Old Durham is the site of a small Romano-British villa or farmstead on the south bank of the River Wear, just outside modern Durham city. Occupation appears to span the later 2nd to 4th centuries AD, with the establishment of a modest bath-house and associated agricultural buildings indicating a working rural estate rather than a high-status residence.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
It is one of the most northerly known villas in Roman Britain, lying well behind Hadrian's Wall in the militarised zone of the north-east, and probably supplied produce to the garrisons and the vicus economy of County Durham. Its existence challenges the older view that villa-style settlement effectively ceased north of Yorkshire.
Excavations in 1940–41 and again in 1951 (by I. A. Richmond, C. E. Stevens and others) uncovered a small bath suite with hypocaust, a circular threshing floor, and traces of other agricultural structures, along with pottery and coins suggesting use into the 4th century. No substantial residential range was identified, and the wider plan of the site remains poorly understood.
Old Durham is the site of a small Romano-British villa or farmstead on the south bank of the River Wear, just outside modern Durham city. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Old Durham 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 ‘Cocanges’/‘Concangios’ (8.6 km), Lanchester Roman fort (Longovicium) (12.8 km), Untitled (13.1 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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