Architecture in Roman Britain
Creators: name: Anon
Publisher: name: Archaeology Data Service
Year: 2002

description: Council for British Archaeology Research Reports, 94
description: A report based on papers presented at a conference organised by the Roman Research Trust at the Museum of London in 1991, its aim being to highlight some recent discoveries and current thinking on architecture in Roman Britain. The `Introduction' by J J Wilkes (1--5) outlines the differences and similarities of architecture in Britannia with the rest of the empire and points to the scarcity of inscriptions and other documentary evidence for buildings in this northern province. Part I of the report deals with exteriors, and begins with `The external decoration of Romano-British buildings' by T F C Blagg (9--18), including columns, sculptured decoration, use of colour, and contrasting building materials. Paul Bidwell (19--29) in `The exterior decoration of Roman buildings in Britain' concentrates on exterior decoration carried out with lime plaster and plain or coloured washes, and the use of building materials with contrasting colours.Part II is on elevations: David S Neal (33--43) considers `Upper storeys in Romano-British villas'. The tendency in the past has been to assume that most Roman buildings, especially villas, were single storeyed. One villa with an upper storey is reconstructed by Graham D Keevill (44--55) in `The reconstruction of the Romano-British villa at Redlands Farm, Northamptonshire'. Here, the east wing gable was found collapsed. An exceptionally well-preserved fallen wall of a late Roman aisled building was also found at Meonstoke, Hampshire, and this is discussed by Anthony King (56--69) in `The south-east façade of Meonstoke aisled building'. The unusual tower-like building at Stonea is described in `The Roman stonebuilding at Stonea, Cambridgeshire' by T W Potter (70--4).Part III is on military architecture, and begins with `An elliptical peristyle building in the fortress of Deva' by David J P Mason (77--92), which was excavated in the centre of Chester in 1939 and again in the 1960s. It was part of the legionary fortress and was apparently a range of tall open chambers around an oval peristyle court with an adjacent bath building; its interpretation remains disputed. Further work at Chester is outlined by T J Strickland (104--19) in `Recent research at the Chester legionary fortress: the curtain wall and the barrack veranda colonnades'. Tony Wilmott (93--103) in `Birdoswald: a military case study' discusses various architectural elements in the fort at Birdoswald, including gates, defensive walls, basilica, and horrea. Bridges, many probably constructed by the army, are dealt with by Neil Holbrook (120--32) in `Roman bridges in Britain'.The final part of the report is on late empire architecture, and Nicholas Hodgson (135--51) discusses `A late Roman courtyard house at South Shields and its parallels' -- the house has been excavated within the eastern part of the fort. It dates from the early fourth century and possibly housed the military commander.`Exotic structures in 4th-century Britain' are presented by Bryn Walters (152--62) -- a number of buildings in south-west Britain had elaborate structures, such as at Holcombe in Dorset and Littlecote, Wiltshire. LRA