Barton Farm was a substantial winged-corridor villa on the northwestern outskirts of Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester), occupied principally in the 3rd–4th centuries AD when the surrounding region reached its peak of villa prosperity. It is best known as the findspot of the Barton Farm (Orpheus) Mosaic, a large polychrome pavement depicting Orpheus charming birds and beasts in concentric registers, attributed to the so-called Corinian school of mosaicists active in the mid-4th century.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The villa lay within the immediate hinterland of Corinium, the second-largest town in Roman Britain and a probable provincial capital of Britannia Prima, suggesting the owner was a wealthy member of the civitas elite with close civic ties. The Orpheus pavement is one of the finest products of the Corinian workshop, closely paralleled by mosaics at Woodchester and Chedworth, and points to the villa's high status.
The mosaic was uncovered in 1825 and lifted in the later 19th century, eventually being conserved at the Corinium Museum; the building from which it came has only been partially recorded, with antiquarian observations indicating a corridor villa with projecting wings rather than full modern excavation. As a result, the plan, outbuildings, and full chronology of the site remain poorly understood compared with better-investigated Cotswold villas nearby.
Barton Farm was a substantial winged-corridor villa on the northwestern outskirts of Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester), occupied principally in the 3rd–4th centuries AD when the surrounding region reached its peak of villa prosperity. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Barton Farm is classified as a Roman villa — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Romano-British site known as Hailey Wood Camp (2.9 km), Korinion/Cironium (4.1 km), Sapperton and Cirencester amphitheatre (4.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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