The newly discovered ‘Port Talbot Pompeii’ may have been a Roman center of agriculture | Roman Britain

Over the past 100 years or so, this distinctive and difficult corner of South Wales has become famous for its steel mills and coal mines. But the discovery of the remains of a large Roman villa in a country park on the outskirts of Port Talbot gives a new and interesting insight into life here centuries before the advent of heavy industry.

Found beneath the surface of Margam Country Park and close to the M4 motorway, the presence of the villa – named ‘Port Talbot Pompeii’ – suggests that the area was not on the fringes of the Roman Empire but much of it and may have been an important agricultural centre.

Alex Langlands, associate professor of heritage and history at Swansea University, said he was surprised when ground-penetrating radar indicated the hidden structure could be the largest villa of its kind in Wales.

“It is a lifelong discovery for me, the park and the community,” said Langlands, head of the ArchaeoMargam project. “We suspected there was something Romano-British there, but we didn’t think for a moment it would be that important.

“When I saw the footprint of this site, I said: ‘Say, this is really big.’” It changes the story. Until now, Wales in the Romano-British period was, for the most part, about legionary forts, Roman training camps, marching camps, and Roman roads.

“It’s always been about conquest, which hangs like a lead weight around the cultural identity of Wales in many respects, but this paints a different picture. This was not necessarily a frontier area, or an unsettled place. The villa suggests, to use a problematic word, that it was civilized.”

The villa appears to be located within a fenced area measuring 43 meters by 55 metres. There was a large building to the southeast, either a large agricultural storage building or a meeting hall.

Langlands said the work so far suggested that Margam Villa could be similar to luxury homes found in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset.

“This might be similar to the grand luxury villas over there, which are agricultural centers. It suddenly feels like we were less on some windswept frontier.”

It is not yet possible to precisely date the site, but Langlands said: “I think we are in the 4th century – it really fits the kind of late Roman prosperity we see in southwest Britain.”

He added that finding such a building here may indicate that Margam gave its name to the historic area of ​​Glamorgan. “We jokingly referred to the site as Port Talbot Pompeii,” Langlands said. “We don’t have a big settlement like this, but what we do have is a high level of protection because Margam is a deer park.

“Today it is a deer park, it was a medieval deer park, it may have been a Romano-British deer park. This means it has not been subjected to the kind of intensive plowing that often leads to irreparable damage.”

Surveys seem to show that floor surfaces and wall foundations are sound. “Hey, hopefully we can get a pretty good level of staying there,” Langlands said.

While next steps are planned on how to investigate the site, the exact location is being kept secret to deter “night hunters”, who illegally excavate historic sites.

ArchaeoMargam is a collaboration between Swansea University’s Heritage Research and Training Centre, Neath Port Talbot Council and Margam Abbey Church.

“Margam is famous for its Bronze Age, Iron Age, medieval and post-medieval heritage. But we knew practically nothing about what was happening in the Romano-British period. This is the missing piece of the puzzle,” Langlands said.[post-medievalheritageButweknewpracticallynothingaboutwhatwasgoingonintheRomano-BritishperiodThisisthemissingpieceofthepuzzle”[post-medievalheritageButweknewpracticallynothingaboutwhatwasgoingonintheRomano-BritishperiodThisisthemissingpieceofthepuzzle”