The site east of Palace Cottage at Boughspring, in the parish of Tidenham (Gloucestershire), is a Romano-British villa occupying a south-facing slope above the lower Wye valley. It appears to have been active from the later 1st or 2nd century into the 4th century AD, developing from modest origins into a substantial winged-corridor or courtyard establishment typical of the Severn–Wye estate landscape.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Boughspring is one of a cluster of villas in the Forest of Dean fringe — alongside Stock Farm, Park Farm and Huntsham — exploiting good agricultural land, proximity to the Wye, and the iron-producing economy of the Dean. It represents the prosperous "villa zone" extending west of the Severn estuary and tied into the markets at Caerwent (Venta Silurum) across the river and Glevum (Gloucester) to the north.
Excavations by Bryan Walters in the 1980s revealed stone-founded buildings including a bath suite with hypocausts, painted wall plaster, tesserae, and a range of domestic finds (pottery, coins, ironwork) indicating occupation across several centuries. The full plan of the villa complex has not been completely recovered, and the published record remains relatively limited compared with better-known Dean villas such as Huntsham.
The site east of Palace Cottage at Boughspring, in the parish of Tidenham (Gloucestershire), is a Romano-British villa occupying a south-facing slope above the lower Wye valley. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman site 150yds (140m) E of Palace Cottage, Boughspring is classified as a Roman site — 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 villa 550m south-west of Woolaston station (3.9 km), Camp Hill promontory fort and Romano-British temple complex (7.7 km), Roman Villa at Clearwell Farm (11.3 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 Roman site 150yds (140m) E of Palace Cottage, Boughspring