Rudston Roman villa is a

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas ...

and

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

near

Rudston Rudston is a small village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated between Driffield and Bridlington approximately west of Bridlington, and lies on the B1253 road. The Gypsey Race (an intermittent stream) r ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire t ...

Villa

The site was first discovered in 1838 by farm worker. In 1933 the 'Venus mosaic' was discovered by the landowner and farmer H. Robson whilst ploughing. The primary phase of the villa dates to the 3rd–4th centuries AD. It is a courtyard villa, with mosaics and a small bath house on the east side. The site has some evidence for a 1st–2nd century AD rectangular enclosure and an earlier

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

settlement beneath it. The site is listed on the

heritage at risk register An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for actio ...

as having 'extensive significant problems' and is vulnerable from plough damage.

Mosaics

H. Robson retained the mosaics he discovered in the ground, and built a shed over them to display them to the public. By the 1960s frost damage was causing the mosaics to deteriorate and they were transferred to the

Hull and East Riding Museum The Hull and East Riding Museum is located in the Museums Quarter of the Old Town in Kingston upon Hull, England. It dates back to 1925 as the Museum of Commerce and Industry in a former Customs House but acquired its present name in 1989 with ...

where they have been on display since 1963. The 'Charioteer mosaic' was found in excavations in 1971; it depicts a

quadriga A () is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in Classical Antiquity and the Roman Empire until the Late Middle Ages. The word derives from the Latin contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. The fo ...

and dates to the 4th century AD.

References

{{Villas in Roman Britain Villas in Roman Britain Archaeological sites in the East Riding of Yorkshire 1838 archaeological discoveries 3rd-century establishments in Roman Britain