9.2. SOUTHERN COUNTIES (EAST)

Abstract

Roman villa (National Heritage List entry 1002433). The villa had previously produced a number of tessellated pavements, including one of Christ with a Chi-Rho symbol now housed at the British Museum.126 The trenches revealed that, although the room containing the Christ mosaic was probably part of a larger masonry building, there was no evidence that this was a Romano-British courtyard ‘villa’ as previously proposed.127 Other buildings in the mosaic’s immediate vicinity were confirmed as Romano-British, but these were relatively unsophisticated and were more likely to have had agricultural functions. There was very little evidence for occupation prior to A.D. 300 and the site seems to have been occupied until the end of the fourth or into the early fifth century.128 Initial post-excavation work has been completed, the results of which are available.129