This Romano-British villa lies in the upper Thames valley near Queen Court Farm, in a landscape (around Lechlade/Kempsford on the Gloucestershire–Wiltshire border) densely occupied by rural settlements from the late Iron Age through the 4th century AD. Like other villas of the Cotswold fringe and upper Thames gravels, it most likely developed from a native farmstead in the 2nd century and reached its peak in the 3rd–4th centuries, functioning as the residential and administrative core of an agricultural estate exploiting the fertile river terraces.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site forms part of the exceptionally rich villa landscape surrounding Cirencester (Corinium Dobunnorum), the second-largest town in Roman Britain, whose markets and demand drove the prosperity of mixed arable and pastoral estates in this region. It is not individually prominent in the literature, but contributes to the picture of intensive villa-based exploitation of the Thames headwaters.
Specific excavation results for this particular site are not well published; identification appears to rest largely on aerial photography, geophysical survey, and surface finds of building material, tile, and pottery typical of upper Thames villas. Without targeted excavation, the plan, phasing, and economic specialisation of the complex remain undefined.
This Romano-British villa lies in the upper Thames valley near Queen Court Farm, in a landscape (around Lechlade/Kempsford on the Gloucestershire–Wiltshire border) densely occupied by rural settlements from the late Iron Age through the 4th century AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Romano-British villa complex 330m north west of Queen Court Farm 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 pottery 140m SSW of Tewkesbury Cross (8.9 km), A henge, four Bronze Age barrows and part of a Roman road 500m south west of Fox Covert (11.8 km), Round barrow 1260m NNE of Baltic Farm, 75m south of Roman Road, forming part of a barrow cemetery situated on North Down (11.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Romano-British villa complex 330m north west of Queen Court Farm