This tile is one of a handful of artefacts known to have come from Eastbourne’s Roman Villa which once stood in the area around the Queens Hotel. These box like tiles were set into walls to allow hot air from an under floor hypocaust to heat the Villa walls.
Since 1717, when a ‘Tesselate Pavement’ (a simple mosaic corridor) and other buried structures were discovered on Eastbourne Seafront, we have known that there was a Roman Villa or large country house in this area. Portions of it have been uncovered over the years and though these discoveries tell us that it was a very big building, we still do not know exactly what it looked like, when it was built or who lived there. It was last seen in 1879 when works were undertaken in Grand Parade near the Pier but all of this evidence was either reburied or destroyed by the Victorian builders.
It is likely that much of the building has been lost to the sea as the coastline has changed over the last 2000 or so years, but it is just possible that a portion of it still exists deep underground beneath the Carpet Gardens. If the Villa is as large as we suspect, it may have been built for a local leader just after the Roman invasion (much like the Palace at Fishbourne, West Sussex) or for an important official or military leader, making Eastbourne a much more significant place at this time than previously suspected
Tesserae or flooring from Eastbourne Roman Villa
