Folkestone Roman Villa

Folkestone Roman Villa, also referred to as the East Bay Site, is a villa built during the Roman Occupation of Britain, and is located in East Wear Bay near the port town of Folkestone, in Kent [1]. The villa is situated on a cliff top overlooking the English Channel [1]. The villa was built around A. D. 75, and was almost certainly built within the confines of a preexisting Iron Age settlement [1]. The villa was rebuilt and expanded in probably the second century A. D., this time as a more substantial structure with mosaics, a bath-house, and a second block, possibly connected by a courtyard [1]. The villa was abandoned sometime in the third century, though archeological evidence suggests that it was briefly reoccupied in the fourth century [1]. Remains beneath the Roman villa suggest that querns, or stones used to grind cereal crops into flour, were produced here during the Iron Age on an almost industrial scale [1].