| 10th | Top Roman villas in England |
 The enclosed interior of Lullingstone Villa |
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| Building | |
|---|---|
| Town | Lullingstone |
| Country | England, United Kingdom |
Lullingstone Roman Villa is a villa built during the Roman occupation of Britain, situated near the village of Eynsford in northwest Kent, south eastern England.
It is unknown which family lived in the villa and owned the large estate that would have surrounded it, though they would have had to be wealthy. They may have been Roman, though they could also have been native Britons who had adopted Roman customs.
Lullingstone Roman Villa is particularly notable for being the site of one of the earliest known Christian chapels in the country.
The villa is located in the Darent Valley, along with six others, including those at Crofton, Crayford and Dartford.[1]
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The earliest stage of the villa was built around 82 AD. It was situated in an area near to several other villas, and was close to Watling Street, by which travellers could move to and fro from Londinium to Durobrivae, Durovernum Cantiacorum and Rutupiæ[2].
Around AD 150 some important officials seem to have lived here, indicated by two marbles busts dating to about that period and perhaps showing the owners of the villa. A heated bath block was added and in the Fourth Century the dining room was equipped with a fine mosaic floor with one illustration of Zeus, disguised as a bull, abducting Europa and a second depicting Bellerophon killing the Chimera.[3] Finds include two Greco-Roman marble heads, now in the British Museum, portraying either the villa owners, their ancestors, or the then Roman Emperor Pertinax and his father.[4]
Sometime early in the 5th century a fire destroyed the building, and it was abandoned and forgotten until its rediscovery in the 20th Century.[5]
The ruins were first discovered in 1939 when a blown-down tree revealed scattered mosaic fragments. The villa was excavated in the period 1949–61 by archaeologists, and the ruins themselves were preserved under a specially-built building in the 1960s, when it was taken over by English Heritage, who opened the ruins to the public. The building began to leak late in the 20th century and required a major £1.8m renovation and redisplay project in 2006-08 to make it safe to display fragile objects from the site in it.[6]
The dining room, or triclinium, was situated in the centre of the main building, and was highly decorated with a pair of large mosaics on the floor dating to the mid-4th century[7]. One depicts the abduction of the princess Europa by the god Jupiter who is disguised as a bull[8], whilst the other depicts Bellerophon slaying the Chimaera, whilst surrounded by four sea creatures. Surrounding these mosaics were smaller images depicting hearts, crosses and swastikas.
One room of the building had been used as both a pagan shrine, and, later, as a Christian chapel, one of the earliest in Britain.
The original pagan shrine room was dedicated to local water deities, and a wall painting depicting three water nymphs dating from this period can still be seen in a niche in the room[9]. Just after the 3rd century, this niche had been covered over, as the whole room had been redecorated with white plaster painted with red bands [10], and two busts of male figures had been placed in the room. Some scholars have theorised that at this point the inhabitants focused their worship on household deities and ancestor spirits, largely abandoning the worship of the water deities[11].
In the 4th century the room above the pagan shrine was apparently converted to Christian use, with painted plaster on the walls, including a row of figures of standing worshipers, (orans), and a characteristic Christian Chi-rho symbol. Some of the paintings are now on display in the British Museum[12].
A Romano-Celtic temple-mausoleum complex was constructed around 300 AD to hold the bodies of two young people that of a male and a female. Although one of the lead coffins was robbed in antiquity, one still remained in situ with grave-goods, undisturbed when excavated and is now on display at the site.
Coordinates: 51°21′50.4″N 0°11′47″E / 51.364°N 0.19639°E
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   | Murals from Lullingstone and other related artifacts on the British Museum website - British Museum - Highlights |
| | Times article, 30th July 2006 - Whose busts are they? - Times Online |
| | English Heritage site - Lullingstone Roman Villa : Kent : South East : Find a property by map : Properties : Days Out & Events : English Heritage |
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