Woodchester Roman Villa

The Roman Pavement is under the grass in this churchyard. Photo P Stevens 2014

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The Roman pavement was known about in 1693. One hundred years later Samuel Lysons excavated the whole villa and published a book about it. The villa was one of the largest found in Northern Europe with 64 rooms and 13 mosaics – the Orpheus pavement is the largest and was uncovered in 1814, 1822, 1834, 1842, 1846, 1852, 1880, 1890 , 1926, 1935 (visited by 30,000 people), 1951 (seen by 42,000).

In 1954 four other mosaics were uncoverd for two weeks.

In 1963 the Orpheus mosaic was open for a month and nearly 50,000 visitors saw it.

In 1973 it was open foe seven weeks and 140,000 visitors caused such traffic congection that the villagers decided it should not be shown again.

 

Link to an article in Autocar about the Roman Pavement displayed in 1951  www.mg-cars.org.uk/imgytr/pdf/autocar200451.pdf

Found during 2014 search of Citizen archive.

1950

1950

1951_07_10    Author unknown

1951_07_10-1 1951_07_10-2 1951_07_10-3

 

1954_07_9

1954_07_9

1963_08_30

1963_08_30-1

1963_08_30-2

1987

1987d TWEAKED

 Link to Woodchester Mosaic replica

1993_08_17

1993_08_17

1996_03_13

1996_03_13

1996_09_18 Citizen 1996_09_18 Citizen-1 1996_09_18 Citizen-2

 

1996_11_23 Citizen 1996_11_23 Citizen-1

1996_12_11 Citizen

1996_12_11 Citizen

 

2001_08_23

2001_08_23-a

2001_08_23-b

 

It took Bob and John Woodward 10 years to make the replica from 1.6 million tiny tesserae tiles.

In 2010 it was put on display at Prinknash Abbey, but still without a permanent home.
A Woodchester consortium failed to get the mosaic, and it was sold to an anonymous buyer for £75,000.

Does anyone know where it is now?

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One thought on “Woodchester Roman Villa

  1. […] The Orpheus Pavement – which depicts Orpheus, legendary Greek musician, poet and prophet, charming birds and animals with the sounds of his harp – is one of the finest and largest mosaics in Europe, so it is particularly tragic that it remains out of public view. Sadly (speaking as an archaeology graduate) this can be the way with mosaics, which are very costly to preserve and display, and keeping them in situ does sometimes end up being the safest and best place for them, once they have been thoroughly recorded through excavation. You can see contemporary articles about the various uncoverings of the mosaic since the 1950s in this great photo archive put together by Stroud Local History Society here. […]

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