Rothley is the site of a Romano-British villa in Leicestershire, located on the eastern fringe of the modern village near the River Soar, in the territory of the Corieltauvi. Active broadly through the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, it appears to have been a modest rural establishment of the type common across the east Midlands, likely developing from an earlier Iron Age or early Roman farmstead.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site forms part of the dense scatter of villa estates and farmsteads in the agriculturally productive Soar valley, lying within the economic hinterland of Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester) and not far from the Fosse Way. Such villas represent the agrarian backbone of the civitas, producing grain and livestock for both local consumption and the regional market.
Investigations in the Rothley area, including work on Rothley Lodge Farm and adjacent sites by ULAS (University of Leicester Archaeological Services), have recovered Roman building material, pottery, coins, and evidence of enclosures and field systems, with traces of stone footings and tile suggesting a masonry building. Full structural plans have not been published in detail, and the villa's exact extent, plan, and chronology remain only partially understood.
Rothley is the site of a Romano-British villa in Leicestershire, located on the eastern fringe of the modern village near the River Soar, in the territory of the Corieltauvi. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Rothley 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 Site of Roman villa (2.4 km), The 'Roman' bridge, Belgrave (6.3 km), Leicester abbey and 17th century mansion and ornamental gardens (7.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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