The Bignor Villa

Abstract

Bignor, West Sussex (SU 987147), is one of the largest and best-known in the province of Britain. First discovered in 1811 during ploughing, it was excavated by Samuel Lysons in annual campaigns until 1818. The plans and mosaics received sumptuous publication; but because of potential expense imposed by the recent Copyright Act which required deposition in various Libraries of 11 copies of any work containing letterpress, no accompanying text was printed. Instead, two papers were published in Archaeologia. 1 These are somewhat summary in description and they contain measurements which are inconsistent both mutually and when compared with the plans. Recent work has added to the plan several walls which Lysons did not find, and has also shown that the well-known plan itself is inaccurate in showing the north and south sides of the courtyard as parallel (FIG. I). In fact they diverge. 2 After cover-buildings had been erected over the principal mosaics and the rest reburied, matters rested for over a century. In 1925 S. E. Winbolt re-excavated and repaired the cold bath (in Room 55), which had been left open without a cover-building; 3 and in 1929 the Venus mosaic (Room 3), whose condition had been deteriorating, was professionally relaid. 2. For many years before the 1939 war, the then custodian had been in the habit of washing the mosaics in milk, and by the 1950s they were becoming obscured by a black encrustation. In 1956 the present writer was consulted about their treatment, and between 1956 and 1962 he was able to undertake limited excavations in parts of the West, North and South Wings in order to recover evidence for the history of the villa and to prepare for the marking out of its plan on the surface for the benefit of visitors. The interest aroused by this work inspired the owner, Captain Henry Tupper, in whose family's possession the site has remained since its discovery, to build a Site-Museum in the area of Rooms 7-8. More recently, in 1973, the Winter and Medusa mosaics (in Rooms 26 and 58) were relaid, the work being under the archaeological direction of Mrs Margaret Rule, and a large part of the long mosaic in the northern portico (Room 10) was re-excavated and put under a cover-building. The present paper describes the work of 1956-62.*

ThePraetoriumof Edmund Artis: A Summary of Excavations and Surveys of the Palatial Roman Structure at Castor, Cambridgeshire 1828–2010

“… 251 For the baths at Dicket Mead, see Wilson, 1971, 270; Gadebridge Park, see Neal 1974, fig. 8; North Leigh (north-west baths, period 1: all structural phases), see Wilson 2004, figs 2–4; Bignor, see Frere 1982, fig. 2 and Tupper (nd), 18.…”