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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.
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