The Roman Villa at Woodcester in the Cotswolds and the celebrated Orpheus Pavement

Woodchester is most famous for its magnificent Orpheus mosaic, the largest in Britain and perhaps the most intricate.

In AD 43 the Emperor Claudius ordered a new invasion of England. His army, led by Plautius was successful and an arch was erected in Rome dedicated to Claudius' victory. 'He subdued eleven kings of Britain without any reverse, and received their surrender, and was the first to bring barbarian nations beyond the ocean under Roman sway.' By the end of the first century England was fully occupied by the Romans - although only the south and east of the country could be described as fully under the Roman thumb.
Woodchester lay within this region, and the Cotswolds had become one of the richest and most valuable parts of Roman Britain.

Building the magnificent Villa in Woodchester probably began during the reign of Hadrian (AD 117-138.) There are a number of theories about the origins and its purpose. (A picture of the site can be seen here.)
One says it was built as the headquarters for the Romans' protracted campaign against the Silures in South Wales; another claims it was the home of the Roman General, Vespasian. It may even have been the country house of the Roman Governor of the province. Who ever it belonged to, it was a work of great importance covering twenty-six acres.

However, a single 'owner' is of course misleading. The villa was built and rebuilt over two centuries or more. Giles Clarke, writing in Britannia in1982, feels that it was unlikely to have had an 'official' function. He argues that more likely, the villa was built and lived-in by the descendants of the pre-Roman tribal leader at Rodborough.The reason for building the villa on this particular site also has to be a matter of conjecture. Certainly the beauty of the surrounding area is a factor; the villa is sheltered in the valley and there would have been a plentiful supply of stone and wood for building. A constant supply of freshwater from the spring line would have also been a key consideration.
There must have been other considerations as well. If we follow Giles Clarke's reasoning, it may well have been that the site was already the home or settlement of the Dubonni tribe and that Woodchester was of pre-Roman origin.

Interestingly, a recent excavation of another large villa, in Turkdean in the Cotswolds, has also thrown up evidence that it was actually built by the native Dubonni. The Dubonni were a civilized tribe, whose kingdom encompassed southern Worcestershire, most of Gloucestershire and north Somerset. It seemed, rather than resisting the Romans, they quickly adopted all the benefits of the new Roman civilisation and remained part of the hierarchy. Like the Romans they shared a reverence for nature and natural forces such as springs and, only a few hundred yards away from the villa, was the spring line which provided water for the villa.
Woodchester was also situated a convenient distance from three important Roman cities at Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester and was already on the path of an ancient road that ran between Gloucester and Bath.

The area immediately surrounding Woodchester is remarkably rich archaeologically: there are at least seven other villas within a five mile radius. Also, the Woodchester area is characterized by abundant evidence of religious activity. There have been found a number of alters to Mars in the Nailsworth Valley; there is a temple dedicated to Mercury found near Uley. This all suggests that the area was an important cultural and religious centre even before the Romans arrived.
In the latter half of the fourth century the villa was partially destroyed by fire probably by the Pict or Saxon invaders who had overwhelmed the island. It may have continued to be occupied during Saxon times but was certainly gradually dismantled and the stone reused to build housing and most probably the church.

The villa's plan is of the courtyard type confirming to typical Italian design.
There are comparatively few of this layout in England. It had two large courtyards surrounded by buildings with 65 rooms including a main residence, a farm, a sun terrace, a spa and bath complex, and a large hall that contained the wonderful mosaic, The Great Pavement. This is one of the most complex and intricate mosaic designs found in northern Europe, and is 2,209 square feet and when complete contained one and a half million pieces of stone. This great mosaic was made around AD. 325 by craftsmen from Corinium, with the main design based around Orpheus and his relationship with nature.
In all thirteen mosaics have been recorded in situ.

"Many coffins are placed upon it but it has been frequently broken through at the request of families who desired to have their friends interred at greater depths."
Samuel Rudder. 1779

"The pavement was supposed to be the the floor of the habitation of some Roman general which gave name to a castle in this place...it was of considerable length and breadth"
Sir Robert Atkyns. History of Gloucestershire.1708

In 1793 Samuel Lyson commenced the extensive excavations which still today are the main source of our knowledge of the villa. These took place over three years and in 1797 Lysons was able to publish the results of his work in his book "Account of the Roman Antiquities discovered at Woodchester in the County of Gloucester." He also found a number of very fine marble sculptural fragments, including the headless statue of Diana Luna, with the sacrificial bull at her feet, which are now in the British Museum. The quality of the carving is exceptional for statues found in British villas and these finds indicate the luxurious character of the villa.
The pavement has been opened up several times in 1880, 1890, 1926, 1935, 1951, 1962 and for the last time in 1972 when over 140,000 visited.
The following is an account by Edith Brill (the Cotswold author) of her visit to see the mosaic in 1951:

I went to see the pavement the last time it was uncovered in the summer of 1951. It was Saturday afternoon and it rained not with the gentle rain of of summer but with sudden heavy showers which fell upon us with the ferocity of typical Cotswold rain; when one shower finished the countryside sparkled in sunlight so brilliant that one forgot sodden shoes and dripping coats in the radiance of the drenched landscape.
Soon, after we had turned off the main Stroud highway in to a steep, winding road we were in the green heart of the south Cotswold country with sloping parkland dotted with great solitary trees making pools of deep shade in the rich pastureland.]
The river ran below, and across the river another steepish hillside was dotted with houses, orchards and gardens. A field had been opened up as a carpark, the entrance had been well churned with mud but the people of Woodchester know their weather and were well prepared for it, providing duck boards in the fields for the cars as well as a long narrow shelter along one side of the old churchyard and the pavement. A bridge had been erected over the pavement so that one could stand above it and study the intricate patterning leaning on the wooden handrail.
The man who stood in the centre of the pavement with his pointer, and talked as one who knew and loved it well, made a wet and gallant figure. At times a particularly heavy downpour would send his audience scuttling for shelter but he seemed unperturbed by the rain.
The showers washed the pavement and the fitful but brilliant sunshine made it sparkle so that the reds, browns, cream and blue-greys of the tesserae shone as if newly polished. The pepper-pot tombs in the churchyard seemed more remote from our world than those birds and beasts in their circles of braided ornament.

There are few readily accessible descriptions of the pavement and so I have worked, at length, from an account originally written by Malcolm D. Mann, B.A. which was used in the brochure printed for the opening of the pavement in 1953.
The pavement of the large hall is one of the finest examples of mosaic work found in Europe. Lysons considered it "only equalled by a few of those discovered in other provinces of the Roman Empire, and undoubtedly superior to anything of the same kind hitherto found in this country."
The pavement is a square of 48 feet 10 inches surrounded by a strip of red brick tesserae, and bordered with a wide labyrinth fretted pattern. Within this border are twenty - four compartments arranged about a central square, and ornamented with geometrical figures, frets and guilloches of varied designs and colours.

The central square is bordered by a braided guilloche, and except for the angular spaces at the corners, is occupied by a series of concentric circles (photograph) which form the principle design of the pavement. The outer circle, 25 feet in diameter, is formed by the a Vitruvian scroll of great freedom enriched with foliage, and bordered without by a double twisted, and within by a braided guilloche. The circle is appropriately completed by the mask of the Greek rural deity, Pan, having a broad beard of leaves. Within the braided guilloche is a broad circular band containing representations of various beasts on a white background (see the illustrations.)
Originally, they were twelve in number, but only the seven figures of a gryphon, a bear, a leopard, a stag, a tigress, a lion, and a lioness now remain. A boar, a dog, and an elephant have at one time or another been identified but are now destroyed, while no trace of the other two figures remain.

The animals are about 4 feet in length, and are separated from one another by tress and flowers. Another circle of braided guilloche and a band of acorns separate the animals from a much damaged circle of birds. Only five birds have been identified, a peacock, a duck, a dove, a hen, and a cock pheasant - the last being portrayed in the act of scratching its head. The birds are interspersed with twigs, while this circle also contains one animal, generally assumed to be a fox.
Within the circle of birds was an octagonal compartment formed by a twisted guilloche, but only one angle of this exits. According to old drawings, this octagon contained a circle of fish and sea monsters, and these surrounded a star like figure which occupied the very centre of the pavement. The southern side of the octagon is broken by the now much mutilated figure of Orpheus, playing a lyre which rests on his left knee.
This provides the key to the whole design.

Finally, in the four corners outside the circle are the remains of female figures (photograph at left), probably intended to represent Naiads (nymphs), two of which appear in each corner. Those in the north east corner are in the best state of preservation, and they appear to have been lying at the foot of one of four columns, which these corners seem likely to have contained. The base of one of the columns can still be found in the north east corner.
The Orpheus legend was a favourite one with artists in mosaics especially in Britain, perhaps because the design introduced strange beasts and a form of nature worship that would have been prevalent prior to the Roman conquest. Examples have been found on the Isle of Wight, near Cirencester and near Bath. The legend originally came from Greece where Orpheus personified the power of music, and played an important role in the religious history of the Hellenistic world. According to the legend he was able to charm all forms of nature including birds and beasts by his music and songs, and draw even rocks and trees from their place. This power is well portrayed within the pavement at Woodchester, where all forms of nature are portrayed responding to his music.

The pavement is made up of tesserae, for the most part half inch cubes, those in the centre being smaller and those on the outside larger. When complete it contained well over a million and a half cubes. The size of the tesserae are smaller than usual making the design of the pavement unusually delicate and elaborate, and at the same time the colours of the various parts blend harmoniously. Lysons suggested that all the materials used in the pavement came from the surrounding countryside, the blue lias from the Vale of Gloucester; the white stone from the Cotswolds; the dark brown from near Bristol; the lighter brown from Lypiatt; while the red cubes came from brick. The cubes appear to have been laid down in a very rough state and then polished, while the tesserae were set in a cement harder than the stones themselves. This bed of coarse cement was 8 inches thick, while underneath that was a layer of gravel 3 feet deep overlaying one foot of rubble.
The pavement was heated; a number of flues crossed it at right angles.
Over the centuries the pavement has been damaged both by fire and the constant grave digging that has taken place over it. Nevertheless enough remains to show that it compares favourably to anything discovered elsewhere.
The two illustrations below (and those above) were drawn in 1880 by the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society.
(Lysons' original drawings can be viewed here).

An article from the Daily Telegraph
"EXPERTS are examining nine antique brass plates found in Gloucestershire field by local sculptor Natasha Houseago.
The plates - which look like early photographic plates or engravings - depict Stroud's famous Woodchester Roman mosaic pavement.
They are about A5 size, with a larger one depicting an overhead view of the pavement. The 2,000-year-old mosaic - which used to be uncovered for visitors every 10 years but has remained buried since 1973 - shows Orpheus charming the beasts in the Underworld.
Hugh Morrison, of Stroud Museum, said he believed that the plates dated from the turn of the century and were related to a publicity publication for the mosaic on one of the occasions it was revealed."

Church refuses plinth
"A bid to mark Woodchester's Roman heritage has been scuppered by church leaders - to the fury of villagers. Although the 4th century Woodchester Pavement lies below church ground and looks unlikely to be uncovered, villagers had hoped to erect a stone plinth and information plaque above it, to tie in with millennium celebrations.
But the Gloucester Diocesan advisory committee refused the plans, despite backing from English Heritage and a host of other academic and statutory bodies.
At present there is no obvious sign of Roman activity at the site and Bob Ludlow who masterminded the project, hoped to put up the plinth to explain the history of the site to many hundreds of visitors.
It was last opened up in 1973, when 141,000 visitors came to Woodchester to see one of the best examples of a Roman mosaic north of the Alps.
"In their letter to me they say a plinth would have an adverse impact on the two neighbouring table tombs" Mr Ludlow said.
"Yet English Heritage had agreed to it and thought it was ideal because we were making the plinth out of Tetbury stone, which is the same as the tombs.
"Only two people out of a committee of eight or ten came to look at it and when they arrived I thought they had already made up their minds.
"English Heritage had given it approval and passed it on to the Secretary of State, who did the same - they said there would be little or no impact on the churchyard."

Mosaic could pull in crowds
"The Great Orpheus Pavement reconstruction could become a permanent fixture in Stroud - and put the town on the global map.
The SNJ can exclusively reveal that entrepreneur Alec Lawson is investigating the possibility of giving the modern masterpiece a proper home.
Plans have been drawn up for a purpose-built exhibition centre which would be a magnet for hundreds of thousands of tourists as well as historians, archaeologists and other academics. Mr Lawless would like to find it a home near the original in Woodchester and Cashes Green where brothers Bob and John Woodward who built it were brought up.
Mr Lawless is at present working hard to make sure the 1.6 million piece reconstruction is ready for a three month showing at the former Greenaway's print works, slated for an early to mid-May opening."

Mosaic to be stored
The Great Orpheus Pavement reconstruction is set to go back in to storage because it is too expensive to exhibit - and it may not be seen in the Stroud district again.
It will show until the end of July at the former Greenaway's print works Ebley, as originally planned but its immediate future after that is uncertain.
Alec Lawless, the entrepreneur behind bringing the rarely seen masterpiece in to the public eye, admitted visitor figures have not been as good as he expected - but the thousands who have seen it were deeply impressed.
He had hoped to find a permanent home for the mosaic, which is an academically acclaimed reconstruction of the 4th century original under Woodchester churchyard...
"In the short-term it's got to go back into storage and then I don't know what will happen next," Mr Lawless told the SNJ.
"Nows the last chance for a while to go and see it."
He believes the economics of showing the mosaic to the public lend it to installing it alongside an established tourist attraction.
"The intrinsic value of having the pavement lying there is a lot of money," he added. "I think I need to combine it with another attraction.
"For it to reach its potential it needs to be there for three years. I would like to keep it here for longer but the overheads are just too high."
Liz Sargeant oversaw the mosaics last showing in Stroud at the Subscription Rooms ten years ago...
"There are many outgoings on it," she said. "It really needs to be properly displayed..."
"I've said before but I think Rodborough Fort would be the ideal location for it. "If the original were opened up, people could walk up and down the valley to the other side, so you could see the two together. That would be an enormous asset to Stroud."
She added that the car parking problems, which beset North Woodchester when the original was last shown in 1973, could be reduced by this scheme.

The Roman presence in Gloucestershire is extensive most likely as the area formed part of the frontier zone. There were extensive military installations at Cirencester, Gloucester and Kingsholm. The Fosse Way was constructed to aid deployment of troops and the distribution of supplies. Other roads include Ermin Street and Akeman Street. There are large settlements at Dorn, Bourton-on-the-Water, Lower Slaughter, Dymock, Wycomb, Kinscote, Duntisbourne Rouse and in the Lechlade area.

This is an extract from the Independent newspaper, written by Duff Hart Davis in 1992 on the origins of the replica of the mosaic.
Orpheus rises from the underworld
"In writing about the [replica] mosaic 10 days ago, my colleague David Keys rightly emphasized the archaeological importance of the site where the original lies buried at Woodchester, near Stroud; but he did not have space to go in to the story of how the replica came in to being, which is a saga in itself.
The Roman palace, completed between AD 300-325, was clearly a place of some magnificence. Just as the buildings were conceived on a grand scale, so was the Orpheus mosaic, which is 50 ft square and the largest surviving Roman pavement north of the Alps.
It depicts - or rather used to depict - the master-musician of Greek and Roman mythology with his lyre resting on his left knee, and a grand parade of the birds, beasts and fish that his melodies charmed, arranged in two concentric circles around him. Close by him is a sharp-faced dog, and round about prowl tigers, a leopard, an elephant, a stag, a boar and other creatures - to say nothing of four brace of nubile water-nymphs at the corners.
Today the mosaic lies beneath three feet of sand and soil in a disused graveyard. Over the past two centuries the practise became established of uncovering it for public inspection once every ten years, and during the most recent exposition, in 1973, a builder called Bob Woodward, who was working in partnership with his brother John in the near-by town of Wotton-under-Edge, went to look at it just for something to do.
That casual visit changed Bob's life. He was spellbound by the splendour of the pavement but also annoyed to see that so much of it - about 40 per cent - had disappeared. As he says, it was like going to see a famous picture, only to find someone had punched a fist through it.
From the pattern of disruption, it looked as though thieves ransacking drainage pipes had caused some of the damage, but the most destructive vandals had been grave diggers, who had sunk coffin-shaped shafts straight through the mosaic and its base of mortar.
At once Bob was gripped by the idea of making a replica, for he realized that the original might never be exhibited again. Already that summer the opening had caused chaos in Woodchester, whose narrow lanes wind up and down the sides of a steep hill. With people more mobile than ever before, 140,000 had poured in, and the traffic had caused such disruption that locals were vowing never to reopen the site. (The opening projected for 1983 was later cancelled.)
Undeterred by the scale of the project, Bob commissioned a photographer to shoot 300 grid-pattern colour slides of the mosaic, and set about research into the missing areas. Having left school at 14, he had never tried anything of this kind before; but his quest gradually turned him from a builder into a scholar and antiquarian of international repute.
Soon he was at home in the Bodlean and the Ashmolean in Oxford, and best of all, was given free access to the Society of Antiquarians, at Burlington House in London. Frequenting second-hand bookshops and auctions he amassed a collection of 400 ancient tomes.
The earliest report he found dated back to to 1693, when the Celtic scholar Edward Lluwyd was recorded as having seen "birds and beasts on the floor".
Then an unpublished manuscript in the Bodlean reported that in 1771 visitors saw what they thought was a wyvern - a two-legged, winged creature supposed to whisk one off to the heavens. (In fact, they had seen half the griffin, a mythical creature, four-legged and winged, which survives in the mosaic to this day.) In 1712 Edmund Browne saw the elephant (now gone) and in 1722 Richard Bradley reported that there was a star in the centre (also vanished).
All of these sightings appear to have been the result of partial uncoverings or even of burials. But during the 1780s Samuel Lysons, the antiquary, made the first full excavation, of which he published an account in 1796.
This contained several anomalies - for instance, the fact that although the book included a picture of the elephant, Lysons said it had disappeared before his time. Such was the depth of Bob Woodward's research that he was able to explain this conundrum. In Lysons' private diaries he found reference to a meeting the author had in 1780 with the Rev Peter Hawker, Rector of Woodchester, who had seen the elephant and now drew it for him.
This Holmesian sleuthing was one thing: the physical construction of a replica quite another. It so happened that in the spring of 1973 the Woodward brothers had brought a disused church in Wotton, and to their delight they found its floor would be just big enough to accommodate their whole pavement.
The original is made of natural limestone of seven different colours and 14 shades, cut into squares measuring from 11/4 inch down to only a quarter inch. A replica in stone would have been prohibitively heavy and expensive, so instead the Woodwards scoured the length and breadth of the country for clays with suitable natural colours (the only shade they had to pigment was the Lias blue, used to represent water). Twelve tons of clay were fired in to strips, which they cut up into squares.
They made up their mosaic in the old Sunday school room, across the road from the church, projecting the colour slides from below on to a transparent workbench, so that the new version matched the old piece for piece, and sticking clay pieces on to boards, so that whole sections could be lifted individually. Missing areas were recreated either from the knowledge that Bob had gleaned, or form other Roman mosaics in the area. In all, the brothers used more than 1.5 million pieces of clay, and the project took ten years.
As Bob acknowledges, for him the great project was in part a form of therapy, because during it his son Robert died of cancer when only 11. Bob's response was to found the Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood Trust (Clic), an organisation that has now spread throughout Southwest England.
The replica is a magnificent achievement - but also a homeless one. For five years it was exhibited in the old church at Wotton, but the council limited its licence to that period because it was causing traffic jams. Since then it has appeared only rarely, and spends most of its time dismantled in a container. The principle aim of the present showing is to raise money for Clic, but Bob Woodward hopes that it may flush out somebody prepared to give the mosaic a permanent home.
It certainly deserves one. It may be only a copy of something that most people will never see, but it is a lovely creation in its own right, and evokes a sense of wonder - not only about the Romans who walked and reclined and ate in splendour on the original, but also about the inspired dedication of the man who brought Orpheus back from the underworld.
(c) Logo and Article, The Independent.

The Romans at Woodchester

By Graham Thomas FRSA