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The Roman Villa at Lockleys, Welwyn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

J. B. Ward Perkins
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Extract

The Roman villa on Lockleys Estate, Welwyn, was discovered accidentally in 1930. On that occasion a small portion of it was uncovered; but it was not until 1937 that, by the permission, and with the very generous co-operation, of the Welwyn Garden City Company, it proved possible to examine the site scientifically. The building was completely cleared; and although it was not sufficiently well preserved to justify the expense of preservation, the Garden City Company have undertaken to keep the site free of building, and the complete plan has been laid out on the surface in turf and brick. Of the many persons who by their help made the excavation possible I can only here record the work of Mr. W. R. Hughes, the secretary of the excavation committee, who bore the whole burden of the preliminary arrangements and gave invaluable help in the actual work of excavation and later in the preparation of this report; of Mr. A. E. Hick, who did nearly all the photography; and of Mr. Clarke, who undertook the whole of the surveying. My debt to Dr. Wheeler at all stages of the work is so apparent as hardly to need statement. To Dr. Davies Pryce also, to Mr. K. P. Oakley, and to Mr. Derek Allen I am deeply indebted for reporting respectively upon the Samian, the foreign stone, and the coins; to Mr. Hawkes for much help and advice, particularly in relation to the Colchester material; to Miss Kenyon for examining the fourth-century pottery; to Miss Scott for her collaboration upon many points of detail; and to all others who have given me their advice.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1938 , pp. 339 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1938

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References

page 340 note 1 Archaeologia, lxiii, 1—30.

page 340 note 2 A summary is shortly to appear in the Transactions of the East Herts. Archaeological Society.

page 341 note 1 In Bessemer Road, large storage-jars akin to fig. 7, no. 29; and on the site of the new Secondary School, Common Lane, an occupation-site surrounded by a ditch, from which a mass of pre-Conquest Belgic pottery is being recovered.

page 343 note 1 Cf. the early Flavian building, which underlay the later villa at Ditchley (Radford, C. A. R., ‘The Roman Villa at Ditchley, Oxon.’, Oxoniensia, i (1937), 37–9Google Scholar, fig. 9). On the Continent the earliest farm at Mayen, assigned by the excavators to the pre-Roman La Tène period, was of this character (Oelmann, , ‘Ein gallorömischer Bauernhof bei Mayen’, Bonner Jahrbücher, cxxxiii (1928), 51 f.Google Scholar); and it is not unreasonable to assume that the increasing continental contacts witnessed by the imports of the Augustan period may have familiarized the Belgae with some of the architectural fashions current in Roman Gaul.

page 343 note 2 It must be remembered that it is precisely these wares that best lend themselves to illustration, and allowance must be made for the great quantity of coarser local fabrics, of which only a representative selection appears in figs. 5—8.

page 344 note 1 It is, however, unreasonable to suggest that all butt-beakers are pre-Conquest and that the numerous examples recorded from post-Conquest deposits (e.g. at Colchester) are necessarily earlier strays.

page 344 note 2 I am indebted to Mr. Hawkes for this suggestion.

page 345 note 1 Archaeology of Roman Britain, p. 116. Another villa of this type seems to have been that at Ellesborough, Bucks. (Stone, , Records of Bucks, ii (1863), 53Google Scholar), which was associated with first-century, derivative Belgic pottery. I am indebted to Miss M. V. Taylor for this reference.

page 348 note 1 The decoration consisted simply of panels divided horizontally and vertically by red and black lines and spotted with red and black. A more elaborate pattern of imitation green marbling (including part of the jamb of a splayed window) was found in the rubbish dumped outside the west wall of the corridor by the builders of the second Roman house (pl. lxix, section A-B, 5) and belonged presumably to the preceding building.

page 348 note 2 Collingwood, Archaeology of Roman Britain, p. 115 f.

page 348 note 3 Oelmann, , ‘Ein gallorömischer Bauernhof bei Mayen’, Bonner Jahrbücher, cxxxiii (1928), 51 f.Google Scholar, citing numerous parallels.

page 348 note 4 Kropatscheck, ‘Das römische Landhaus in Deutschland’, Bericht der römischgermanischen Kommission, 1908, 59—60.

page 348 note 5 Kropatscheck, op. cit., abb. 5; cf. the lamp from Tunisia figured by Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pl. xliii, 3.

page 367 note 1 Mr. Hawkes and Dr. Wheeler, with whom I have had the privilege of discussing this point, are both agreed that on the basis of this new evidence from Colchester the Prae Wood deposits in question may well come down as late as the eve of the Roman conquest.