Chedworth

Part of the country

Chedworth is a village in Gloucestershire ( England) in the Cotswolds. Here lies the archaeological site of Chedworth Roman Villa, since 1924 it is an object of the National Trust.

General

Chedworth is a street settlement with some beautiful stone buildings in the Cotswold type. A grand manor house near the parish church is the oldest building in the village. During the Second World War it was an airfield of the Royal Air Force, whose remains can still be seen.

The Midland & South Western Junction Railway from Cheltenham to Cirencester, later a part of the Great Western Railway, the anband the place since October 1892 to the British rail network was shut down in September 1961. The then broken Chedworth Railway Station lay in a deep incision near the Chedworth Tunnel with a length of around 450 m.

In the novella " Rat Trap " ( 1976) by Craig Thomas ( 1942-2011 ) Chedworth is called as a venue.

The Canadian Eventing Michael Winter ( born 1974 ) operates since 2009 a riding stable in Chedworth.

The Roman villa

The Villa is a 1,700 year old magnificent building, which was discovered by accident in 1864, exposed and opened as a showground. The construction period is assumed from the early second to the fourth century. It was the final one of the largest Romano- British villas of England with beautiful mosaics, especially in the dining room ( triclinium ), a steam bath and a hot-air bath, a hypocaust ( underfloor heating), latrine and an artfully designed with an apse water basin. The water basin ( Nymphaeum ) was a place of worship for the local spring goddess whose located immediately adjacent to the villa source fed the pool. An altar to the god Mars Lenus, with a relief depicting the god with ax and spear, was excavated in the area of the villa.

The villa was right on the main Roman road Fosse Way, 13 km north of the Roman town of Corinium Dobunnorum (now Cirencester ). Within a radius of 8 km were nine such villas in the entire Cotswolds, there were a total of fifty of them.

Nymphaeum

Mosaic in the triclinium

Hypocaust

Roman road Fosse Way

Chedworth Nature Reserve

The Chedworth Nature Reserve is part of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve, which is located on the south side of the River Coln Valley between Chedworth and Withington. The reserve is located in the immediate vicinity of the Roman villa on a 2 km long section of disused railway line Midland & South Western Junction Railway, cuttings and embankments of the former route have now become a part of the reserve. The Wildlife Trust acquired the site in 1961 and redesigned it as a forest area with book stock on both sides of the old route to the Chedworth Tunnel. It is a part of Chedworth Woods, the second largest closed forest area of the Cotswolds.

Geologically, the area is classified into the Bajocian ( 171.6 to about 167.7 million years BC). In the limestone scree many fossils are found from this period.

Chedworth Woods

Railway Bridge in the Woods

Railway tunnel in the Woods