NORTH LEIGH
Oxfordshire, England.
Roman villa 4.8 km SW of Woodstock and 1.2 km S of
Akeman Street, excavated in 1813-16 and 1908-11. The
visible buildings cover an area ca. 90 m square and form
three sides of a courtyard, with a gatehouse in the middle of the fourth (SE) side. The earliest buildings occupied the NW side and consisted of a dwelling (ca. 24 x 18 m) with a separate bath house to the NE. This
house was then joined to the baths and extended, first
along the whole length of the NW side, and later by the
building of wings along the other two sides of the courtyard. Other modifications were made, including the construction of two more sets of baths, and seven rooms were equipped with mosaic floors, but the succession has not
been fully worked out; the pottery, however, suggests that
the first house was occupied in the 2d c. and the coins
extend to Arcadius.
These buildings have been preserved and are open to
inspection, but they do not represent the full extent of
the villa. Aerial photography has revealed large ranges
of rooms on the SW side of the visible remains and part
of a wall which presumably enclosed the whole complex,
and a track can be seen leading to quarries 180 m to the
SW; but none of these features has yet been checked
by excavation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. Hakewill,
An Account of the Roman
Villa discovered at Northleigh (1826);
VCH Oxfordshire
I (1939) 316-18; D. N. Riley,
JRS 34 (1944) 81.
A.L.F. RIVET
