NHER 3254 (Monument record) - West Newton Roman Villa Site

Ordnance Survey plot 54. East of West Newton Farm Roman villa.
Revealed by plough November 1949.
Trial excavations 1949 to 1951 by I. J. Thatcher and C. H. Lewton-Brain on site of bath house (TF 699 276) (Thatcher's original plan destroyed at his death; plan by J. O. H. Nicholls 1953 at NCM).

Area about 21.3m (70 feet) east to west and 12.2m (40 feet) north to south excavated to a depth of 1.2m (4 feet).
Materials : - brick with a limestone chimney flue. Tiled floors, hypocaust, opus signinum. Refuse pit 4.6m to 6.1m (15 to 20 feet) long, 2.4m to 3m (8 to 10 feet) wide. Contained pottery, oyster shells, mussels, cockles, sealed by clay with traces of burning.
Deposits of soot, other building materials included, wall plaster in eight colours, floor and roof tiles, window glass, tiles with slanting holes (?for external face of walls). Small finds included: Castor Ware with white slip and scroll design; fragment of kimmeridge shale bracelet, jet bead, fragment of glass bead with incised decoration; late Roman; iron slag.
What is dateable suggests 3rd to 4th century.
All this material is at York Cottage Estate Museum, Sandringham. One tile at NCM.
Photographs by Thatcher NCM.
Colours of painted plaster (commonist) white and crimson, also violet, brown, blue, yellow ochre, terracotta, sage green, bright green, mottled blue green, dark green.
R. R. Clarke (NCM).

Press cutting, and sketches and plans in file.

July 2008.
Management Statement signed.
See (S7).
D. Robertson (HES), 20 August 2012.