The Romans in Wales

We know the Romans had a big presence in South Wales as the Welsh inherited a number of loan words from Latin but the discovery of a villa near Aberystwyth has come as a surprise to archaeologists according to the Daily Telegraph. As Aberystwyth sits on a nice estuary with a flat hinterland and was an ideal location for contact with Ireland the surprise is somewhat puzzling – but there you are. See story at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7910534/Roman-villa-found-in-Welsh-military-zone/ and the title is presumably a reflection of Roman attempts to thwart raiding parties from across the Irish Sea. It begins, the villa is likely to have belonged to a wealthy landowner, an astute journalistic insight, but then says it was roofed with slate tiles and had a cobbled yard. The same archaeologists had excavated a Roman fort not very far from the villa – abandoned in AD130. The villa is dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, provisionally, and was unexpected. The search is now on for more villas elsewhere in Wales – anywhere with suitable land for arable crops.