A FIRST-CENTURY ROMAN VILLA

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4329, 31 August 1937, Page 2

A FIRST-CENTURY ROMAN VILLA

LARGE BATH-HOUSE DISCOVERED Recently no fewer than three Roman villas have been partly explored in Sussex. One of these is near Pulborongh, another on Highdown, west of Worthing, and a third i Angmering, in the same district. The excavation on the last of these three sites is now in progress under the auspices of the Littlehampton Natural History and Archaeological Society, working in collaboration with Mr R. C. Shcrrift, and with Miss L. M'Nair Scott as director of the work. The foundations now uncovered are those of an extensive Roman bathbuilding, including two series of rooms with hypocausts and a large cementlined plunge bath. In connection with the building is a large stone-lined drain, floored with tiles and designed to carry off the water from the whole hath system by means of a succession of branches. The whole site was, moreover, Hanked and possibly surrounded by a boundary ditch, in connection with which timber work is now being identified. The objects found in association with the building show that it was construct eel towards the end ol the first century a.d. and was finally abandoned perhaps half a century later. This extensive bath-house cannot have stood alone, and steps are now heino- taken to identify the position of the Targe villa which may ho presumed to exist in the immediate vicinity.