The villa, a luxurious country house with a large estate, was a symbol of Roman civilisation. Only about a thousand villas are known in Roman Britain. South-east England, with a history of pre-conquest contacts with the Roman province of Gaul, was the most ‘Romanised’ part of Britain and contained many villas.

Most of the early villas in the south-east were simple rectangular buildings with barns or other agricultural building around them. Some had courtyards; Mileoak, in Northamptonshire (about AD 65-75), had a large stone house with 12 rooms, a hypocaust (central heating system), a cellar and corridors on two sides. Like Rockbourne in Hampshire, it was developed from an Iron Age site.

Most villas would have belonged to native aristocrats, and some are found near Iron Age barrows containing aristocratic graves. The late villas of the 3rd and 4th centuries, when Romanisation had reached its peak, are more like buildings found in mainland Europe – impressive stone houses supported by large agricultural estates worked by many slaves. Villa owners liked to demonstrate their wealth and sophisticated taste and reception rooms, like the dining room, the centre of Roman private life, were decorated with expensive mosaic pavements and wall paintings.