
, and room no. 36 a cold plunge bath. The cold plunge bath was finished in concrete with an ''
opus signinum
''Opus signinum'' ('cocciopesto' in modern Italian) is a building material used in ancient Rome. It is made of tiles broken up into very small pieces, mixed with mortar, and then beaten down with a rammer. Pliny the Elder in his '' Natural Histor ...
'' floor, and would have been about 3 feet deep. Immediately adjacent to the bathing suite are the small rooms nos. 31–33, and were probably warming rooms or
apodyterium
In ancient Rome, the apodyterium (from grc, ἀποδυτήριον "undressing room") was the primary entry in the public baths, composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings ...
. Three other rooms lay near the bath complex, but could not be excavated as they lay under a road.
In the center of the villa lay a suite of large rooms (nos. 40–42) that probably served as the main living and entertaining rooms of the house. The central room of the villa, no. 40, had a
tessellated
A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of ...
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
floor, and a magnificent view overlooking the courtyard and the sea, and is where the villa owner might have entertained guests.
An earlier floor of ''
opus signinum
''Opus signinum'' ('cocciopesto' in modern Italian) is a building material used in ancient Rome. It is made of tiles broken up into very small pieces, mixed with mortar, and then beaten down with a rammer. Pliny the Elder in his '' Natural Histor ...
'' was discovered about 1 foot below the tessellated floor, indicating that the villa had been rebuilt and the flooring relaid at some point.
Adjacent room no. 41 show significant evidence of being burnt, which may explain why the villa was renovated or rebuilt.
Portions of older walls and flooring have been found beneath the rebuilt villa, and in room no. 41, there is a 2-inch thick layer of burnt material, suggesting that portions of the villa were gutted by fire.
Block B Building
Block B was built at the same time that Block A was renovated, and contains many similar features –
hypocaust
A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm th ...
, Roman baths, a kitchen, and an especially large room warmed by the hypocaust are featured.
The furthest edge of Block B was unfortunately already crumbling over the cliffside when Winbolt excavated in 1924.
Excavation
The Roman Villa Site was known to inhabitants for many years before it was formally excavated. In the 18th century, the land was notoriously difficult to farm because of "old stones" which damaged farming equipment.
In 1919, the curator of the Folkestone Museum, Mr. Browne Anderson, dug a preliminary trench at the site, but it wasn't until 1924 that the site was fully excavated by
S. E. Winbolt
Samuel Edward Winbolt (1868–1944) was a British classics and history teacher, author and amateur archaeologist.
He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he subsequently returned as a master in classics an ...
. The site was open to the public, and was a popular tourist and national heritage attraction, until the onset of World War II. During the war, the site formed part of a series of gun emplacements along the cliffs, and was closed to the public (When archeologists excavated in 2010, they observed tank tracks across the Roman walls).
The site reopened to the public in 1945, but continued to deteriorate. With funds for restoration or protection lacking due to post-war austerity measures, the decision was reluctantly made by the then Corporation of Folkestone
to recover the site with
clinker from the nearby municipal incineration unit.
It was not until 1989 that the site was re-excavated as a joint venture between the Kent Archeological Unit and Folkestone and Hythe District Council.
The site was mainly a rescue mission, to locate the villa remains, determine the condition of the surviving Roman masonry, and ascertain how much of the villa had fallen over the cliff since 1924.
The excavation took place over the summer of 1989. Some repairs were made to the villa during this excavation before the villa was recovered with backfill for the winter.
The site was excavated again from 2010–2011, as part of the three year "A Town Unearthed: Folkestone Before 1500" project.
It was organized by Canterbury Christ Church University, the Folkestone People's History Centre and Canterbury Archaeological Trust.
It was awarded £300,000 from the Heritage Lottery Trust,
and was additionally funded by the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, the Folkestone Town Council, the Kent Archaeological Society and the Folkestone and Hythe District Council. The excavation eventually won the "Rescue Dig of the Year" award by Current Archaeology magazine.
References
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External links
A Town Unearthed: Folkestone Before 1500– official site
{{coord, 51.0887, N, 1.1985, E, source:wikidata, display=title
Roman villas in Kent
1st-century establishments in Roman Britain
3rd-century disestablishments in Roman Britain