The Southwell villa lies beneath and around the Minster precinct in Nottinghamshire, on the south bank of the River Greet. It was a substantial Romano-British villa, with evidence of activity from the 2nd century into the 4th century AD, situated in the fertile Trent valley hinterland of the legionary fortress at Lincoln (Lindum) and the small town of Margidunum.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The villa is one of the more northerly examples of well-appointed Roman rural settlement in the East Midlands, suggesting that the civilian agricultural economy of the civitas of the Corieltauvi extended productively into this part of the Trent basin. Its position is particularly notable because the site was later chosen for an important Anglo-Saxon and medieval minster church, raising the long-debated question of continuity of sacred or high-status occupation.
Discoveries beneath and adjacent to Southwell Minster — including tessellated pavements, a polychrome mosaic fragment found in the 18th century, painted wall plaster, hypocaust tile, and walling — indicate a winged or courtyard villa of some pretension. More recent excavations in the Minster precinct and Church Street have confirmed Roman structural remains and associated finds, though the full plan of the villa has never been recovered owing to the overlying ecclesiastical and urban fabric.
The Southwell villa lies beneath and around the Minster precinct in Nottinghamshire, on the south bank of the River Greet. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a villa site from the Roman period in Britain.
Southwell 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 vexillation fortress 310m and 530m south of Osmanthorpe Manor (3.4 km), Thurgarton (4.6 km), Ad Pontem (6.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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