Ditchley
A villa 6.4 km NW of Woodstock and 5 km N of North Leigh. Though the existence of Roman buildings in Watts Wells Field had long been known, the outlines of the villa were first clearly seen on air photographs taken in 1934, and excavations were undertaken in 1935.
The first house (ca. A.D. 80) was a rectangular timber structure (14.4 x 9.6 m) set in the upper (N) part of a ditched enclosure 90 in square, with the entrance in the middle of the S side. Early in the 2d c. this was replaced by a winged-corridor house (28.2 x 14.7 m) with eight rooms and with footings at least of stone. This was subsequently enlarged by the addition of a corridor, later divided into rooms, at the rear. A well was dug in front of the house and a circular threshing floor constructed farther W, while a range of timber buildings (84 x 21 m) was erected across the S side of the enclosure. This second house appeared to have remained in use to ca. 200 (perhaps later), when it was damaged by fire. In the subsequent rebuilding (early 4th c.?) the original plan was restored but the accommodation was increased by the provision of an additional corridor along the S front and both sides, and probably by an upper story. The buildings on the S of the enclosure were abandoned but partly replaced by a granary in the SE corner; the bank surrounding the enclosure was replaced by a stone wall.
Other features outside the enclosure, observed from the air and tested on the ground, include ditches defining the approach from the S, flanked by orchards or small fields; the size of the granary led the excavator to postulate a cultivated area of ca. 400 ha. But while the facade of the final building seems to have had some architectural pretensions, the total absence of baths, hypocausts, and mosaics suggests a farm administered by a bailiff
BIBLIOGRAPHYC.A.R. Radford, Antiquity 9 (1935) 472-76; id., Oxoniensia 1 (1936) 24-69; VCH Oxfordshire I (1939) 311-12.
A.L.F. RIVET