A man stumbled across a Roman villa in his back garden which is being hailed as the most significant discovery of its kind for a decade. Luke Irwin, from Wiltshire, was laying an electricity cable in his barn when he uncovered a mosaic underground. The rug designer, who was making the alterations so his children could play table tennis, took a photo and sent it off for more information. Experts from Historic England and Salisbury Museum carefully began excavating the site, and realised the mosaic formed part of the floor of a grand Roman building. The find has been proclaimed by Historic England as “unparalleled in recent years”. After an eight day dig, archaeologists uncovered more of the ‘elaborate’ and ‘extraordinarily well preserved’ villa, thought to be one of the largest ever found in the country. Dating from between AD 175 and 220, the grand home is thought to have been three storeys high, similar to those found at Chedworth in Gloucestershire. All the evidence suggests a family of high importance and wealth lived at the villa, possibly a Roman emperor.

Source: Independent