Newport Roman Villa facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Newport Roman Villa |
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Museum entrance
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| General information | |
| Location | Isle of Wight, England, UK |
| Coordinates | 50°41′40″N 1°17′30″W / 50.6945°N 1.2918°W |
| OS grid | SZ500885 |
The Newport Roman Villa is an ancient Romano-British farmhouse built way back in 280 AD. You can find it close to Newport, Isle of Wight. Today, it's a cool museum where you can learn about Roman life!
Contents
Discovering the Ancient Villa
This amazing Roman villa was found by accident in 1926. A homeowner nearby was digging to build a garage. Suddenly, they hit something old!
Archaeologists then carefully dug up the area. They uncovered the full layout of the Roman house.
Saving the Villa for Everyone
In 1926, the Mayor of Newport, Alderman John Curtis Millgate, had a great idea. He wanted the town to buy the villa site. He also suggested building a cover over it to protect it. This would keep the ancient ruins safe.
However, the town council thought it would cost too much money. So, they said no to the offer.
Alderman Millgate really believed in saving the villa. He decided to buy the land himself! He then built a special structure over the villa to keep it safe from the weather.
After he passed away in 1956, his daughter, Grace Millgate, owned the site. By 1960, the building needed a lot of repairs. Miss Millgate offered the villa to the Newport Town Council again. But once more, they said no.
Finally, in December 1960, the Isle of Wight County Council agreed to take the villa as a gift from Miss Millgate. The official papers were handed over in April 1961.
Today, the Newport Roman Villa is a scheduled ancient monument. This means it has special protection by law.
Life at the Roman Villa
The Newport Roman Villa was built around 280 AD. It was made from local stones like flint, chalk, and limestone. The walls are still almost as tall as they were back then!
The roof was covered with huge slabs of Bembridge limestone. These heavy slabs needed strong wooden beams to hold them up. Many roof pieces found had a special hole for a nail. This suggests how they were attached.
It's likely this villa was the main building of a very rich estate.
Inside the Roman Home
When archaeologists dug here, they found pieces of window glass. This shows that the villa had some windows with glass, which was fancy for that time! They also found bits of painted wall plaster. This tells us that some rooms had bright, colorful walls.
The villa also has a very well-preserved Roman bath suite. This was like a private spa! It even had hypocaust underfloor heating. This was a clever system where hot air moved under the floors to warm the rooms.
A furnace outside the villa's back wall heated the bath suite. A slave would have kept the furnace burning. The hot air would then flow through an arch and under the raised floors of the three bath rooms.
What Happened to the Villa?
No one knows exactly when people stopped living at the villa. During the digging, archaeologists found the skull of a woman. She was in her early thirties and was found in a corner of one room. Some people think she might have been killed during a raid when the building was empty.
However, another idea is that many villas on the island were left empty by the mid-fourth century. This might have been because of money problems, not just attacks from Anglo-saxon raiders.
Visiting the Museum Today
The villa has been rebuilt to show what it might have looked like. You can see a Roman kitchen and even a Roman garden! It's now open to the public, usually from April to October.
More than 5,000 people visit the villa every year. Plus, about 1,400 schoolchildren come for special educational trips. The villa is located on Cypress Road in Newport, Isle of Wight, right in the middle of a neighborhood.
In 2009, the villa got a new roof. This was important to protect the ancient ruins from rain and weather. The Isle of Wight Council and English Heritage helped pay for the repairs. The new roof helps keep the villa dry and stops algae from growing on the beautiful mosaics inside.
