OSMap: LR172
Type: Roman Villa
SSE (16) to Cold Kitchen Hill (Wiltshire)
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NGRef: ST7662 OSMap: LR172 Type: Roman Villa |
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NNW (1½) to AQVAE SVLIS (Bath, Avon) SSE (16) to Cold Kitchen Hill (Wiltshire) | |
| PRO SALVTE IMP CES M AVR ANTONINI PII FELICIS INVICTI AVG NAEVIVS AVG LIB ADIVT PROC PRINCIPIA RVINA OPRESS A SOLO RESTITVIT |
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| "For the health of Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius Felix Invictus Augustus,¹ Naevius the imperial freedman, helped to restore from its foundations the procurator's headquarters which had broken down in ruins." (RIB 179; dated: AD212-217 or 218-222) |
An inscription recovered from the Romano-British villa at Combe Down (vide R.I.B. 179 supra) would seem to indicate that by the early-third century the Provincial Procurator had relocated his offices to a palatial residence outside Aquae Calidae (Bath, Avon). It is possible that this villa was the winter quarters of the chief financial officer of Britannia, away from the hustle and bustle of the commercial centre at Londinium, where the stresses of procuratorship could be eased away in the naturally heated waters of the nearby springs sacred to the goddess Sul-Minerva.
There were stone quarries about a mile to the west at The Tumps (ST7462), and other roman villas at Wellow (ST7257) and Iford (ST7958), about 4 miles to the south-west and south-east respectively.
