ABERMAGWR ROMAN VILLA;NANT MAGWR ROMAN SITE

Site Description

A winged Roman villa, occupying the north-east angle of a double-ditched rectangular enclosure, certainly occupied in the third and early fourth centuries AD. The site is entirely plough-levelled and was discovered through aerial photography and geophysical survey but was confirmed by excavation in July 2010 by Toby Driver and Jeffrey Davies.

SUMMARY OF SITE AND ITS DISCOVERY

Incomplete cropmarks of a double-ditched rectangular enclosure, with traces of a possible building within, were first recorded at Abermagwr by Cambridge University aerial photographers in August 1979. The site was subsequently photographed from the air during dry summers of the 1980s and 1990s but remained undated due to its unusual morphology (shape). It was not until the drought summer of 2006 that the near-complete layout of this enclosure was revealed.

Photography on the 27th July 2006 showed the ditched enclosure to be complex, with an additional annex, and confirmed a substantial rectangular building within. During research for the second series of the Hidden Histories television series for BBC2 Wales in 2009, the site was selected as the most promising undated, yet complex, cropmark for a magnetometry survey. It was hoped that this would shed light on the date of the enclosure which was variously mooted as an Iron Age ritual enclosure, a Roman villa, a Roman temple/temenos enclosure or a medieval church/chapel enclosure. Magnetometry by David Hopewell was carried out on Thursday 2nd July 2009. A winged building with three inner rooms and a south-facing veranda was revealed within the enclosure. At this stage it seemed likely to be an undiscovered Roman villa.

RESULTS FROM THE 2010 EXCAVATIONS

Trial excavations in July 2010 have confirmed the remains of a much-robbed late Roman villa. The Abermagwr villa had all the trappings of established villas in south Wales and southern England, including a slate roof and glazed windows. It was roofed with local slates, but these were pentagonal, cut with five sides and a fine point to form a highly decorative roof, common amongst villas in south-west England and the Isle of Wight. The walls were built of local stone on cobble foundations though the upper storey (If such existed) may possibly have been timber-framed and plastered. The villa was fronted by a cobbled yard. Finds from the site indicate occupation in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD. They include vessels in Black Burnished ware, a practical kitchen pottery imported from Dorset, and fine ware bowls from Oxfordshire. Three coins of Constantine I, minted in the first quarter of the 4th century AD, were crucial for the dating the site and were all found lying on or near late clay floor surfaces underneath the collapsed slate roof.

The villa was heavily robbed for its building stone, probably in the medieval period. ‘Robber trenches’ were dug into the ruins and most useful blocks removed leaving only the substantial clay and stone packed foundations. The building became lost from memory, and the land returned to the plough. Only the local name ‘Magwr’, meaning a ‘ruined homestead’ preserves a memory of a building here.

T. Driver (RCAHMW) June 2010

Coflein

ABERMAGWR ROMAN VILLA;NANT MAGWR ROMAN SITE

Site Details

Site Description