This is a one-year project and has been designed to be an intensive micro-study of a Roman villa and its immediate landscape.

The Roman villa at Gayton Thorpe, in West Norfolk was originally excavated in 1922 by Mr. W Charlton and subsequently completed over Easter 1923 by Donald Atkinson. It forms the southern most of a chain of villas spaced approximately 1.5 miles apart extending north towards Snettisham.

To date this villa represents the only known mosaic of geometric design to have been excavated and recorded in situ in Norfolk. The main building of the villa is of a wing-corridor design with most of the floors being tessellated.

Even though this villa also represents one of only a handful in Norfolk for which we have a complete plan, our understanding of how it developed is poor. 

Gayton Thorpe Villa from the north as it may have looked during the 3rd century. Reconstruction by Sue White ©

During the early part of 2006, Heritage Marketing and Publications together with Chris Birks Archaeology put together a project design to conduct a limited amount of excavation work together with an extensive geophysical survey of the main villa site and the surrounding landscape. This will be followed up in the winter months with an large scale programme of fieldwalking.

The focus of our summer work was from the 14^th to 28^th August.   It is hoped that in addition to learning more about the villa the excavations will give test information for the ‘Monuments at Risk Programme’ whilst also obtaining supporting data for the Defra (Higher Level Entry Scheme) In September this site will be taken out of agriculture.

Our main objectives were as follows

• Re-excavation and recording of the main mosaic.

• Evaluate damage to the site since 1923.

• Obtain evidence for phasing/remodelling of the wing-corridor building.

A variety of people were involved in the excavation work, ranging from keen amateurs to students and professional archaeologists. The excavation was directed by John Shepherd, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, while Michael de Bootman directing the geophysical aspect of the project. 

On Monday 28^th August we had an open day (and what a day, around 2500 visited) click here for more information and images.