Roman villa
A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions.
Typology and distribution
Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...
near
Hitchin
Hitchin () is a market town and unparished area in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 35,842.
History
Hitchin is first noted as the central place of the Hicce peopl ...
, Hertfordshire, England. It is also known as Ninesprings Roman Villa.
It is situated in the valley of the
River Purwell
The River Purwell is a chalk stream in Hertfordshire, England. The entire course of the stream is near Hitchin.
Its source is springs which rise out of the chalk bedrock at St Ippolyts, forming Ippollitts Brook. It is known as the Purwell by the ...
in the parish of
Great Wymondley
Great Wymondley is a village and former civil parish situated near Hitchin, now in the parish of Wymondley, In Roman times, as now, the villa would have been above a
wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
which is protected as the
Purwell Ninesprings
Purwell Ninesprings is a nature reserve managed by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust on the edge of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England.
The reserve is in the flood-plain of the River Purwell.
It has open water with water voles and birds such ...
nature reserve.
Wymondley in Roman times
East of the villa there is an agricultural landscape extending towards a
Roman road
Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...
field system The study of field systems (collections of fields) in landscape history is concerned with the size, shape and orientation of a number of fields. These are often adjacent, but may be separated by a later feature.
Field systems by region Czech Republ ...
of Roman origin; this early date for the field boundaries was proposed by Frederic Seebohm around the time the villa was excavated, and the idea is largely accepted by later scholars.
There is evidence of other Roman buildings at Great Wymondley, near the villa and in the centre of the modern village. We do not know on basis the Romans allotted the land at Wymondley. The people who lived at the villa may have been descendants of the pre-Roman British warrior aristocracy, as at some places the Romans returned the land to its original inhabitants. However, at other places the Romans are known to have distributed land to their army veterans. In the case of Wymondley, Applebaum speculates that some of the land was farmed by tenants of the villa's owners.
On the evidence of the continuity in field boundaries, the
Anglo-Saxon settlement
The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain is the process which changed the language and culture of most of what became England from Romano-British to Germanic. The Germanic-speakers in Britain, themselves of diverse origins, eventually develope ...
did not make a big change in the way the land was managed. In this respect, the medieval manor perhaps had a similar function to the Roman villa. However, excavations of the villa found evidence of "squatter hearths" at the villa itself. These features indicate activity, probably in the post-Roman period, by people who had no use for the luxurious installations at Wymondley such as heating by
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 ...
and
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 ...
flooring.
Excavation and access
The site was partly excavated in 1884, revealing the remains of several rooms. Three of the rooms were heated by hypocaust. While the remains have traditionally been described as a villa, this may be a misnomer. The rooms have been interpreted as an integral bath suite belonging to a villa, or alternatively a separate
bathhouse
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 ...
.
The site, which is now under farmland, can be accessed via the Hitchin outer orbital path (HOOP).
Finds
Finds at the site include
Roman mosaic
A Roman mosaic is a mosaic made during the Roman period, throughout the Roman Republic and later Empire. Mosaics were used in a variety of private and public buildings, on both floors and walls, though they competed with cheaper frescos for the ...
, and
Roman currency
Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denomi ...
including a
coin hoard
A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention o ...
, believed to have been deposited in the 3rd century, which consisted of radiates.Hill, Philip "Barbarous Radiates": Imitations of Third-Century Roman Coins. Numismatic Notes and Monographs, no. 112 (1949): Iii-44. Accessed via JSTOR September 5, 2021 (subscription required). On the evidence of coins found at the site, the villa may have been established shortly after 200 with occupation continuing until the 4th century.