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Project
Background
Ideally, the range of buildings that Atkinson excavated is in need of total re-excavation to analyse his interpretation coupled with evaluating the agricultural damage since 1923. This would, however, take considerable time and resources that are not presently available, and hence it is hoped that the present excavations will go some way to address and answer some of these problems. Michael de Bootman in his early teens conducted fieldwalking on the site during the early 1980s under the guidance of the late Tony Gregory. Plough damage to the site and buildings was quite extensive (de Bootman 2001). The site has over the years attracted numerous non-intensive fieldwalking activities, often with the finds being recorded with the Site and Monuments Record (now Historic and Environment Record HER). However, the fact that the villa is probably the best known in Norfolk has also attracted large amounts of illicit and damaging metal detecting. Due to the importance of the site, the plough erosion of both the North and South Block and surrounding ‘virgin’ archaeology, the site will be taken out of agriculture in September 2006 under Defra (Higher Level Entry Scheme), thus providing the site protection. It is important that any work undertaken in this brief is scheduled before the site is withdrawn from agricultural use. The re-evaluation of certain parts of the villa that were excavated during 1922-23 and a record of the preservation at that time compared with that in 2006 will hopefully provide a useful addition to knowledge regarding the management of threatened archaeology by modern farming practices.
Possible interpretation – North Block A building/phasing sequence for the North Block can partly be suggested by its plan when compared with other wing-corridor buildings. Although Atkinson does not mention anything regarding the building sequence/phasing, there are some clues in his report that suggests the following; This type of building normally began as a series of rooms forming a simple rectangular plan with one or two corridors either side of the rooms. The wings were then normally added at a later stage. The demolished hypocaust in Rooms P1 and P2, with the small Room O forming its furnace served this original building (Atkinson 1928, 182). Although the evidence for a hypocaust in these rooms was only slight, but assuming Atkinson was correct in his interpretation with Room O being the furnace, which seems plausible, this would then imply that the original building did not have an eastern corridor, as the furnace (Room O) would have been stoked from the outside and not from within a corridor. It would appear that this hypocaust was demolished at the time when the wings were added and another hypocaust constructed in Rooms A, B, C, & D.
It is therefore suggested, based on the plan of the building, that Rooms E1, E2, K, L, M, N, O, P1 & P2 formed the first building with Room R forming a single corridor on its west side. Room L with its central mosaic looks to have been redesigned at some stage, probably at the time when the eastern corridor and wings were added, with its south-west wall extended, protruding into the western corridor (Room R) to accommodate the mosaic. The two smaller rooms on each side of the mosaic (Rooms K, M), probably at the earlier stage of the villa, formed one room which also encompassed Room L. These two small narrow rooms (K, M) may have had an upper floor, although Atkinson found no evidence for stairways as such, and it is not uncommon in Roman Britain for two storey buildings to have existed. Equally these may have been crossing passages between the corridors. Due to the plan of Room L, it may be suggested that this room was constructed around a pre-determined mosaic plan rather than a mosaic being constructed to a room plan.
Plan of the villa showing location of trenches. The plan of the building also suggests that while Rooms A, B, C & D appear to have been purposely added to form a north wing (Room A’s south-western wall abuts to Room E1 forming a narrow length of double wall, therefore indicating a later addition), part of the south wing was remodelled from Rooms P1, P2 & O with the addition of Room I. The southern wall of Room P1 which joins Room I is clearly thinner suggesting that Room I is of a later date than Room P1.
Atkinson suggested a date range for the villa of AD 150/170 to AD 300/320 (Atkinson 1929, 208-209) and that the South Block was of a later date to the North Block. Plan of villa (after Atkinson) and other cropmarks, areas marked in red define the excavation trenches.
Images from the 1923 Excavation (click the image
to enlarge)
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