When it came to their villas, the Romans living in Britannia felt no need to deviate from the architectural style seen around the Mediterranean; determined to have a familiar piece of home, of civilisation, out on the edge of the empire. A significant surviving example is at Lullingstone, near Eynsford in Kent. First built a few decades after the conquest, around 80-100 AD, and abandoned at some point during the fifth century AD, its archaeological remains can reveal much about Roman Britain.
Lullingstone was a common rural villa, in many ways. It had a winged-corridor design –a central corridor with two wings with more rooms on either side – and boasted ostentatious displays of wealth, such as a bathhouse, triclinium (dining room), beautiful mosaics and painted plaster walls. As the villa changed hands over the centuries it changed shape, being enlarged and made more luxurious, reaching the height of its grandeur in the fourth century AD.