This volume brings together a range of papers on buildings that have been categorised as ‘villas’, mainly in Roman Britain, from the Isle of Wight to Shropshire. It comprises the first such survey for almost half a century.

This volume presents a study of the central and lower Medway valley during the 1st millennium AD, focussing on the 1962–1976 excavation of the Eccles Roman villa and Anglo-Saxon cemetery directed by Alex Detsicas. The author gives an account of the long history of the villa, and a reassessment of the architectural evidence which Detsicas presented.

The Roman Villa in Britain (1969) is a comprehensive examination of Roman villas in Romano-Britain in a series of essays by six specialists. H.C. Bowen, well-known for his work on early field systems, examines the evidence for the native Celtic agriculture which was practised in pre-Roman Britain and continued to form the basis of the country’s economy after the conquest. The ground plans of the villas, and their implications, are discussed by Sir Ian Richmond, while David Smith considers the mosaic pavements, both as implications of the wealth of their owners and as evidence for the existence of distinct local schools of mosaicists; Joan Liversidge deals with internal decoration and furnishing. A.L.F. Rivet reflects on the social and economic implications of the changing fortunes of the villas, and Graham Webster discusses the future of villa studies from the standpoint of the modern excavator.

This important and significant volume examines, for the first time, the ordinary people of Roman Britain. This overlooked group – the farmers, shopkeepers, labourers and others – fed the country, made the clothes, mined the ores, built the villas and towns and got their hands dirty in the fields and at the potter’s wheel. The book aims to rebalance our view of Roman Britain from its current preoccupation with – archaeologically visible – elite social classes and the institutions of power, towards a recognition that the ordinary person mattered. It looks at how people earned a living, family size and structure, social behaviour, customs and taboos and the impact of the presence of non-locals and foreigners, using archaeology, texts and ethnography. It also explores how the natural forces which underlay the use of agricultural land and regional variation in agricultural practice impacted upon the size, health and nutrition of the population. The Romano-British Peasant leads the way towards a greater understanding of ordinary men and women and their role in the history and landscape of Roman Britain. This title has been nominated for the 2014 Current Archaeology Best Book Award.