User:Roman Chesterton

Member of St-Gilles Chesterton Warwickshire

Chesterton Roman Villa Warwickshire

ROMAN VILLA. It may be surprising that relatively few sites of Roman villas or large settlements have so far been discovered in the Warwickshire countryside. It was therefore of considerable interest in 1992 when a tessellated pavement from a Roman building, possibly part of a villa, were exposed by erosion from modem farming activity adjacent to the yards of Ewefields Farm, Chesterton. "The discovery of the pavement, of large chequer-board design but containing small tesserae, led to excavation which revealed a second mosaic. Apart from a villa at Radford Semele, 5 km to the north, where tesserae had been recovered, this was the first site in Warwickshire to produce conclusive evidence of mosaic floors, in 1993 excavations by David Adams and John Burman of the warwickshire archaeology research team. (WART) revealed more mosaics and these were subsequently recorded by David Neal and Luigi Thompson for the Corpus of Roman Mosaics in Britain. WART also continued with an extensive field survey, including geophysical survey in the area around these discoveries. It soon became clear that this was the site of an extensive complex, indeed Roman features were first recorded in a pipe trench on the north side of the farm in 1922, and in 1980 Roman building debris, tiles, 4th- century pottery and coins were recovered whilst building a house near the farm. The site is 2 km south-east of the Roman small fortified town of Chesterton-on-Fosse, which as its name indicates, lies on the Fosse Way, half-way between Dom and High Cross and 10 km north of the crossing made by the Roman road from Alcester to Alchester and the Fosse. A field survey by WART, including geophysics, has also now mapped extensive evidence of Roman Suburban settlement all around the walled town. The larger part of the main buildings of the Ewefields Farm site lies beneath the present-day farm buildings, and this unfortunately makes excavation and recording very difficult. Construction of a slurry tank has already destroyed part of the central area of the main Roman house before the present investigations commenced. However, sufficient remains clearly survive to warrant continued investigation, which to date appears to indicate a very large complex, ranged around a broad courtyard. Owing to a steep gradient, the buildings are terraced into a slope, with the main house at the highest point with rooms at different levels. The finest mosaic found so far decorated part of the forward corridor or porticus, approximately 50 cm lower than the rooms along its west side. Its design consists of a series of linear poised squares creating triangular compartments at the margins decorated with distinctive heart-shaped motifs and overlapping circles and little rectangular compartments with heart motifs. These motifs are also to be found at the recently discovered mosaic at the Whitley Grange villa near Wroxeter, clearly the work of the same mosaicist and therefore contemporaneous. Both mosaics date from the fourth century and the Chesterton example's stone patching indicates a long period of use.

Eight rooms of the main axial house have so far been planned, but each had been floored with a mosaic in the fourth century. One of these, though almost completely destroyed, was clearly of very fine quality. Fragments of fine limestone columns and mouldings testify to the architectural embellishment of the house's facade, whilst many fragments of painted wall plaster indicate the colourful and floral decoration of the interior. Excavations during the summer of 2000, within the confined space of a modem barn, have revealed a probable extension of the main wing to the south. This abutted the west end of another building on the south side of the courtyard. This second structure originally incorporated a doorway in its end-wall which had been sealed with rough stone blocks, no doubt at the same time as the extension was made to the main wing. The extension revealed a sequence of rebuilding to a hypocaust which overlaid a stone drain floored with terracotta tiles. The drain seemed to originate from an area beneath a modem concrete yard, possibly from a bath suite expelling waste water to the courtyard. North of the main house and the courtyard there is evidence of a further range in the form of building debris and tessarae, and part of a wall has been found descending the slope to the east. All the evidence so far points to a main residential wing approximately 100 m in length, with side wings descending the slope under the modem farm, for an as yet unknown distance.. If this site can be interpreted as a villa, it is unquestionably one of those possessing the largest complexes of buildings to be recorded from Roman Britain. Apart from the core site lying beneath the present farm, there are the outlying buildings difficult to identify accurately without intruding through overlying medieval strata, for there are earthworks of a deserted medieval settlement surrounding the site to the north and west. Indeed, it is this later settlement evidence together with the nearby isolated medieval church which indicates that there may well have been continuous occupation and functioning of the site through two millennia from the Roman settlement or villa to the modem farm.

An increasing number of Roman rural sites are being identified adjacent to, or sealed by medieval settlements, a similar pattern to that identified in northern France. The villa becomes a vilia-ge. In the late Roman period villas were focal points for rural communities, not simply wealthy farms or country houses. When the villa system broke down at the end of the Roman period, the indigenous population must have continued to farm the land. It is reasonable to suggest that the descendants of scattered estate workers may have congregated on the sites of decaying Roman period buildings to establish a closed knit community.

However, evidence to confirm this hypothesis is difficult to secure, particularly during the Saxon period. The only excavated evidence points to settlements of pagan Saxon cemeteries as at nearby Streton-on-the-Fosse. The small Roman town of Chesterton-on-Fosse was abandoned like so many other similar towns at the end of the Roman period. The Saxon name Chesterton - 'tun' or village by the 'ceaster' or Roman town, may be very early. Did the surviving inhabitants of these nucleated urban settlements move to the decaying rural settlements and establish new farms? Almost certainly this is what the Chesterton team are identifying; the foundation of the medieval parish of Chesterton..

'''CHESTERTON WINDOW GLASS. HISTORY NOTES.'''

Rabbits digging on Warwickshire farmland have kicked up a treasury of extremely rare hand painted medieval glass. Archaeologists are racing to excavate and conserve the glass, before the fragile decoration blackens and crumbles on exposure to air. Although the discovery was announced yesterday by English Heritage, the exact location remains secret as work continues. More than 100 pieces of glass, the largest being the size of the palm of a hand, have been recovered. The glass is around 600 years old, and a remarkable discovery. Really old English glass of any kind is a rare find, but almost all that survives is church glass - part of the tiny percentage of the original wealth of magnificent windows renowned across Europe that survived the fury of the Puritan iconoclasts.

Domestic glass is rare in itself, and painted glass, far more vulnerable to damage than the fired-in colour of stained glass, rarer still. The glass probably came from a large window in a 14th century moated manor house, which was demolished to build something more modern and stylish around 500 years ago. Nothing survives of either house, except a series of shallow mounds and hollows in the fields. However, recently, local archaeologists looking for a suspected Roman site, realised that rabbits burrowing into a low grass platform were throwing out fragments of glass with soil and scraps of animal bones. Scraps of pottery, which may help give amore precise date, were also found.

Archaeologists usually loathe rabbits, which have caused serious damage on many sites, especially to earth mounds and banks. The Warwickshire site is infested: David Adams of the Warwickshire archaeology research team said they found hundreds digging away each morning. In this case, he admitted, the rabbits had proved helpful: the site would never have been found without them. Paul Stamper, English Heritage ancient monuments inspector for the region, said that a great deal of research still had to be done on the family associated with the site.

"It tells us a great deal about the uncertainties of the 14th century, the time of Robin Hood in that part of England, that a family wealthy enough to commission such a window should choose to live on a 30 metre site in a wet valley bottom. That was because the first consideration was being able to construct a defensive moat. He believes enough survives of the window for a glass expert to reconstruct the subject of the window - which could have been purely decorative, a biblical scene, or a family coats of arms. Window glass was very expensive, and usually recycled. In this case there is some evidence that the window by then almost 200 years old, gaudy and out of date when large windows of clear glass were coming into fashion - was deliberately smashed and buried in the rubble. None of the lead caning, which could have been melted down and reused, was found.

English Heritage is planning how to minimise future rabbit damage to the site. Warwickshire Archaeology Research Team, have now started a joint management project with English Heritage looking at ways of preventing further rabbit damage. May 2007 the area of rabbit damage has now been covered with wire meshing.

See BBC News Report -

THE CHURCH A new survey - The Chesterton Project 1991-2011 - by Warwickshire Archaeology Research Team from Chesterton. who spent 25 years researching the area, and 7 years researching the church, suggests, that no evidence of a settlement existed around the church, it was a small chapel then became a church. We give guided talks at the church most weekends, by the Curator of the church 2005-June-2011. Now stept down, but will not return!!,. Please visit '''Divine Inspiration '''

St-Gilles

His early history, as given in Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend), links him with Arles, but finally he withdrew deep into the forest near Nîmes, where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole companion being a deer, or Red Deer, who in some stories sustained him on her milk.[5] This last retreat was finally discovered by the king's hunters, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. An arrow shot at the deer wounded the saint instead, who afterwards became a patron of cripples. The king, who by legend was Wamba, an anachronistic Visigoth, but who must have been (at least in the original story) a Frank due to the historical setting,[6] conceived a high esteem for the hermit, whose humility rejected all honors save some disciples, and built him a monastery in his valley, Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, which he placed under the Benedictine rule. Here Giles died in the early part of the eighth century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles.

St-Gilles Church Chesterton Warwickshire. New Report on the church coming soon. Winter 2011.

A 10th century Vita sancti Aegidii recounts that, as Giles was celebrating mass to pardon the emperor Charlemagne's sins, an angel deposited upon the altar a letter outlining a sin so terrible Charlemagne had never dared confess it. Several Latin and French texts, including Legenda Aurea refer to this hidden "sin of Charlemagne". This legend, however, would be contradicted by generally accepted later dates for the life of Charlemagne (approximately 742 – 28 January 814).