More information : (TL 12499854) Roman Villa (R) (Site of) (NAT) Massive wall foundations visible in the 19th century led older antiquarians to suppose that Castor was the site of a walled Roman town. Artis (3) carried out large scale excavations and recovered the plans of a number of substantial Roman buildings of the villa type. These have been interpreted as the remains of a single large courtyard villa, but they are more likely to be the fragments of a series of houses arranged on and around the rising ground (2). One of the buildings was considered by Artis to be a temple and this is accepted by Lewis, "The massive nature of the podium and the plan of the building makes the interpretation as a temple well-nigh certain," and he considered the site to represent a group of small houses spread round a temple of classical type. (4) Further excavation has been carried out on the site, and buildings, including the bathhouse, have been re-investigated (5). There seems to be some measure of agreement that the buildings are associated with the pottery industry (5) (7). (For location of buildings, from auth 2 & 5 see 1:2500 diagram. The RCHM grid references do not correspond with the buildings as plotted from auth 5). The buildings probably represent a series of detached houses erected about AD 250 on terraces in the hillside, facing south, around a rectangular court or garden. Many of the rooms were heated and were decorated with painted wall plaster and mosaics by the Durobrivan school. It seems likely that the whole complex can be regarded as a "praetorium" erected by a guild, using the profits of the pottery industry.
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