High Wycombe
Roman villa in Great Penns Mead, discovered in 1723 and excavated in 1863, 1932, and 1954. It is now destroyed. The buildings consisted of a dwelling of double corridor type (31.2 x 21 m) and a detached bath house, 28.5 m long, to the E. These were set in a walled enclosure (at least 108 x 84 m); the gate, flanked by two rooms identified as a porter's lodge, was on the E side, just N of the bath house. A small building of uncertain use abutted on the outside of the enclosure wall farther S. Occupation commenced in the second half of the 2d c., and the baths were substantially modified in the early 4th c. Little change was made in the dwelling however, which contained two mosaic pavements, badly preserved but interesting as rare examples of 2d c. mosaic work in a villa.
BIBLIOGRAPHYB. R. Hartley, Records of Bucks XVI (1953-60) 227-57; D. J. Smith in A.L.F. Rivet, ed., The Roman Villa in Britain (1969) 77-78.
A.L.F. RIVET