Roman Ruins and Poisonous Plants

Welshie Big Adventure in England

A relatively intact mosaic floor from a Roman villa.

As a family, our trip to the Cotswolds is full of adventures and a few mishaps.  None of the mishaps have been life-altering, but several of the adventures have been awe-inspiring.  In this post, I would like to focus on visiting the ancient Chedworth Roman Villa ruins and some of the poisonous plants the dogs have encountered.

Dogs and Plants

Anyone with animals knows that ingesting the wrong plants can lead to serious consequences.  When we travel with the dogs in the US, we do a buddy check of every hotel we visit to make sure nothing dangerous was left by the previous occupants.  It also is a fantastic way to see which hotel chains really clean their rooms, and which do not.

This is how the patio looked before it was weeded and trimmed.

Our cottage in Wales was clean as a whistle inside and the yard consisted of grass and stones.  Here in Stow on the Wold, the cottage was perfectly clean but the yard was not tidied before we arrived. 

I try to manage my expectations when traveling and didn’t initially worry about the weeds that covered a vast majority of the patio’s stony center.  That casual attitude changed when I saw Winston grazing on a weed.

I used the Picture This app to identify plants in on the patio. While the app is not always accurate, the percentages are high enough that I generally trust its results.

A lily (Wix Stock)

When I took photos and analyzed the weeds, I discovered some of them were toxic to pets if ingested.  I then went around the yard snapping pictures and identifying what else was on the patio.  We have an orange Lily and a Crab Apple tree just to name two of the plants in the yard.  And it was the Crab Apple seedlings that both dogs were snacking on.

Sniffing and sometimes snacking on a walk.

It took some time for the owners to get their gardener out to pull all the weeds and tidy the patio.  In the meantime I tried to pull weeds and monitor the dogs time outside. The difference in appearance before and after was tremendous and the dogs’ deadly snacking area is finally gone.

Fortunately, the amount of seedlings they ingested was only enough to induce immediate vomiting rather than another trip to the local surgery.  During my final review of our stay here I plan to mention the need to keep the yard properly cared for.  This was not an inexpensive cottage to rent and it should have been tidier from the start of our month long stay.

Chedworth Roman Villa

A rendering of what the villa looked like originally.

When we were not supervising the dogs or pulling weeds in the yard, we made a half day journey to visit Chedworth Roman Villa.  Chedworth is about thirty minutes drive from Stow and does not allow dogs.

Gazing down on the large expanse of ruins.

Being so close to home, we left the dogs for a morning rest while we drove off down some narrow winding roads to Yanworth.  The drive reminded me a little of our time in Wales since the roads were narrow with little or no room to pass. 

But also like Wales, the drive was through some heart stoppingly beautiful countryside full of leafy green trees and Rapeseed flowers that I never get tired of seeing.

A dressing area in the baths.

The National Trust manages Chedworth and they offer both audio and guide led tours of the villa.  According to the information on site, “Evidence for the first stone structure at Chedworth Roman Villa dates to the 2nd Century AD.”

These remains are considered one of the grandest country houses in Roman Britain and it is easy to understand the grandeur even though very little remains.

Hot water ran around the pillars to warm the floor (missing).

I have always been fascinated by the knowledge of earlier civilizations and how they solved common issues like heating and running water.  The Romans had heated floors before the Middle Ages.  The Romans also successfully knew how to run water through aqueducts, create drains for waste water, and create intricately designed mosaic floors.

Roman mosaic floors.

In the middle of the bucolic English countryside, Chedworth is a reminder of all the skills and knowledge the Romans had before early Europeans existed. 

This beautiful mosaic design was hidden under dirt and grass for centuries.

The Villa’s remains were discovered in 1864 when both a dog and a ferret got stuck in a hole while hunting for birds. When the animals' owner dug down to retrieve them, he discovered a set of mosaics dating back to the Roman times (AD 43 to AD 410).

Here you can see the intact floor and where the heated water ran underneath.

The owners of the property used the Roman ruins as a way to draw visitors to the property by recreating the walls of the villa and excavating several of the rooms filled with mosaic tiles. When the Trust took over, they continued to excavate, but also determined to leave a large swath of the floor naturally covered by grass and dirt to protect it.

Some of the artifacts found at the Chedworth.

Our guide was clearly passionate about her subject. Her tour took us from Roman times all the way forward to today.  The tile designs can still be seen and the Roman baths are also visible.

Here the footings for the flooring are all that remains.

Romans heated the water for their baths through a series of underfloor heating.  Where today we have coils of piping moving heated water through our floors, they used pilings to hold up the floor while hot water circulated underneath.

This was an outdoor water source at the Chedworth.

After our tour, we stopped at the Trust cafe and I had Cornish Pasty and a latte.  The pasty was very flaky and the filling was full of diced beef, rutabaga, potato and onion, seasoned with enough pepper to give it a kick.

Plants growing out of a wall.

Retracing our steps back through the countryside, Brian and I chatted about how ingenious these early inhabitants of Britain were.  We laughed at modern claims of being the greatest inventors, knowing that someone long before any of us knew how to heat and remove waste in order to maintain their health.

A friendly pheasant bidding us adieu.

As we ate our dinner at home that night, we started thinking about our next adventure, the arrival of our daughter Sofie the next day. I have so much I want her to see and experience but only a few short days to do so. Stay tuned to hear more about Sofie's very own big adventure in England.