Street Farm Roman Villa & Mosaic
Excavations at Street Farm ended in August 2018, and David Sanchez, the
archaeologist in charge of the site for Thames
Valley Archaeological Services, handed over the last remaining area to
Deanfield Homes. The site, a large Roman villa complex, turned out to be
much more important than anyone had anticipated and, as David said, it is
the sort of excavation that an archaeologist only comes across once in
their professional life.
Right up to the last moment new discoveries were being made. The most
important was a bath house and a hypocaust, an underfloor central heating
system, in the corner of the site between St John’s Road and the school.
This is part of a second major building, as big as the villa with its
mosaic floors, which probably extends under the gardens of the houses on St
John’s road and under the school.
In September 2019, David gave a talk to Tackley Local History Group about
the villa. An audio recording is available here.
Listen to David’s
talk (MP3)
It is sad that these two-thousand-year-old buildings have now been
destroyed to make way for new houses and roads. The one consolation is that
they have been fully excavated and their complex history, with several
phases of building and occupation, has been recorded.
Background
Open days at the Street Farm site were held in March and June 2018, and the
three A1 posters which were produced for the first of these are available to
download:
Mosaic Floor
The mosaic floor that was uncovered is going to be donated to the village
so that it can be put on public display and not left in a museum store.
A sub-committee of the parish council made up of members of the council and
the history group has been set up to take the project forward, and has now
produced a feasibility study asking:
- What are the benefits of having the mosaic in the village?
- Where would it best be located?
- How should it be conserved and protected?
- How much will it cost and how can the money be raised?
Download the feasibility
study (PDF)
Tackley’s mosaic originally measured five metres square and was in the most
important room in the villa. It has now been lifted and taken away for
temporary storage. We hope that it will come to the village when the
analysis of all the finds and writing up of the results have been completed.
This gives us plenty of time to organise the project. There is currently
only one Roman mosaic on display in situ in Oxfordshire: at the
villa in North Leigh.
The Tackley mosaic
featured in the Oxford Times on 23 October 2018.
Publications
Thames Valley Archaeological Services have published the report of their
work: David Sanchez, A Roman Villa at Street Farm, Tackley,
Oxfordshire (TVAS Monograph 41, 225 pp, 43 colour plates,
ISBN 978-1-911228-52-3) priced £25 + P&P.
They have also published a full-colour booklet (16 pp) on the excavation:
David Sanchez, Excavation of the Roman Villa at Street Farm, Tackley,
Oxfordshire (TVAS Booklet 1, ISBN 978-1-911228-55-4) priced £5 +
P&P.
Both are available from the History Group – contact the secretary Sue
Ashton at tackleyhistory@gmail.com – and from
Thames Valley Archaeological
Services.