Bath Archaeological Trust unpublished report series

Three trenches were excavated west of the known Roman villa site at Box. Previous work by BAT had shown that Roman walls and structures extended westwards from the previous known site of the villa, however, terracing and building work relating to the present Box House Hotel made the survival of any such deposits uncertain. In fact the corner of the study area revealed substantail building features of Roman date, a very large stone capped culvert in trench 1 and a Roman ditch in trench 3. All these features had stratified deposits associated including what appeared to be a series of layers of charcoal and ash, these were of such quality and size that they were considered likely to be part of the Roman villa which would therefore have had to have been twice the size as previously established. [Au]

Although the project was small, varying amounts of information were discovered about the use of the site during the Early Roman period, the later Roman period, the Late Saxon period, the Norman period and the 18th and 19th century. The discovered included: (i) the location of a robbed out Roman wall and the recording of five exposed 1st century walls, one of which still had traces of paint of it. (ii) A number of mid-4th century contexts including a floor, a probable furnace or hot box and a number of Late Roman deposits. (iii) The location of the position of three burials (probably Late Saxon). (iv) The location of one charnel pit (probably Norman). (v) Two late 18th century lavatories which contained a large and varied assemblage of late 18th and early 19th century finds. [Au(abr)]

During the course of the evaluation, the remains of a Roman period building equipped with an hypocaust, lying at the intersection of two well-constructed enclosure walls was recorded. This would have formed part of the residential quarters or associated amenities of a high status Roman dwelling and would have functioned as a heated living or dining room, or was possibly part of a bath house. The earliest demonstrated occupation on site dated to the mid-late third century, and a second phase of construction was initiated in the second half of the fourth century.[Au(abr)]