The Romano-British Villa and Prehistoric Settlement at Low Ham, Somerset (Hardback)

This volume comprises full publication of the villa at Low Ham in Somerset, UK, bringing together for the first time reports on the multiple pieces of research undertaken over the past 80 years. Originally discovered in 1945 and famous for its ‘Dido and Aeneas’ mosaic, work by HSL Dewar and C Ralegh Radford revealed substantial sections of what is now known to be a large courtyard villa, however their drafted report was never published. RH Leech carried out landscape and aerial research into the site in the 1970s, and following geophysical survey, D Roberts supervised further excavation work in 2018 on behalf of Historic England. Here, Leech reviews the work of the 1940s, and together with Roberts produces an integrated narrative of the villa structure. Roberts contextualises both the villa and its newly discovered prehistoric antecedents in the wider landscape and the Somerset region. Cubitt considers the material culture of the villa, bringing together specialist reports on all the finds and environmental evidence, including previously unpublished material from the 1940s.