On October 14^th  2003 Don Sherratt and Dave Hutton were  metal detecting when they noticed that a quantity of tessera lay on the surface of the field following some recent agricultural cultivations. On investigation it became evident that a Roman mosaic floor lay under the field and that part of it was still intact. The floor was quite badly damaged but enough remained to get a clear picture of how the floor would have looked about 1700 years ago. The general design is geometric with red and white diamond borders enclosing a series of large square panels. Only three panels and part of a further three have so far been uncovered.  Inside the panels are various designs, one has an eight petalled flower surrounded by a circular guilloche ( interwoven ribbon pattern border) made using red, white, grey and brown tesserae. In one of the corners of the square there is a heart  shaped leaf. Another square, though badly damaged, shows part of an icanthus (a type of two handled jug). The entire floor appears to have been surrounded by a wide border of red tesserae, the full extent of the floor is unknown at present.

After uncovering part of the floor the Gloucester Archaeology Department were informed and they have now taken over the supervision of the site. They decided that due to funding and other constraints not to open up the floor any further at this stage.  They have examined and recorded it and steps have been taken to make sure that no further damage will be done to the site in the future. They organised geophysical survey to be carried out on the site and this has shown up many underground features and has given us information on it’s layout and extent.

Before being reburied one of Britain’s leading experts on Roman mosaics Dr David Neal inspected and accurately sketched  the exposed part of the floor. He described the floor as being large and of high status having been laid on a well prepared foundation. A rather unusual feature being the use of four different coloured tessera, red, blue/grey, white and brown  instead of the usual first three colours. The floor consists of at least nine square panels with the possibility of there being as many as fifteen!  He believes that the floor would have been in the main room of the villa surrounded by brightly painted walls and with a ceiling decorated on the theme of the floor design. The quality of the mosaics indicates that the site would have been occupied by a very wealthy Romano British family. Many mosaic floor found in Gloucestershire are attributed to a mosaic workshop that operated in Cirencester. It is highly probable that this floor was produced by that workshop. We believe that there may be other mosaic floors on the site yet to be located.