Drop in to this Handling Session and take an up close look at real Roman objects. Learn more about the engineering, decoration and artefacts that made up Roman homes in Corinium.

The earliest houses in Corinium were timber framed structures, with tiled or thatched roofs. The internal walls were plastered and some decorated with wall paintings. The floors were usually brick-mortar (opus signinum) although some houses had mosaic pavements. By the middle of the 2nd century many of these houses were replaced with new ones built in the local limestone and roofed with clay tiles.

These houses were of various forms. The most common type were simple houses consisting of a single row of rooms linked by a corridor or portico. The walls of the main rooms were decorated with painted plaster and gradually provided with mosaic floors.

Excavations in the town have revealed only six houses, of the more complex courtyard type, where the ranges of rooms are built around two or more sides of a courtyard. Some of these houses had their own baths, and many had under floor heating in their main rooms.

Included in admission.