The Carsington Roman Villa is a Roman villa at Scow Brook, Carsington near Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England.
The site of the villa is currently submerged under the Carsington Water reservoir. Before the reservoir was built, the villa would have been located along the upper valley of the Scow Brook.
The villa contains a main house, a bathhouse, a courtyard, and a number of outbuildings. The main house is 28 meters long by 9 meters wide, forming an area of 252 square meters (around three times the size of a modern house). The bathhouse, attached to the south-east corner of the main house, is 13.5 meters long and 4 meters wide, adding another 54 square meters to the structure. The villa was built on a platform raised above the surrounding fields, presumably to keep it dry. The main house has a verandah on the west side which would catch the evening sun in the summer.
The villa was constructed from sandstone and gritstone. The sandstone may have been quarried nearby at Warrington Knob, where archaeologists reported a small, disused quarry. Gritstone (millstone grit) could have been obtained from the south side of Pitty Wood, which is about 1.5 km south-west of Wirksworth. This would give it the appearance of a large stone-built Derbyshire barn or farmhouse but with crucial differences: The villa had a verandah on its main west frontage. It had small Roman windows (window glass was found in the excavations) with shutters, and the main house had a pink shiny stone slate roof composed of mica sandstone from a quarry at Wyver Wood at Belper Lane End. The roof would have glittered in the sunlight, making it stand out against the green landscape. The bathhouse and verandah's orange, pantile roofs were composed of Roman imbrex (curved) tiles and tegula (flat) under tiles.
1. At the north end of the building, there was a room with a hypocaust (i.e. a source of central heating) on the west side. This room may have been a dining room or study (most of the early Romans could read and write).
2. On the east side of the north end, there was a small unit which was most likely a utility, store, or servants room. It was quite large but had no distinct or unusual features in the excavation.
3. The main hall. This was the main living room of the villa and had two hearths, a large one and a smaller one. These were probably used for cooking/heating; braziers were also used for heating. The main door from this room would have opened onto the verandah on the west side, and there was presumably a back door opening on to the courtyard on the east side. Roman buildings did not usually have chimneys. However, there would have been a louver or roof vent to let the hearth smoke out of the building. The windows were also fitted with louvers or shutters over the glass. There was no mosaic at this villa, but two types of colored tile were found during the excavations, suggesting the building may have had a patterned floor.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The Carsington Roman Villa is a Roman villa at Scow Brook, Carsington near Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England. The site of the villa is currently submerged under the Carsington Water reservoir. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Carsington 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 settlement and field system at Rainster Rocks (3.4 km), Prehistoric and Romano-British barrow and medieval animal pen, 450m south east of Roystone Grange (5.6 km), Romano-British field system, 420m south east of Roystone Grange (5.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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