Ely Roman Villa is a modest Romano-British villa situated on the west bank of the River Ely on the outskirts of Cardiff, occupied from roughly the late 2nd century AD into the 4th century. It was a relatively small, winged-corridor stone building rather than a grand luxury residence, and is unusual in that excavation revealed evidence for industrial activity — notably iron-working and possibly lead-working — alongside its domestic function.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site is one of very few confirmed Roman villas in Glamorgan and the wider south Wales region, where villa culture was sparse compared with southern England, making it an important indicator of the limited but real Romanisation of the rural hinterland of the legionary fortress at Caerleon and the small town/port at Cardiff. Its combination of agricultural and metalworking functions suggests it served as a local estate centre producing goods for nearby military and civilian markets.
Excavated by John Storrie in 1894 and more systematically by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1921–1922, the site yielded the plan of a rectangular stone-founded house with corridor, hearths and slag indicating metalworking, coarse pottery, coins, and roof tile. Recent geophysical survey and community excavations (the "CAER Heritage Project," from c. 2012 onwards) have identified additional structures and activity in Trelai Park, including the discovery of an Iron Age roundhouse, indic
Ely Roman Villa is a modest Romano-British villa situated on the west bank of the River Ely on the outskirts of Cardiff, occupied from roughly the late 2nd century AD into the 4th century. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Ely 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 Tamion? (3.4 km), Llandough (4.2 km), Whitton Lodge Roman Villa (8.1 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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