Rockbourne Roman Villa
About
Rockbourne began as an Iron Age roundhouse converted into a simple three-room house in the decades after the conquest, long before it grew into the 40-plus-room complex visitors see today. That first Roman house stood for roughly a century until around 150 CE, when a larger range called the West House replaced it. A farmer plowing his field in 1942 struck the first hint of the buried ruins, setting off excavations that revealed a well yielding a haul of Roman coins. In 117 CE the estate still consisted of this earlier, modest farmhouse.
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
Nearby
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 →