| Description | Roman villa at Dalton Parlours, Collingham, Leeds located 4km south of Wetherby and 1.5km north of Roman road 72b. The villa was built on the site of a native Iron Age settlement. The 1848 Ordnance Survey first edition (6” to 1 mile) survey map indicated a rectilinear enclosure which it called ‘Dalton Parlours ‘Site of an Ancient Hall’ perhaps due to the stone walls visible through thin soil cover (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p.2). This survey and the publication of a number of the discoveries at the site in the Leeds Intelligencier in March 1854 is believed to have been the stimulus for the excavation carried out by a number of local gentleman of the Yorkshire Antiquarian Club in Spring 1854. The excavations were supervised by F. Caroll and published by William Proctor in 1855. The work although being severely hampered by crop growth established that the site represented a Roman villa (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p.2). Excavation on the site of main residential building exposed an apsidal mosaic with gorgon's head motif of possible ritual significance, now housed in York Museum. In 1976 the Archaeology Unit of the former West Yorkshire Metropolitan Council was informed that ploughing was disturbing heavy stone work which included monolithic millstone grit pilae from a hypocaust (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p.2). The Archaeology Service commenced extensive excavation of the villa in October 1976 lasted almost continuously until June 1979.
The IA settlement consists of a series of ditched or palisaded enclosures containing roundhouses, probably continuously occupied from c.4th century BC. Although Roman villa built over part of this settlement, extensive Cropmarks show Iron Age enclosures continuing to West and some native homesteads may have continued in use alongside the villa (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p.273, 279). . The villa has been dated to c. AD200 to AD370 and comprises of two rectangular enclosures (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p. 279). The westernmost containing main dwelling of debased winged corridor type (east rooms hypocausted) the west wing which is unheated is furnished with at least two mosaics, two possible bathhouses and a well. Eastern most enclosure contains a second well with system of cisterns and conduits, an aisled domestic/agricultural building and buildings of craft, agricultural or ancillary use (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p. 280) some of which were furnished for crop processing. Large quantities of tesserae and painted plaster (redeposited and in situ) were recovered from several buildings on site and from ditch fills. The quality and quantity of such material and the high proportion of silver to copper alloy objects as well as the presence of military equipment and VIth Legion stamped tiles on site, suggests occupation by a transplanted high status military family rather than by Romanised native farmers (Wrathmell and Nicholson, 1990, p. 280). See crop marks; bulk of Iron Age settlement and the field system associated with the site remains unexcavated. |