The Faversham Roman villa was a corridor-plan villa situated on the fertile North Kent coastal plain near the head of Faversham Creek, active from the late 1st century CE until around 300 CE. It belongs to a cluster of villas along Watling Street and the Swale, occupying a productive agricultural landscape close to the Roman small town at Faversham (Durolevum, if that identification is accepted) and the major port at Richborough.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The villa exemplifies the prosperous agrarian economy of east Kent, where estates produced grain, fruit and possibly wine for both local consumption and export across the Channel, benefiting from proximity to Watling Street and creek-side access to the Thames Estuary. Its abandonment by around 300 CE — earlier than many British villas, which peaked in the 4th century — is a notable feature of the North Kent pattern.
Excavation in 1965 (published by Brian Philp and the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit) revealed a modest corridor-type building with associated outbuildings, painted wall plaster, tile and pottery indicating occupation through the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Detailed publication is limited compared with major Kent villas such as Lullingstone or Eccles, and finer details of internal layout, mosaics or bathing facilities at Faversham are not well recorded in the wider literature.
The Faversham Roman villa was a corridor-plan villa situated on the fertile North Kent coastal plain near the head of Faversham Creek, active from the late 1st century CE until around 300 CE. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Faversham 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 The site of St Saviour's Abbey, including the remains of an Iron Age farmstead and Faversham Roman villa (0.2 km), A Romano-British mausoleum, an associated Romano-British building and a parish church at Stone-by-Faversham (2.9 km), Bax Farm, Teynham (7.6 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around Faversham Roman villa