The excavations of 1971
and 1972 revealed parts of the south and west ranges
of a substantial house, built of bricks and flint and
consisting of at least six rooms, believed to have been
constructed around AD 200. The rooms had floors of red
mortar and the larger rooms had an under-floor heating
system, or hypocaust. The internal walls of all the
rooms had brightly coloured wall paintings on their
plaster walls. It is the survival of these wall paintings
that makes the house so remarkable, they are the best
preserved in Britain, or almost anywhere outside Rome
or Pompeii. The house may have been part of a
mansio,
an inn or guesthouse for travellers.
It was the fate of the house which led to survival of
the paintings. When the Roman Army came to build the
Saxon Shore Fort
around AD 270 the house lay on the line of the western
wall of the fort. The military engineers simply smashed
through the west end of the house and built the great
stone wall of the fort right across it from north to
south. The back wall of the fort was then covered by
a high bank of clay and rubble to form a rampart bank.
It was this quick demolition and burial of the wall
paintings, while still in good condition, which led
to their survival.
The Roman Painted House is now displayed in a
purpose
built building just off the Market Square.
