STROUD
Hampshire, England.
Roman villa
1.6 km W of Petersfield, excavated in 1907-8. In its
final (4th c.) phase it consisted of buildings grouped
around a nearly rectangular courtyard, ca. 51 m E-W and
48-52 m N-S. The dwelling flanked the N side, baths
the W side, and a simple rectangular building, with a
granary in its N end, lay on the E; the S side was bounded
simply by a wall, with a gateway slightly E of center.
The dwelling in its earliest form was a simple aisled
building (43.5 x 15 m) with projecting rooms at its SW
and SE corners, an entrance at the E end, and probably
another entrance, subsequently blocked, in the middle
of the S side. At a later stage, while the E section was
left unchanged, the 18 m to the W was subdivided into
eight rooms and a corridor; this converted house had
painted walls, hypocausts in two rooms and apparently
a patterned mosaic (badly preserved) in the corridor.
The date of the alteration was not established, but the
pottery and coins were predominantly of the 3d and
4th c. The small size and simplicity of the living accommodation, in contrast with the size of the baths and
the courtyard itself, strongly suggest that this was an
establishment run by a bailiff rather than a residential villa.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Moray Williams,
ArchJ 65 (1908)
57-60
P; 66 (1909) 33-52
PI; J. T. Smith, “Romano-British Aisled Houses,” ibid. 120 (1963) 1-30
PI.
A.L.F. RIVET
