Borough Hill Roman villa
Template:Geobox Borough Hill roman villa is located on the north tip of Borough Hill a prominent hill near the town of Daventry in Northamptonshire [1]. The villa’s remains lie within the ramparts of an Iron Age Fortress which covers the summit of the hill. The remains of the roman villa were discovered in 1823 by the Historian and Archaeologist G Baker. The remains were not fully excavated until 1852 when local Historian Beriah Botfield thoroughly excavated and recorded the site. Botfield employed an artist to make drawings of the site and these illustrations along with botfields notes, manuscripts and some of the antiquities found on the site are now kept at the British Museum in London.
The Excavations
Botfield’s excavations revealed a large range of rooms which ran from north to south part of which was a bath suite. It was also deduced that the building were built over a period of time and that the northern rooms are later additions[3]. The earliest parts of the villa were built in the early years of the roman occupation[4]. The villa consists of a single storey and was constructed from of the local marlstone (Sandstone) and in filled with rubble. The inside walls were plastered as may have been the exterior, although this is not certain. The building had a tiled roof examples of which can be seen in Northampton Museum. Some specimens of fresco painted plaster were found still clinging to the remains of interior walls. It was also discovered that the villa had an elaborate heating system installed under the building. Hot air from a furnace or hypocaust flowed through the building by means of flues. Some of the floors were supported upon brick or flat stone piers which supported the floor leaving a two to three foot gap in which the air flowed. Botfield also discovered a well south west of the villa. The well was stone lined and in the upper levels of the well a skeleton with bronze ‘accoutrements’ as well as an iron fibula and hook.
The site today
A walk across the site of the villa revels nothing today. Botfield very carefully backfilled the site to its original state. The nature of the construction of this villa, being built from Sandstone, meant that the only way these remains would survive the ravages of the British weather was to back fill the site.
External links
- Roman central heating: the hypocaust
- Hypocaust
- How to build your own hypocaust Channel 4 Time Team project
References
- ^ ’OS’ Explorer Map, Rugby & Daventry 222, ISBN 978 0 319 23734 2
- ^ Borough Hill (Daventry) and its History by William Edgar,Inside cover plate ASIN: B001075ZNY
- ^ An Inventory of Archaeological Sites in North West Northamptonshire, Page 66. ISBN 0 11 700900 8
- ^ Borough Hill (Daventry) and its History by William Edgar, Page 44 ASIN: B001075ZNY