Reasons for Designation
Romano-British villas were extensive rural estates at the focus of which were
groups of domestic, agricultural and occasionally industrial buildings. The
term "villa" is now commonly used to describe either the estate or the
buildings themselves. The buildings usually include a well-appointed dwelling
house, the design of which varies considerably according to the needs, taste
and prosperity of the occupier. Most of the houses were partly or wholly
stone-built, many with a timber-framed superstructure on masonry footings.
Roofs were generally tiled and the house could feature tiled or mosaic floors,
underfloor heating, wall plaster, glazed windows and cellars. Many had
integral or separate suites of heated baths. The house was usually accompanied
by a range of buildings providing accommodation for farm labourers, workshops
and storage for agricultural produce. These were arranged around or alongside
a courtyard and were surrounded by a complex of paddocks, pens, yards and
features such as vegetable plots, granaries, threshing floors, wells and
hearths, all approached by tracks leading from the surrounding fields. Villa
buildings were constructed throughout the period of Roman occupation, from the
first to the fourth centuries AD. They are usually complex structures occupied
over several hundred years and continually remodelled to fit changing
circumstances. They could serve a wide variety of uses alongside agricultural
activities, including administrative, recreational and craft functions, and
this is reflected in the considerable diversity in their plan. The least
elaborate villas served as simple farmhouses whilst, for the most complex, the
term "palace" is not inappropriate. Villa owners tended to be drawn from a
limited elite section of Romano-British society. Although some villas belonged
to immigrant Roman officials or entrepreneurs, the majority seem to have been
in the hands of wealthy natives with a more-or-less Romanised lifestyle, and
some were built directly on the sites of Iron Age farmsteads. Roman villa
buildings are widespread, with between 400 and 1000 examples recorded
nationally. The majority of these are classified as `minor' villas to
distinguish them from `major' villas. The latter were a very small group of
extremely substantial and opulent villas built by the very wealthiest members
of Romano-British society. Minor villas are found throughout lowland Britain
and occasionally beyond. Roman villas provide a valuable index of the rate,
extent and degree to which native British society became Romanised, as well as
indicating the sources of inspiration behind changes of taste and custom. In
addition, they serve to illustrate the agrarian and economic history of the
Roman province, allowing comparisons over wide areas both within and beyond
Britain. As a very diverse and often long-lived type of monument, a
significant proportion of the known population are identified as nationally
important.
The villa at Pitlands Farm has been shown by part excavation to survive
comparatively well, despite some subsequent disturbance. The excavations have
revealed that it contains important archaeological information relating to the
ways in which the villa was developed and the agricultural and economic
activities with which it was involved over a period of a least three
centuries. The monument forms part of a group of villas clustered around the
Chilgrove valley, providing evidence for the intensive agricultural
exploitation of this area of West Sussex downland into the Roman period.
Details
The monument includes a minor Romano-British villa and traces of later,
medieval settlement situated on the south facing slope of a chalk hill which
forms part of the Sussex Downs. Surviving mainly in the form of buried masonry
foundations, the villa was partly excavated during the 1960s and in 1992-93.
The monument represents the domestic focus of the villa estate, and includes
the remains of a number of buildings constructed within a roughly rectangular
farmyard enclosed by a boundary wall. Some of the villa buildings are visible
on aerial photographs, their plans represented by parch marks, or areas of
dryer vegetation growing above the buried walls. The most substantial building
identified so far is a rectangular, roughly east-west aligned bath suite
situated in the south eastern sector of the monument. This was constructed
during the late first or early second century AD as a simple building of three
rooms, later modified and extended eastwards. A hypocaust, or underfloor
heating system, heated the tepidarium and caldarium (the warmer bathing rooms
through which the bather progressed), and the rooms were generally well-
appointed, with tessellated floors and walls decorated with painted plaster.
The eastern end of the building adjoined the south eastern corner of the
farmyard wall, and a further, detached building, represented by a foundation
trench, was located a few metres to the north east. The south western corner
of the bath house is partly overlain by the current farmhouse and its garden.
A second, substantial masonry building was discovered by aerial photography
and partly excavated in 1992-93. This is a rectangular, roughly north-south
aligned aisled building of six rooms situated 65m north west of the bath
house. Finds of tesserae, or mosaic squares, and painted wall plaster suggest
that the building had a domestic function, and it was found to have been
roofed mainly with Horsham stone slates. The analysis of pottery sherds also
discovered during the excavation confirmed that the villa continued in use
into the fourth century AD. Traces of further Roman buildings have been
identified in the northern and eastern sectors of the monument, and further,
as yet unlocated villa buildings, including the main domestic range, can be
expected to survive in the areas around the known buildings, within the
modern farmyard.
The excavations also revealed that the Roman remains had been partly damaged
by later activity associated with the reuse of the monument during the
medieval period. This was represented by a number of middens containing
pottery sherds dating from the 10th-14th centuries, and by a lynchet,
indicating medieval cultivation, which runs across the hillside towards the
northern edge of the monument. Medieval and modern ploughing, and the
construction of the current farmhouse and its associated buildings and garden
features, has resulted in some disturbance to the earlier remains.
Pitlands farmhouse, all outbuildings, barns and garden structures, the
swimming pool, the modern surfaces of all tracks, hardstanding, paths and
patios and all modern fences and gates are excluded from the scheduling,
although the ground beneath these features is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
