Villas, Roman

‘Villa’ is a Latin word for farm, which has been appropriated by antiquaries and archaeologists to denote Romano-British rural establishments which exhibit Roman-style architecture, however debased. Villas develop from the late 1st cent., often overlying Iron Age buildings and are seen as the indigenous aristocracy taking on Roman ways. By the first half of the 4th cent. there were probably 1,000 villas, ranging from simple cottages to vast palatial complexes such as Bignor (Sussex) and Woodchester. Villas were in decline in the later 4th cent. and passed out of use in the first half of the 5th.

A Dictionary of British History. Ed. John Cannon. Oxford University Press, 2001.