'Elaborate' Roman villa discovered by chance in Wiltshire

An "elaborate and extraordinarily well-preserved" Roman villa has been discovered by chance in Wilshire.

The farmhouse owner from Tisbury was laying electric cables in his garden, when he found a high-quality Roman mosaic in the ground.

Luke Irwin then called in archaeological experts, and an eight-day dig unearthed the home of a wealthy family living in luxury in what could be one of the largest such villas in the country.

The dig, conducted by Historic England and Salisbury Museum, produced finds including oysters, coins and brooches which suggests at the wealth of the previous occupants.

The bones of animals including a suckling pig, wild animals which had been hunted, a Roman well, and a Roman child's coffin were also discovered.

The villa - which is being compared to the Roman home at Chedworth, Gloucestershire, in size and wealth - was built sometime between 175 AD and 220 AD and was repeatedly remodelled up to the mid 4th century AD.

The dig also revealed occupation of the site dating back to a pre-Roman roundhouse.

And archaeologists found evidence of fifth-century pottery and timber structures within the partly ruined villa, suggesting the presence of a Romano-British family who did not have the resources to live in the house but remained at the site.

• Significant find

Dr David Roberts, Historic England archaeologist, said the find was very significant for a number of reasons.

All large Roman villas found in the UK were important, he said, while this villa's high state of preservation and the finds of material dating from the 5th century, a post-Roman but pre-Saxon period for the region, also made it significant.