Keynsham was a substantial Roman villa complex situated on the River Avon between Bath (Aquae Sulis) and Bristol, occupied principally in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. Two separate villa buildings are known in the vicinity: the main Keynsham villa (Somerdale), a large courtyard villa of unusual plan with hexagonal rooms, and a second villa at Durley Hill discovered in the 1920s during construction of the Fry's chocolate factory.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The Somerdale villa is notable for its scale and architectural ambition, including polygonal reception rooms — a feature paralleled at very few British villas — suggesting a wealthy late-Roman owner participating in the prosperous villa economy of the Bath/Mendip region. Its location near Aquae Sulis and on good agricultural land along the Avon places it firmly within the dense villa landscape that supplied and surrounded that civitas.
Excavations in 1922–24 by Bulleid and Horne (and subsequent work) revealed substantial masonry foundations, hypocausts, painted wall plaster, and notable mosaic pavements, including one depicting Europa and the Bull and other mythological scenes, now partly preserved in Bristol City Museum. Several decorated stone coffins were also recovered from an associated cemetery, indicating continued use into the late 4th century.
Keynsham was a substantial Roman villa complex situated on the River Avon between Bath (Aquae Sulis) and Bristol, occupied principally in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Keynsham 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 Roman Settlement at Keynsham Hams, former Cadbury's Factory (0.7 km), Durley Hill (1 km), Brislington Roman villa (4.4 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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