HIGH WYCOMBE
Buckinghamshire, England.
Roman villa in Great Penns Mead, discovered in
1723 and excavated in 1863, 1932, and 1954. It is now
destroyed. The buildings consisted of a dwelling of double
corridor type (31.2 x 21 m) and a detached bath house,
28.5 m long, to the E. These were set in a walled enclosure (at least 108 x 84 m); the gate, flanked by two
rooms identified as a porter's lodge, was on the E side,
just N of the bath house. A small building of uncertain
use abutted on the outside of the enclosure wall farther
S. Occupation commenced in the second half of the 2d c.,
and the baths were substantially modified in the early
4th c. Little change was made in the dwelling however,
which contained two mosaic pavements, badly preserved
but interesting as rare examples of 2d c. mosaic work
in a villa.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
B. R. Hartley,
Records of Bucks XVI
(1953-60) 227-57; D. J. Smith in A.L.F. Rivet, ed., The
Roman Villa in Britain (1969) 77-78.
A.L.F. RIVET
