GREAT WITCOMBE
Gloucestershire, England.
Roman villa on Cooper's Hill Farm 8 km E-SE of
Gloucester. Pre-Roman occupation of the site is represented by an Iron Age ditch, and continuity is suggested by 1st and 2d c. pottery; a simple rectangular
building discovered and destroyed ca. 1819 “in front
of” the later villa may have been related to this period.
The main part of the extant structures was built ca.
250-270. This consisted of two parallel ranges of buildings (each ca. 31.5 x 6.6 m) extending NW-SE, which
were linked at a point 12 m from their NW ends by a
corridor (33.6 x 4.8 m) so as to enclose a courtyard
on the SE side; a rectangular room (6.6 x 4.5 m) projected from the middle of the corridor on its NW side.
Extensive alterations and additions to this plan were
made between 270 and 400: the room off the corridor
was replaced by another of octagonal plan, many rooms
were added to the NE wing, and extensive baths to the
SW wing. Occupation appears to have persisted well into
the 5th c. The slope on which the villa is built presented
considerable problems, and buttresses and terracing were
extensively used. Most of the mosaics are geometric
but one in the baths has a design of fish, and a threshold shows a town gate. The site is in the care of the
Department of the Environment.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S. Lysons,
Archaeologia 19 (1821) 178-83; E. M. Clifford,
Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc.
73 (1954) 5-69
PI;
Britannia 1 (1970) 294-95
P.
A.L.F. RIVET
