THE FIRST DISCOVERIES AT PIT MEADS
Pit Meads is the name of a field near the village of Norton Bavant, about two miles east of Warminster.
Until 1785 the only interesting thing about Pit Meads field was how stony it was. But in the spring of that year a farmer uncovered a pattern of little coloured stones in the field.
The news of this discovery spread. People came to see it. One of the visitors realised it was part of a Roman mosaic. This meant there had once been a Roman house or “villa’ there.
Many of the visitors took stones away as souvenirs. Before long the mosaic had been destroyed. Luckily, someone had made a sketch before all was lost.
In the summer of 1785 a local lady called Catherine Downes decided to look for more Roman remains. She paid some workmen to dig in Pit Meads field. They found another mosaic about 60 feet long. Mrs Downes made a careful drawing of it.
About a week later a small fair or travelling circus came to this area. One of the clowns tried to steal the mosaic, destroying it in the process.
LORD BATH INTERVENES
The owner of the field was Lord Bath of Longleat. He decided to take charge of the digging himself and paid workmen to dig again during 1786.
They found a third mosaic. It was quite large and had elaborate patterns on it. Although it wasn’t complete, you could see a human figure and an animal on it.
Lord Bath’s son, Lord Weymouth, had this mosaic carefully removed and it was taken to Longleat House.
CUNNINGTON TO THE RESCUE
For about 15 years there was no more digging at Pit Meads. Then a man began to dig up the stones in the field, carting them away to sell for road-mending.
At this time there was an archaeologist called William Cunnington living in nearby Heytesbury. When he heard about the new digging he was horrified. He realised the man was actually destroying the walls and foundations of the Roman villa.
Cunnington went to Pit Meads to see what was left. A lot had been taken away but he paid for workmen to dig carefully and they found quite a lot of evidence about the villa, including a fourth mosaic which was very badly damaged.
THE MOSAICS
Four mosaics were found at Pit Meads between 1785 and 1800. This means that the villa was quite lavishly decorated because 75% of villas in Britain had no mosaics at all.
All four mosaics have been lost or destroyed since re-discovery. Only a few small fragments can be seen at Devizes Museum. Fortunately, drawings were made at the time of discovery.
Three of the mosaics were just geometric patterns. The third mosaic was a picture of the legendary musician Orpheus charming wild animals by playing a lyre (a hare is shown). This was a fashionable theme in later Roman art and some scholars believe it was a symbol of Christianity. The original design for this mosaic probably came from Cirencester in Gloucestershire
THE DESIGN OF THE VILLA
The front of the villa was about 100 feet wide and faced south. There were two small wings at the west and east, joined by a colonnaded verandah, with other rooms leading off from it. This design is quite common in Britain and is known as a “winged corridor” villa.
Some of the footings were of Bath stone but the main structure may have been timber-framed. We cannot be sure if it was one or two storeys. The roof was of hexagonal stone slabs which were heavy and held by iron nails.
The seven rooms were joined by a long corridor. The largest room was decorated with wall-paintings and heated by a hypocaust. Some of the other rooms had mosaic floors. Next to the largest room was a sweat-room (sudatorium) or bath.
About 300 feet to the west of the villa was another building, which could have been used as a barn or slave quarters. An underfloor heating system was found there too – perhaps this was used for drying corn.
IN DECAY
The coins and pottery found at the villa can be dated. From this evidence it looks as if no-one lived in the villa after about 380 A.D. A lot of black ash was found in several rooms, so the villa may have burned down. Two skeletons were found but it is not clear how they came to be there.
Once the heavy stone roof collapsed, the walls soon started to crumble. Gradually the building was reduced to a heap of rubble, overgrown by weeds, worn down by the weather, and burrowed into by rabbits. Local people stole stones for new buildings. Ploughing scattered the remains. After a few hundred years the only interesting thing about the place was how stony it was.
THE VANISHING VILLA
There had been so much digging by 1820 that there wasn’t much to see in Pit Meads Field. When the archaeologist Sir Richard Colt Hoare visited it that year he said “I found nothing of interest.”
In 1951, when a new history of Wiltshire was being written, the archaeologist Lesle Grinsell made a long list of all the Roman remains found in the county. He asked to see the mosaic at Longleat (the one that had been dug up in 1786). Lord Bath (the 6th Marquis) had a search made of the store-rooms and attics but the mosaic was not found – it had been lost!
PIT MEADS TODAY
What is left of the Roman Villa today? Notes,drawings and records survive in books. Some of the things Cunnington found are kept at Devizes Museum.
If you fly over Pit Meads in an aeroplane when conditions are right (when the soil is very wet or very dry, or the crops are ripening, or the light is at a particular angle) you may be able to see the vague outline of where the villa stood. Apart from this, the villa has vanished.
The field has been ploughed annually in recent years. Fieldwalking has recovered finds not only from the Roman period but also from Saxon and Mediaeval times.
A FARMING ESTATE
Archaeological records, photographs and old maps provide an insight into reconstructing what life was like at the villa some l700 years ago.
Pit Meads is at the heart of a large area of Salisbury Plain and Cranborne Chase, where no other Roman villas have been found.
But this area was probably farmed as actively as today, because field systems, farmsteads and even villages from the Romano
-British period were situated on land that we now use as Army ranges and woodland.
So, Pit Meads could have been the centre of a large faming estate.
TIME CHART
IRON AGE (700 B.C. – 43 A.D.)
A farm existed near the present-day Bishopstrow Farm.
ROMAN PERIOD (43 A.D. – 4l0 A.D.)
Pit Meads villa built, probably as the centre of a farming estate. Other small farms continued much as in the Iron Age. The villa was abandoned towards the end of the Roman period.
SAXON PERIOD (4 l0 A.D. – 1066 A.D.)
A village existed at Norton Bavant, around the site of the present-day church.
MIDDLE AGES (1066 A.D. – 1485 A.D.)
Pit Meads field under the plough, breaking up and scattering the Roman walls, etc.
MODERN TIMES (after 1485 A.D.)
Pit Meads used for pasture.
1785 – 1786: Field under plough again. Re-discovery of the villa. First excavations followed by souvenir hunters destroying two mosaics. Lord Bath removed a third mosaic.
1800: Roman walling removed for road mending. Second excavations lead to a plan and description being made by William Cunnington.
1820: Sir Richard Colt Hoare finds little trace left of the villa.
1985 – 1986: Field under plough again. Roman tile pottery, etc., unearthed, plus a spearhead from the Saxon period.
Compiled by Andrew Houghton and Danny Howell, 1990.