Crofton Roman Villa
Crofton Roman Villa in Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley, is a Roman villa which was inhabited between approximately 140 and 400 AD. It was the centre of a farming estate of about 500 acres (200 ha), with farm buildings nearby, surrounded by fields, meadows and woods. The house was altered several times during its 260 years of occupation, and at its largest it probably had at least 20 rooms.
The remains of ten rooms can be seen today. Two rooms contain the remains of "opus signinum" floors, and three have evidence of tiled, or "tessellated", floors. Details of an underfloor central heating hypocaust can also be seen, featuring both channelled and pillared systems, as can small finds from the site.
The villa is adjacent to Orpington railway station, and is not far from Lullingstone Roman Villa, near Eynsford, Kent.
Discovery
The site was discovered in 1926, when workmen were preparing a driveway for some new council offices, and unearthed some Roman artefacts. Preliminary archaeological investigations at the time established the existence of the villa, but the site was not fully investigated until 1988, when further work was carried out by the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit (KARU). Details of their findings were published in a book in 1996. The site is protected within a modern building.
Roman villa
A Roman villa was a Roman country house built for the upper class during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire.
Typology and Distribution
According to Pliny the Elder, there were two kinds of villas: the villa urbana, which was a country seat that could easily be reached from Rome (or another city) for a night or two, and the Villa rustica, the farm-house estate permanently occupied by the servants who generally had charge of the estate. The villa rustica centered on the villa itself, perhaps only seasonally occupied. Under the Empire there was a concentration of Imperial villas near the Bay of Naples, especially on the Isle of Capri, at Monte Circeo on the coast and at Antium (Anzio). Wealthy Romans escaped the summer heat in the hills round Rome, especially around Frascati (cf. Hadrian's Villa). Cicero is said to have possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of which was near Arpinum, which he inherited. Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions.
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