Late Roman bath house at Chatley Farm

Summary

Roman bath house, 458m NNW of Chatley Farm.

Reasons for Designation

The Roman bath house, 458m NNW of Chatley Farm is likely to have been associated with the site of a Roman villa. Many Roman villas included integral or separate suites of heated baths. They could include, as part of larger villas a considerable complement of rooms including a caldarium (hot rooms), frigidarium (cold room), tepidarium (warm rooms), apodyterium (changing rooms), and latrine. The bath suite was heated by hypocausts connected to nearby furnaces; it was also linked to, and depended upon, an engineered water supply. The bath suite frequently, but not invariably, included apsed rooms. Minor components within the bath suites could include stone labra or basins, large, oblong tanks, and drainage systems with lead piping and stone gutters. Despite damage from river erosion, a large amount of the bath house at Chatley Farm survives in a good state of preservation. It has been shown by excavation to contain important archaeological information relating to the history and use of the site.

History

See Details.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 11 December 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a Roman bath house surviving as below-ground remains. It is situated on a steep slope on the southern bank of the River Mole, which meanders through open land south of Painshill Park. The bath house includes four rooms, a stoke-hole and furnace but the remainder of the building has been destroyed by river erosion. The site was partially excavated in 1942 and the area has since undergone field-walking and geophysical survey. The excavation revealed the foundations of the bath house as well as Roman tile and 3rd-4th century AD pottery indicating a date of Roman occupation of between AD 320 and AD 360. Other finds included concentrations of Mesolithic burnt and worked flint, a barbed-and-tanged arrowhead and several sherds of Prehistoric, medieval and post-medieval pottery. A field survey in 2003, recovered a Roman coin of Magnentius (AD 350-353). No evidence has been found for a villa in the vicinity. It is likely that one was situated to the north and has been destroyed by the course of the River Mole.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

SU 165

Legacy System:

RSM - OCN

Sources

Books and journals
Frere, S, The excavation of a late Roman bath-house at Chatley Farm in Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol. 50, (1949), 73-98

Other
Surrey HER 490. NMR TQ05NE8. PastScape 394025

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