The Castle Hill Roman villa has been described as "the largest and most sophisticated

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...

complex known in

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

". Under what is now housing in Tranmere Grove and Chesterfield Drive in the old village of Whitton (now a suburb of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

) lies the remains of a Roman villa. It was first excavated in 1931. It was excavated again in 1949 by the archaeologist

Basil Brown Basil John Wait Brown (22 January 1888 – 12 March 1977) was an English archaeologist and astronomer. Self-taught, he discovered and excavated a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939, which has come to be called "one of t ...

before residential building started. Coins were found along with a mosaic floor which is on display in Ipswich Museum. It featured on Channel 4's archaeological television programme ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4, Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned in 2022 on online platforms YouTube and Patreon. Created by television produce ...

'' in 2004.''Time Team'' investigation of Castle Hill
/ref> The dig helped provide more evidence to supplement that gathered in the 1949 dig.

References

{{UK-archaeology-stub Archaeological sites in Suffolk Villas in Roman Britain