Dryhill Roman villa lies on the Cotswold dip-slope near Tewkesbury/Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, within the densely villa-rich hinterland of Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester). Like its Cotswold neighbours, it likely originated as a modest rural farmstead in the later 1st or 2nd century AD and developed into a more elaborate stone-built residence by the 3rd–4th centuries, when this region experienced a marked boom in villa construction.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site forms part of one of the densest concentrations of villa estates in Roman Britain, an agricultural landscape geared to producing grain, wool, and livestock for Cirencester — the second-largest town in the province and later capital of Britannia Prima. Dryhill itself is not among the celebrated Cotswold villas (such as Chedworth or Woodchester) but is a representative element of that prosperous rural economy.
Dryhill Roman villa lies on the Cotswold dip-slope near Tewkesbury/Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, within the densely villa-rich hinterland of Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester). It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Dryhill Roman villa 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 Coberley Roman Villa (4 km), Great Witcombe (4.2 km), Manless Town medieval settlement and the buried remains of a Roman camp (5.4 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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