“Archaeologists trace four main groups of villas: the cottage, the winged corridor, the courtyard and the aisled villa” H:H scullard ‘ Roman Britain in: out post of Empire’
The cottage plan is just the simple rectangular building, sometimes a collection of them. The winged corridor villa is what Chedworth was it would have been a sort of ‘H’ with the two top ‘storks’ taken off.
The courtyard villa is basically Chedworth without wings
The aisled villa is just a villa built in the simple shape of a long rectangle.
Chedworth villa is a winged corridor villa with an enclosed courtyard. It is said to have two storeys because the ground floor walls were built thick enough to hold another story.
Chedworth is not an Atypical villa in terms of the plan because other villas have been discovered to have similar plans for example Lullingstone was found to also have winged corridors as did Gadebridge Park. North Leigh and Bignor also had courtyards and Woodchester’s plan was symmetrical just like Chedworth is said to be. Other villas which had aspects of their plans that were different to Chedworth are: Lullingstone which although it has winged corridors it is a lot more compact and limited accommodation and Great Wycombe had a ‘H’ style plan. Generally I would say that the plan of Chedworth is typical because even the villas that are said to have different plans the plans are still similar to Chedworth’s an example of this is Great Wycombe’s ‘H’ style plan, the way it has parallel corridors.
Chedworth was built in 120AD and then is grew during the late 4th centaury and didn’t show evidence of decline until the 5th century. There are other villas which followed a similar pattern like Lullingstone. Lullingstone was also altered and changed over time and it was abandoned during the 5th century.
Gadebridge Park also grew during the 4th century villas that were different were villas like Great Wycombe which was built during the mid 3rd century and Woodchester which was built all at once, also Lullingstone was abandoned during the 3rd century. I would sat that the development of Chedworth is typical because it was developed during what was said to be the golden age of villa building across Roman Britain
and when it was abandoned was only a few years after most of the other villas in Britain.
Another feature of villas is the rooms. Chedworth contained high quality mosaics, five known hypocaust systems, extensive bath houses, toilets supplied with running water and an eight-sided shrine called a Vympaem worshiping a water goddess. Lullingstone, North Leigh and Bignor was also found to have high quality elaborate mosaics and North Leigh also had hypocaust systems. For the bath houses, Lullingstone had bath houses but only one, but Great Wycombe and North Leigh both had more then one bath house and at Gadebridge Park a swimming pool had been discovered instead. Both Lullingstone and Great Wycombe had shrine but Lullingstone’s shrine was circular and after looking further into this I found that the more comman shrine was the eight-sided octagonal one, Bignor had Venus rooms instead of a shrine and the obviously worshipped Venus. I would say that this evidence proves that Chedworth is typical because for all of the features at Chedworth there were more villas that has similar features than those which had different.
Villa was the Roman word for farm and so the typical use for a villa would be for farming, the villa Bignor shows signs of a agricultural uses so that is thought to be the purpose and Ashtead villa showed signs of light industry maybe trade of pottery etc and this is what most villas did. For the purpose of the villa a lot of it is just best guess based on the features seen there. Chedworth was said to have some farming but this may have been only to provide the occupiers, some people have said that it may be a guest house and this would explain the fact that there is more than one of each room. Also some religious aspects have been discovered like the shrine and the Chi Rho symbol which represented the christiar faith. Chedworth’s purpose could have been none of the above but as I said it is based or best guess. Lullingstone was also found to have a Chi Rho symbol which suggests that it also had a religious purpose, one place which was unusual was Gadebridge Park which is said to be used as a commercial spa and it has no religious element. Overall I would say that the purpose is Atypical because the fact that it has more than one of most rooms, I think its tried in with the purpose and I have never come across another villa like this in my studies. Most of the factors argue that Chedworth is a typical Roman villa and the Atypical villas themselves e.g. Gadebridge Park being a commercial spa. The problem with doing this sort of question is the fact that every villa
maybe the occupiers lived in a different way to another e.g. one may make money through trade whilst another farms, thus affecting the purpose of the villa. I believe that Chedworth is a typical villa because there is more evidence to prove so than if it is Atypical.
