Unearthing A Roman Villa: Stunning Mosaics Discovered In The Cotswolds

Just under the surface of this field here in the Cotswolds lies a complex of Roman buildings. How do I know? Well, you've just got to look around you. I'm virtually tripping over lumps of masonry that are sticking out of the ground. The whole place is strewn with bits of tile. There's hundreds of coins and fragments of pottery and tesserae found around here. But the biggest clue to the presence of a Roman site of some scale and importance is this. It's a mosaic, even I know that, and a very nice one, too. So what am I walking across? Is this a villa or a bathhouse or a temple? And in an area that's crammed full of villa estates, why are our archaeologists so excited about this one? We'll know in three days. We're back in the glorious Cotswolds, this time just outside the village of Cobley in Gloucestershire. Our site is in this 20-acre field, flanked to the west by a small river running north-south and to the east by the main road that links Cirencester with Cheltenham. We've dug Roman sites in the Cotswolds several times before, but we don't usually get stuck in quite this quickly. Neil, what's going on? Beginning of day one, hundreds of people working. We've already exposed a mosaic. That's not what we do on Time Team. Yeah, it's not typical, is it? But to be honest, we knew the mosaic was there. The local archaeologists did a small dig in 2003 and found part of it. So we're re-exposing the mosaic there and then extending out to try and find the walls of the room the mosaic sits in. And Anthony, you're going to help us make sense of the mosaic? Hopefully so. What do you think of it at first glance? Well, the motifs are pretty standard, but it's interesting because I think it might be quite an early mosaic. Mosaic specialists are always so laid back. It's a mosaic! Yes, I know it's a mosaic, but I don't want to be too excited at the moment because there might not be very much of it, apart from what we can see. There'll be loads. John! You done the geofiz already? Unfortunately, we haven't. GeoQuest have done this and they've got some fantastic results, as you can see. Look, there's the copse behind us. This looks like the villa complex here and all these trackways and ditches beyond extending right across the field. Rather embarrassing question. If we've already got the geofiz, why are you here? Well, look... No, all GeoQuest did was a magnetic survey in the time available. So what we want to do is actually a resistance because hopefully that will give us a clearer plan of the villa building itself. But this is a done deal, isn't it, Neil? We've got a villa. We've got a mosaic. Lovely, lovely. We'll find a few walls. Go, oh, isn't it amazing the Romans had underfloor heating and go home. Well, I like the way that you and John are both using the word villa. You're assuming it's a villa, aren't you? Because of the mosaic in the middle of the Cotswolds, it's a villa. Do we actually know that? I don't know that. And there's some very unusual things on that geophysics. I mean, what are all these strange trackways and roads all about? That doesn't look like a typical villa to me. And then we've got the springs on either side. That's unusual. So don't just assume it's another villa. It's all to play for. Quite rightly, Neil's not taking anything for granted. So while John and his team start their resistance survey to try and locate the walls of our possible villa, in the mosaic trench, they're getting to grips with the dimensions and shape of the room. This here, presumably, is the edge of the border. And this is where the wall starts. Yes. And do you see, Phil, that they've reused flue tiles because you can see the grooves on these tesserae. Grooves to latch the plaster to on the walls. Looking at that, if that is the edge of the border there. Yes. That's about 60 centimetres. What's it like at this edge? Yeah, give or take, that's 60 centimetres. So it looks like we've got a consistent border of this red tile coming all the way round the outside. Well, the interesting thing will be if this is 60 centimetres going this way, because it'll give us the orientation of the room. If this is more than 60 centimetres, then the mosaic goes that way. And the mosaic is likely to be larger than we suspect. And also, Phil, the material you're standing on, if we can excavate that and get some coins or pottery, that'll give us a date when the building was knocked down. Well, exactly. I mean, if we think that this is an early floor, it'd be very, very useful to know how long the room was in use and in fact, when it went out of use. Well, it must've been in very good condition when the building went out of use. It's hardly decayed, apart from where the plough damage has got to it. It's a quite pretty floor. You sound like a salesman. Yes. Over recent years, amateur archaeologists have recovered hundreds of finds from this field. They provide intriguing clues to the history of our site. Well, we've actually got quite a nice range of material here, from tesserae from the mosaic, box flue tiles indicating heated rooms, stone roof tiles. And then we've got a range of metal finds. The guys who have been working the site have reported that they've found a number of metal finds recorded over 60 coins. And they give us quite an interesting date range. The earliest we've got actually dates from the very time of the conquest. It's a copy of a coin of the Emperor Claudius. And we actually end with the very last coins that come into Roman Britain, dated to about 402 AD. Oh, lovely, that's really nice. We've got two brooch fragments, which are late first, early second century, and a lovely little miniature fourth century bracelet. It may be for a child, or it could even be a little votive object. So what do all these finds tell us about our site, Mark? Well, certainly it looks from the finds that we've got so far, that people have been living on this site since the beginning of the Roman period, through to the end, and probably just beyond the end. Back at the mosaic, they don't have any datable finds yet, but Phil's been making serious headway, helped by the fact it was partly uncovered in 2003. This mosaic is good, isn't it? It's getting bigger by the minute. It's getting better, Tony. We've got the room next door, and it's got a mosaic as well. Oh, I see, yeah. So is this earth in between, is that the wall? That's the wall between that room and that room. It's not looking bad, is it? But it does raise a problem, doesn't it? How much of this mosaic are we gonna expose in our three days? I mean, take a look at this bit here. You've got this beautiful petal thing inside this roundel. It looks so lovely, and there's this irritating piece of earth just in one section of it. I'd love to whip that off, not for good archaeological reasons, but it would just be so lovely to see it. Well, that one irritating little block of soil is gonna go, Tony, because that is actual backfill from the other excavation, so we can reveal that. But where we're getting back to is just about the edge of where they got to when they stopped their dig. Cor, it's all happening on day one. You turn your back for one minute, and another trench has gone in. What's got into people? Guys, you've put another trench in. Well, you know I said the res was gonna provide a clear plan of the building? As they always do, yeah. It hasn't. It's just not working. Why? Well, lots of excuses. I think the main reason is the archaeology's so shallow. But I thought if something was close to the surface, it would make it easier for you to find. No, we need a greater depth of soil so the electric currents can go in and actually sort out the rubble and the wall lines. At the moment, we're not succeeding. So for the moment, we're putting this trench in over this really clear response in the magnetics. I'd like to guess it was sort of something like a plunge pool, a sunken feature. So basically you're saying it's the only thing you've been able to find, so let's dig it. Well, not only that, Tony. You know how important it is for us to excavate down to try and find out when this building was constructed. Now, if we can dig up against an outside wall of the building, we can dig down, find out any pottery from the lower layers. How do we know where the outside wall of the villa is? Look, that is the line of the main villa building. So that actually comes through at this point here. Yeah, we've only just started this trench, Tony, but you can see where Phil is over there. We've got a mosaic in a room. Now, I reckon there's probably a corridor coming out about where you're standing. So if we can find out whether this is the front corridor or the back corridor, that's going to be important for actually working out a plan of the villa. And digging down will give us this crucial dating evidence. Look at this blob in a very vague bit of geophysics. If that is a plunge pool, I'll eat my shoe. So a second trench is going in to locate John's sunken feature and find what Neil hopes will be an exterior wall. In the incident room, we're looking at mosaics from other sites nearby. They were obviously designed to be decorative, but there are individual symbols on all of these floors that actually mean something. This one comes from Great Whitcombe. It's a third-century mosaic. And that's just a few miles away. Oh, yes, seven to five miles away from here. This device is called a cantherus. What's that? Well, the cantherus was a wine-mixing jar, and at your evening feasts, you would mix your wine with water and dole it out to your guests. But the cantherus is also symbolic of Bacchus, the god of wine and entertainment, and also god of rebirth. Oh, so it would have also had a much deeper meaning. Yes. This device is called the Gordian knot, the unfathomable knot representing the twists and turns of fate. Another good luck device is the medusa head. That's amazing, because I find medusa a very threatening image. Yes, but to the ancient world, the snakes were friends, and the point of medusa was that medusa turned evil to stone and protected the household. Any of these things, we may well be lucky enough to find. If you want to find out more about mosaics, you can log on to our website at the usual address. It's mid-afternoon. A quick tea break gives me a chance to have a natter with Neil and try to get a sense of the bigger picture. Earlier on, you said to me, oh, this is a mysterious site. There's lots of unanswered questions. Like what? Well, a site of this complexity, Tony, you could ask hundreds of questions, but I guess you can actually sort of boil it down to two real points. I mean, function and chronology. And sort of function is interesting because, you know, you can use sort of labels like villa or temple or shrine, but really they just cover up the fact what were people actually doing here? I mean, if it was a villa, were they farmers or were they sort of aristocracy who would have been seen dead out in a field? And then in terms of chronology, what we need to find out is, you know, when was the building constructed? How long did it stay in use? When was it demolished? You know, those are really important questions. That's very comprehensive and really cogent, but I have to admit there's a tiny little bit of me that's thinking, so what? What can that tell us about the Roman occupation of southern Britain? Well, I think it actually tells you a lot. It tells you about wealth creation. I mean, the idea is the Cotswolds are wealthy in the late Roman period. Now, is this because people are starting off in humble, poor farms in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, gradually making some money, then in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, they, okay, let's spend our cash, our hard-earned cash that our ancestors have built up with mosaics and fancy houses? Or is it the case that people are actually coming in at an early stage, bringing money in from outside into the Cotswolds to build things? And that tells you a lot about how Roman Britain actually functioned and where the money came from. Over in trench one, Antony can now see enough of the mosaic to identify parts of it, and more importantly, work out a date. Look, Helen, we've got a cantharus. Oh, yes. You notice here we've got two handles, this one with a snake's head and a broken one here. What a pity we've lost most of it. Yes. But at least there's enough there to show us what there would have been. Yes. And here we've got a Gordian knot. Oh, gosh, that's simpler than the ones we were looking at in the incident room. Yes. So what date do you think it is? Looking at the overall design, with this grid of red, the poised squares of grey, the mosaic is based on pink opus igninum. Oh, now what's that? It's mortar with crushed tile bound in to give it added strength. I see. And the fact that it has red borders, which... Are coming all the way around? Yeah. In the Cotswolds, it's generally a sign of an early mosaic. I would think that it was probably late second century to third century. Which would make it one of the earliest in the Cotswolds. But could the construction of our villa pre-date the mosaic? We still don't yet know the chronology of our building. You see where those cars are up there in the finds tent? That's the way I come into work in the morning. And when I do, all I can see here is a field just like any other field. But down here, you can see immediately that there's this flat, well-described plateau. And it slopes away down to this little valley here. Mark, does that mean that this landscape has been deliberately sculptured? There's absolutely no doubt about it. You're quite right. That area there has been levelled to take the structure. And we've got this little valley which heads down to the river. But the geophysics show that this entire valley has been framed, if you like, by this pair of massive ditches that come right up where we're standing, turns at the head of the valley, and then run back down the other side. Why would you do that? Well, exactly. What's really interesting is that towards that clump of nettles, we know that there's a spring there, or has been a spring there in the past. And the fact that this valley's framed, the spring at the head, it does make you start to wonder whether there may be some kind of structure around the spring itself. Are we talking ritual? We might be. I mean, you could envisage at least two contexts for structures here. One would be a little springhead shrine. The other, if you've got a good force of water, is a bathhouse. If Mark's right, and the lines running round the gully on the geophys are ditches enclosing a shrine, spring, or bathhouse, then our site could have a religious dimension. Over in trench two, there's no sign of John's plunge pool, and that's a relief. I was worried I might be eating my shoe for a minute there. But Bridge has made a discovery that could help piece together the plan of our building. Looks like you and Ian have got, is it the wall? It does look like, it looks like the face of it's coming along here, just where Ian's trowel is. And is it mortared? Yes, a nice little, see this yellow here, just puts a remnant of mortar in between. Well, that's just the right position to tie up the geophysics to be the actual outside wall of the house. So I guess you and Ian are now actually in the corridor behind which there's the room which Phil was in with the mosaic. So at the end of day one, we think we found the main outside wall of the building, and we've got a corridor linking it to the two rooms with mosaics in trench one. Neil's convinced we found a range of rooms running north-south across our site. And from the geophys, he thinks there may even be two further ranges running east towards the copse. Good day, eh? Fantastic day. We found not one, but two mosaics. And just as important, we've got this long wall here, which marks the western extent of the building. But what exactly is it? Frustratingly, none of our archaeologists are prepared to commit themselves. Let's hope we get some clues tomorrow right here. Beginning of day two here at Cobberley in Gloucestershire, where we found this fantastic Roman mosaic. Look at that. Isn't that gorgeous? But the question is, what kind of building did it originally sit in? Some of our archaeologists have been speculating that it was a villa. Others have said a temple. Others, a bathhouse. We've even had this dreadful phrase, building complex, which Neil has been using. Why is that horrible? What exactly do you reckon it is? I don't know yet. Oh! But I'll find out later on. I think the key is to get to the plan of the building. Now, on the earlier geophysics, what we thought we had was a range of rooms going across here and perhaps a wing coming up here and a wing coming up here. So that's where Phil's mosaic is and that's where Bridges' back wall is. But this in colour here, this is John's new resistivity. And can you see these big anomalies here? This looks like a range of rooms going back the other way, which makes much better sense rather than having a villa like that, you've actually got an H-shaped villa facing down the valley towards the river. So what I think we might have now is actually rooms going off in those directions. You might imagine a villa that's kind of an H-shaped and therefore Phil's mosaic would be kind of in the cross of the H. Neil's also identified a location for a further trench. If he can get dating evidence here, where the end of the Roman building appears to lie on top of an earlier ditch running underneath, he's hoping to establish when the building was constructed. So while John goes off to look for two new ranges towards the river, trench three goes in. Now, is it just me or do you get the feeling our experts are having trouble making their minds up? I can't believe it that still none of the archaeologists will commit as to what kind of building we've got. No, I can't believe it either. It's a villa. Well, I thought it was a villa. Yes, of course it's a villa. Well, why wouldn't they say? Well, because archaeologists, they just love to disagree, don't they? I mean, you know, what would you call a group of archaeologists? A doubt. An argument of archaeologists. A confusion of archaeologists. Ha ha ha. Oh, oh. This is a bit more like it, Ian. Back in trench three, it looks like Phil's got off to a flying start. Ah, you lovely little thing, you. You're a big piece, aren't you? A big, whoa. What's the thing of that then? That's nice, isn't it? Nice rim on it, Phil. And it's got some lines, decorated lines on it too, round here. Whoa, ha ha ha. Who needs a metal detector when you can see coins like that then? Phil, you're like a kid in a toy shop. Yeah, well, I know. What else we got here? Must have loads of stuff. Over in trench one, we're scratching our heads over the mosaic. It is a shame about all this plough damage. How could they have ripped out this whole bit here with one plough? Well, you know what? I've been having second thoughts about that because for a start, this damage here is underneath this demolition, this untouched demolition, and there doesn't seem to be much plough marks through this, so this would have protected it. And also, you can see this damage here, it's circular, and all the other plough marks are straight going off in that direction, so I think this might be something else. Anthony, if it's not plough damage, what do you think it might be? Well, I think it can be one of two things. It can either be damage caused by the collapsing roof and walls, or it could be iconoclastic damage. What do you mean? Well, if you notice, there's a cantherous jug there. That's the mixing bowl? Yes, and if this is a nine-panel scheme, the most pertinent person to put in the centre would be the god Bacchus, god of wine, and of course his image would have been an anathema to Christians. So when you say iconoclastic, you mean literally smashing up icons like Cromwell's soldiers used to do when they came into the churches and cut off the faces of the martyrs? Absolutely. But I don't think we'll really know until Matt has excavated this area, and we see if the damage continues. I think that's a hint from both of us. If the damage to the central panel is evidence of Christians wrecking a pagan icon, then that would add a fascinating twist to the story of our building. After a promising start, Phil's trench now seems to be going nowhere. There's no sign of any finds, let alone a Roman building or ditch. Phil's not happy. Down in the gully, for some reason we appear to be digging more trenches. I mean, hopefully that metre will cover it. No one tells me anything. I'm about 100 metres from our site, and what have we got here? Not one, but two new trenches. What's going on, guys? Is there a breakaway faction from Time Team starting a new programme? Last night we were pretty gung-ho, weren't we, about how things were going. I think the best word to describe this morning has been challenging. The troubles start in Phil's trench. We positioned this trench to try and catch this ditch coming through, which we thought might underlie one of the buildings of the villa. But bizarrely, there's absolutely nothing in the trench at all. Why not, John? We can't explain why we can't find it in Phil's trench. So what I've suggested is, look, let's move away from the area where it's complicated, where we've got all the Roman building material on top, and let's take a section of ditch that is far clearer for us to investigate. What we're trying to find, Tony, is material that predates the construction of the building. So what we've just done is we've opened up a trench here across one of these ditches to try and get some dating evidence. Is it early Roman? Is it late Roman? Could it even be Iron Age? And we've also got another trench in here trying to examine all these anomalies. Could it be industrial? Could it be a bathhouse? Who knows? But the key is, if we can get pottery and coins out of these layers, which relate to these ditches, evidence from here helps us understand the date of the building over there. That's the stuff, Neil. Not put off by his failure to get results from the main building, he's changing tactics. Down in the gully, he's putting in two further trenches. One, to find evidence of industrial activity, a spring or a bathhouse, and more importantly, a second to find dating evidence in the double ditches. Back in trench one, the story's moved on again. Is that a pattern that I can see there? Yes, it's the top of a cantherus, a second cantherus. Another wine jar. That's right. It's in much better nick, isn't it, than the other one? Oh yes, it's a much better cantherus as well. So what's this thing here, Raksha? Well, you know that we had this big hole in the middle of the mosaic? Well, we've got more now. There's another one appearing there. And this one is quite curious because somebody's actually cut into the floor, this absolutely beautiful mosaic floor. And then they've built, can you see these? These are Roman roof tiles for foundations of a wall. And there's some stones mortared in there. And on the other side, it's mirrored. Just there, they've cut into the floor again, and there's more blocks and more mortar. It looks like it could almost be a kiln or a fire. Well, that's the thing. What is it? Has this lovely mosaic area gone out of use and they're using another part of the villa? Are they using this as an industrial area? We just don't know yet. It would be a tragedy if your theory of iconoclasm proved not to be true because it's such a fantastic word. But it looks like it might not be right. Well, it may not be right indeed. If this is a press or something like that put into these old rooms, then it could easily be worn away by industrial process. What's so intriguing about this trench for me is that every time we come back here, there's a slightly different story. And we've still got about one and a half meters left to clear. So I'm sure it'll change again too. Give us two hours, Tony. Meanwhile, John's struggling to find the double ditches that run round the gully. There are small bits in it, but nothing like the quality we've got over there. I'll go on through, I think. I mean, it's such a clear response. We've got to find an explanation for it. If it turns out to be geology, then so be it. But I cannot believe that's geology. Too straight. There has to be an explanation for such a strong response. Carry on down. I'm depending on you. First glance, it might appear our building was in the middle of nowhere. But closer inspection reveals it was in fact strategically located. Stuart, this is a really unusual part of Britain in Roman times, isn't it? Because we're right between two of the largest cities, Gloucester and Cirencester. And all these villas around here must have been connected to these towns. Indeed, they must. I mean, here's our site here. Cirencester is here and Gloucester is here. You can see it's very close to both of them and the Ermine Way connects the two. And the location of our site just here is really interesting. Look at this minor road that actually directly connects Ermine Street here, main Roman road, with Port Street over here. It's a direct link between the two. And on the geophysical survey, you can see there's a trackway leading from here directly into the villa complex. So in this kind of triangle of roads, it's in an ideal location. I suppose it's common sense because there's no point in having a villa with an economic-based farming or whatever unless you can get your produce out and all those luxury goods that you want to bring back in. Absolutely. As an economic farm, farming villa, it's in an ideal location. Now we've just got to prove it was a farming villa. Back in the galley, John looks a bit desperate. I mean, given that we've got several hundred metres of this, can't we just hit it hard? John, there seems to be a lot of scratching of heads going on here. What's the matter? People aren't believing me that this is a ditch. Now, if that is not a ditch, then I might as well just give up and go home. We're not, I mean, you don't get natural ditches that do this. And you can't see a ditch? Well, Tony, this stuff is so hard. I mean, it just, I'm going to give John the benefit of the doubt, which goes against my natural inclination, but my goodness, if this is backfill, this is so compacted backfill, this is almost like hardcore. Could it be that they just haven't gone down far enough yet? Well, we're going to go down a bit further, but, I don't know. I mean, you've got to resolve it. Absolutely right. We're going to know one way or the other whether it's here or not, but. Are they digging in the right place? I hope they are. I feel a bit under pressure. John, we're a team, it's not, John, we are a team. Yeah, there's no pressure, mate. Nobody will point the finger at you. No, no, absolutely. You remember that plunge, Paul? I do. Yeah. Okay, Ian, let's go down a bit further. But, just one scoop later. We've just shot that, what, 20 seconds ago? Can I borrow you a second? Oh, look, just look at his face. Just say that again. Could I borrow you a second? Look, hard rock. And what have you got there? Soft clay with tile. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, what? Yeah, this is not natural. That is natural. We need to see a bit more of this. What do you need? There's a bit of Roman pot in it. John, you might just be right. Well done, mate. I never doubted you for an instant. No, not at all. Nobody in the whole shoot did. Okay, Ian, a little bit more out, I think. So, after some initial doubts, we're getting Roman finds in the double ditches, just what Neil needs to start dating the site. And we're making further progress over in the mosaic trench. Oh, Matt, when there's a flash mosaic like that, why on earth are you digging a whopping great hole next to it? Well, what we're trying to do here is establish where the walls of this building are. And this, we thought, was our best bet for an external wall. There's no wall there, though. No, I mean, it's been totally robbed out, and you can see they've chucked back in all this yellow, sandy mortar and these bits of rubbish stone. But the most interesting thing about this is its width. Look, it's almost a metre wide there, and I've gone down, what, almost half a metre, and it's still going. So, if the wall was that thick, it would have been easily strong enough to hold up an upper storey, wouldn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And so, I think that verifies that we've got one of the external walls here. The likelihood now is that our building didn't have just one, but two storeys. And Matt's also found a layer of rubble running all the way underneath the mosaic. That could mean that we've got evidence of an even earlier building. At the end of a long day spent with his geophysical knickers in a twist, John thinks he's cracked it. Look, you two, you've been giving me so much hassle. I finally got the goods, and if you don't believe me, then that's it. Come on. John, you had a bad day today, mate, so come on. Look, this is the resistance you wanted. I reckon we have got a whole new range along the brow of the hill there, turning the corner and joining on with everything that you've had for the past day and a half. Neil? It looks pretty convincing, doesn't it? I mean, I guess what you've got is you've got the original H-shaped villa, and that's your 2nd century villa with your 2nd century mosaics. Well, what it looks like really is we've actually got a capital A shape. So, what's happened in the 4th century, they've added on this whole new range of the courtyard. So, if Neil's right, and the shape of our building has changed from a capital H to a capital A, with an additional range to the west, it's even bigger and more impressive than we first thought. Is it a villa? Well, you know, why change a habit of a lifetime and get off the fence, Tony? But it probably is a villa. But before I'm completely certain, what I need to see is a trench in there tomorrow. Let's prove that that's 4th century. And if we can get 4th century dating, and maybe a 4th century mosaic, then yeah, it's a done deal. So, end of day two. We've nearly possibly got a villa. And tomorrow, we're gonna put the trenches in here to see if we can find the really high-status rooms. And who knows? Maybe another mosaic. Day three here at our mysterious Romano-British building in Cobberley in Gloucestershire. We've got a marvelous mosaic, 2nd to 3rd century AD. We've located one of the exterior walls. And we think we've found the big ditch that surrounded the whole thing. This is so typical of Time Team. One minute, we can't find anything at all. And the next, we've got the most fantastic archeology. You got anything at all in yours, Phil? This is glorious as well, Tony. Though, to be quite honest, when we stripped it off first, I didn't think so. There was nothing in this trench. We were looking for a ditch, and we were looking for the end of the villa. I actually removed about that much material. And look, before your very eyes, we have a ditch running through there, and then this magnificent curve of wall going round there. Is that an apse? That is the apse. And this wall here, Matt! Matt, give us a wave! See, this wall goes straight the way through to Matt, and if you follow that round, it goes down, and it appears in the wall the other side of Raksha. So we've got this wonderful apse looking up towards the main entrance, the grand entrance, as somebody approached it, would see this magnificent apse. Hang on, Phil. The wall is going through the ditch, isn't it? It does, and that's the important thing about it. It shows how long people were actually on this site when this apse was built. This ditch had already been dug, used, and filled up. So have we got any dating evidence from the ditch? We've got dating evidence from the top of the ditch, which looks as though it could be early Roman, but what we need is material from the base of it. It's a fascinating story. And we've only got another day left. We have indeed. This is turning into a building of some grandeur, with mosaics and now a posh curved end to the southern wing, known as an apse. It's likely this was matched by a further apse on the opposite side. And Neil's now busy putting in two new trenches to locate a further range of fancy rooms in a western wing. That's your level there, Ian. So I think just literally this pull the loose back, I think that is the laminated bedrock. Down in the gully, where John was looking for evidence of a bathhouse or industrial activity, Tracey's definitely found some kind of structure. We've got stone walls running along up the hill that way, full of brick and tile, and you've got evidence of burning on the internal edges of the stones here. Yeah. So we're thinking maybe kiln. I mean, you've got the gray is the heat damage, but you've also got that pinky tinge there spreading into the actual stone. Yeah, that's a sign of real intense heat, that change of color there. Any finds? Well, yep, we've got some really nice... Wow, look at that beautiful piece of molded terracotta. What on earth is it, though? Well, it's probably part of a nacreteria. They went on roofs. What is fascinating about this is that these things are so rare in this part of the world. They're largely confined to southeastern England, and in date, they tend to be only first to that middle second century AD. Really high-status buildings. Nothing else would aspire to having nacreteria, so this is a real find. Nacreteria are not a Greek football team, as you might think, but decorations for a Roman building, perched either on top or running along the edge of the roof. So what did our villa look like? Well, a few depictions have survived from antiquity that give us some idea. This villa was obviously built to impress, and it's quite likely that we had fine-dressed stonework painted in red. We had upper galleries like this and corner towers, large windows to let in the light. We have one from Mion Stoke in Hampshire that shows that the facades, this is an actual facade that survives, and it was polychrome, many-coloured brick, and stripes on a white facade. In fact, the whole facade would have been really quite colourful. So anyone coming to Cobbley in ancient times couldn't possibly have missed this villa, could they? I would suspect that it was quite a substantial thing in the landscape. So what about the two trenches Neil had put in to find a western wing? Well, do you want the good news or the bad news? Let's get the bad news out of the way first, from Trench 6. No 4th-century range? No 4th-century range at all. We haven't even got one piece of Roman pottery out of this trench. So that dramatic geophys wasn't archaeology at all. It was just this rock. Yeah, I mean, all we've got in the trench is a shallow ditch running through here, but no rooms. Mind you, over here, we've actually got something. I feel such a fraud. Yesterday evening, I turned to camera, and I said, oh, tomorrow, we're gonna have a 4th-century range here. We're gonna dig it tomorrow, put in loads of trenches. Who knows? Maybe we'll even get another mosaic. And what are we walking across? Dirt. Yeah, well, not all that glistens is gold with geophysics, but this is gold. Look at this. Classic Roman demolition. Pink wall plaster, stones. Look at some of the finds coming out, Tony. Got these fragments of painted wall plaster with this nice purple colour. Bits of hypercourse box tile. This would channel the hot air up the walls. And these large bits of tile from an underfloor heating system. So we've clearly got a room. Oh, yeah, without a doubt. And what we need to resolve is what date is this, because one of the- Any dating evidence yet? No, not yet, but with early days. What I'm kind of hoping is that this might prove to be a 4th-century bolt-on, 4th-century rooms, even with 4th-century mosaics. So, disappointingly, no Western wing. And John can't find any trace of a longer Southern wing, either. But we have now found a high-status room in Trench 7. Down in the gully, we're finally able to confirm industrial activity on our site. Yeah, it's looking good now, isn't it? Good depth of wall on here, and a nice edge running around there for maybe the stoke hole. Yeah, it's really clear, isn't it, the difference? The black against the undisturbed yellow here got a very clear line of division. Clearly, now, this is the entrance into the flume running up through where Ian is. And this, I think, is actually the ash pit, you know, where they raked all the charcoal out after each firing. It's likely this kiln was where the materials used to construct our building were manufactured. Lime needed for mortar, or terracotta tiles for the roof. Meanwhile, Bridge is getting to grips with what our villain looked like. Bridge, when I saw you yesterday, you were coming down onto a mortar floor. How's that worked out? Yeah, no, it's great, because we're now getting down past the demolition layers, and we've come onto two phases of flooring. You can see you've got the latest one here, which is this nice white hard mortar. Underlying it, we've got the bedding makeup for it. And then here, this bright white is actually an earlier floor. Now, it must have gone into either disrepair or it collapsed because it's dipping in this way, and they've had to build it up again and relay a new one. You can see it comes to a dead stop right in front of me there. That seems to be the edge of the room. And then just beside it, it's actually robbed out at the moment, but there is a wall to the building there. And how wide's that wall, Bridge? Well, it looks about 60, 70 centimetres wide. So pretty substantial. Yeah. The interesting thing is, we've been talking about a corridor being in this area here. Coming down onto now, what looks like an external surface. You can see these small bits of stone have been deliberately laid as if it's outside the building rather than inside the building. So then, what I'm thinking is, we've already found this wall here. Could we potentially have the external wall to the building up here? Then from that, we have a roof that comes over this external corridor and it comes to this wall here. Yeah, I mean, this seems much less substantial wall, doesn't it? You might wonder whether this actually was open. Could this have supported a colonnade or something? Well, that's exactly what I'm wondering. You see, I've been interpreting this hole here as a robber. Yeah. But in fact, what it could be is where one of those pillars could have sat inside the wall that's holding up that colonnade. This is great. It now looks like there was a colonnaded portico or cloister within the main villa complex with a view out over the river valley beyond. Back down in the gully, Mark's made real progress in the double ditches running round the site. Do we know anything about them yet? We've been very lucky, Tony, because as you remember, this is one of those ditches that surrounds the villa and then around the valley at the back. And we've had a lot of pottery out of it and we can date it. Go on. It's all 2nd century AD in date, including the classic Samian ware imported from France. So it looks like this ditch here is being backfilled before the end of the 2nd century. So what does that tell us about the story of our villa? Well, it now demonstrates that you've certainly got Roman period activity here, maybe from the 1st century AD. There may well be another building because we did have those terracotta architectural features from over there this morning that are also early in date. So it does point to an earlier structure. We just haven't found it yet. We're nearing the end of our final day. Neil's determined to prove the northern range was added on in the 4th century. So he's putting in one last trench. Back in trench seven, we're starting to get a clearer picture of the decor inside the room. This has just come up and this is quite exciting. It looks like a road sign to me. Yes, well, this is the clue to what it is. It's a candelabrum, a white scheme with these thin black candelabrum that come out into a sort of a lily shape with foliate designs, leaves coming off, dividing the panels. It's quite delicately done, isn't it? It's quite small scale. Yes, here we've got a bit that shows us that they had colour schemes of this Pompeian red, white bands. And a straight line between the two. Yes, this might have come from a square wall panel or it could have come from a dado strip about three or four feet off of the ground going around the room. Time's run out. There's lots of archaeology coming out of Neil's final trench. Fragments of wall plaster and tonnes of rubble. But none of it proves this was a 4th century addition to a 2nd century villa. It's so frustrating, isn't it? On the other side, we've nailed down the mosaic, nailed down the double ditches. We've got the apse. It is. I mean, I think we can show there was structure through here. I mean, look at the fines trays, Tony. We've got masses of rubble there, lots of building material. Clearly there was a Roman structure through here, but it's been heavily demolished. And I think as well, in retrospect, there's that word again, the main thrust of the building is further up here, actually on the breaker slope. This is rubble being pushed down. Yeah, we've got the central bar with the mosaic in. No matching range over that side. And I know John still wants us to believe in his geophysics across the front there, but I have to go what I can see with my eyes, and it's just bedrock there. Have we got the shape of the villa now? Well, it's gone from an A to a capital H to a small h. Virtually all the letters of the alphabet, actually. Virtually. And what letter is it? Half an H. So at the end of day three, we can finally tell the story of our villa. The core of the building, a central bar with a mosaic and a portico, were built in the late second century, perhaps on top of an earlier villa. And then a short southern wing and a long northern wing were added on, probably in the fourth century. It would have been an impressive sight. Approaching the villa, you were met by grand apses on either side of a main entrance. It was a multicoloured building with decorations around the roof. Inside, there were centrally heated rooms, one with painted panels and an intricate candelabrum design. To the rear, a colonnaded portico overlooked the river valley. And what about our mosaic? Well, on closer inspection, the central panel appears to have been removed deliberately and then neatly replaced with stones. Anthony now thinks it may well have been Christians destroying a pagan icon after all. Anthony, you were a bit laconic early on, but you've got to admit, that's some mosaic. Yes, I'm very pleased with it, especially the cantharus. It's the finest one I've ever seen. Good! So what's going to happen to all this stuff? It's good news. The landowner, the county archaeologists and local groups have all come together to ensure that this fragile site's going to be protected and also that further investigation's going to take place. Well, that's good news, isn't it? You know, when I first came here, I was hoping for something a bit exotic, like a temple. So, okay, we've got a villa, but in fact, it's much more than that. It's two, possibly three villas stretching over 200 years. And it's covering this vast area from the kilns over there to the spring, the lovely mosaic fills, posh apse looking out over the entrance, all set in this beautiful landscape sculptured by the Romans 1,800 years ago. Makes you rather want to come back to the Cotswolds again, doesn't it?