Monument record MDO42814 - Frampton Roman Villa, Throop, Maiden Newton

A sub-rectangular mound associated with the site of excavations carried out in 1794-96 of a probable Roman villa at Throop, Maiden Newton is visible as an earthwork on 1940s aerial photographs and on current Lidar imagery. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

(SY 615953) Roman Mosaic Pavement found AD 1794-96 (NAT) (1) Roman house on the right bank of the River Frome 2m SE of the church, was discovered in 1796. It had at least five tessellated pavements, figured by Lysons under the place-name Frampton, by which this villa is known. The most elaborate pavement had a central medallion of a horseman spearing a lioness, while two surviving square corner panels each contained a scene from the story of Venus and Adonis. The whole is enclosed by minor borders in guilloche and by a main border of dolphins and cormorants emerging from a mask of Neptune with sea-weed beard and hair bedecked with lobster-claws. The two streams of creatures converge upon a figure of Cupid cental in the adjacent side on Neptune's left. Neptune is described in a pair of anapaest couplets, mutilated by the illiterate artist of the floor, who set them in flanking panels: "Neptuni vertex regmen sortii mobile ventis scultum cui cerulea est (frons) delfinis cincta duobus". Cupid was also flanked by a similar poem of which only the last two lines survive "(nce) numus perficis ullum (undas) dignare Cupide". The whole poem, of shaky Latinity, is discussed by F Buecheler (Anthologia Latina ii, part 2, no 1524, pp 720-1). Neptune and his incription are to be viewed and read from an apse decorated with geometric patterns and a cantharus, the threshold of which is adorned with a panel of floral whorls, or discrete scrolls, three on each side occupied by Cupid and his poem. It contained a central medallion of Bacchus riding a leopard, and two long side-panels of vigorous hunting scenes. Another room, or corridor, had a central octagonal panel containing a head of Neptune and four similar panels containing each the head of a Nereid, the intervening spaces being filled with dolphin panels, all bordered by a rich guilloche. A fifth pavement (see illustration) exhibited four panels of Mars, Neptune, Appollo and Jupiter ranged cruciform about a central medallion of Bacchus, with four corner medallions of the Winds; while on a small side panel dogs hunt a doe and stag in the forest. The main centre-piece of a sixth pavement bordered by sea-creatures was damaged beyond recognition. (2) Sited from Lyson's Plan at about SY 61619533; the site is in a field called "Nunnery Meadow". The part excavated "appears to ascertain the whole extent of the buildings to which these pavements belonged". Lysons interpreted it as a temple, and on stylistic grounds gave it a Constantinian date. (see 'Block plan'). (3) A carved furniture leg of Kimmeridge shale found on the villa site, is in Dorset County Museum. (4) (SY 61589528) The site of this Roman villa is very low lying in what is now a watermeadow. Lysons' plan (Authy 3) is shown in the original with the pavement situated upon an L-shaped platform which exactly corresponds with that situated in the field, except that orientation on the ground of the long axis is NE-SW. Local opinion regards the mound as the covering over the mosaic, and a tessera has been found in a rabbit scrape in the side of the mound by Mrs Rendle of The Cottage, Throop Dairy House. The mound is grass covered, and averages 1.0m high. (5) The Neptune design of one of the floors bears a striking resemblance to that of a floor found at Fordington, now in the County Museum, supporting the theory of a Durnovarian school of mosaicists. The choice of land liable to flooding is strange, and this, coupled with the absence of other raised platforms for kitchens, bedrooms and outbuildings, has led to the suggestion that the building may not have been a villa at all. (6) The possibility has been put forward of this being a place of worship rather than a villa. (7) Mosaics with incriptions are rare in RB villas, and one at Frampton demonstrates some sort of ability at Latin (see illustration 6). (8) Full discussion of the mosaic themes with particular reference to a comparison between Lysons engraving of the mosaic, which he first saw in 1797, and Engelhearts engraving of the mosaic which was made soon after its discovery in 1794. The close agreement between the two sources indicates that Engelheart is a reliable source for the 2 panels which had been badly mutilated by the time that Lysons saw the mosaic. (9) DO 21 Listed as the site of a Roman villa. A Cho-Rho monogram was set into an apse mosaic. (10)

Record last edited

Jul 28 2022 3:02PM