Eccles Roman Villa
About
Eccles ranks among the earliest high-status stone buildings raised anywhere in Roman Britain, its first structure going up around 65 CE, barely two decades after the conquest. The original house held 12 rooms, five floored with tessellated pavement, plus a veranda and a probable second story. A large nearby bathhouse carried mosaic work reminiscent of Fishbourne Roman Palace, forty miles west. Archaeologist A.P. Detsicas excavated the site across thirteen seasons from 1963 to 1976.
What happened here
A working estate with a comfortable house attached, and the proportions vary with how rich the owner is and how often he visits. The farm side has presses for oil and wine, threshing floors, storage sunk into the ground, stables and quarters for the workforce. The residential side has baths, dining rooms sited for the view, mosaics, and a garden with water in it. A manager runs the place year-round and reports; the owner arrives for the vintage and for the summer. Produce goes to market or to the owner's town house, and the accounts are kept in detail. Some villas are pure retreat with no farm at all, built on a cliff or a lake specifically to be looked at from a boat.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →