Level 3 - Life in Roman Sussex - The Towns

The Towns

Urban housing

Throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the majority of the houses in Chichester would have been of timber-framed construction, and probably quite modest in size. Most members of the ordo may well only have had temporary residences in town, with other times spent in their rural villas.

By the 3rd and 4th centuries, there is evidence for the construction of large masonry townhouses, with mosaics and hypocaust systems. This corresponds with the decline and abandonment of many of the coastal villas, whose owners may well have moved permanently into the safer confines of the town.

Mosaic from a house in Roman Chichester