'Unusual' Roman villa discovered on Oxfordshire housing development

WATCH: Archaeologists have uncovered a Roman villa at a housing development, as ITV Meridian's Ciaran Fitzpatrick reports.

An "unusual" Roman villa has been discovered on a housing development in Oxfordshire.

It was unearthed whilst work was being carried out on a David Wilson and Barratt Homes site near Wantage.

Archaeologists said large quantities of pottery, Roman coins and painted plaster have been found in the villa.

Whilst excavating, the team also discovered a rare "aisled building" which is thought to have been built later than the villa.

Archaeologists came across the villa while working on the site at Brookside Meadows in Grove. Credit: ITV Meridian

Louis Stafford, senior project manager, Red River Archaeology said: "We are only halfway through the excavation. We've uncovered the villa itself but we're still to uncover the remainder of the aisled building.

"We're hoping to learn what function that had. It's a very large building and they're quite rare. We want to work out how it fit in with the wider site.

"Once we've finished fully recording this and we've got everything we need to from the site, we will release it to housing.

"It'll be the next step for a site that's been inhabited for 2,000 years, re-occupying a site that the Romans abandoned."

  • Francesca Giarelli, project officer, Red River Archaeology

The archaeology team say there are quite a lot of Roman sites across Oxfordshire, as it was well populated and there was a lot of colonisation.

Francesca Giarelli, project officer, Red River Archaeology said: "We started from quite far away from this site.

"The finds were getting richer and more abundant the closer we got to the main villa, so we knew that something was going on.

Large quantities of pottery, Roman coins and painted plaster have been found in the villa. Credit: ITV Meridian

"At some point in history we completely forgot the site existed. There is no record of it in any of the documents we have looked at.

"The most interesting fact is that we have found painted plaster and some of the paint is blue.

"The blue pigment comes from Afghanistan. In that time, taking that pigment all across the Roman Empire, just to paint your house, that's kind of amazing."

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