Memorable Days At Newport Roman Villa

Somewhere at my mum's house in Carisbrooke is a saucy photograph that I took whilst on a school visit to Newport Roman Villa in the early 1990s. 

It shows a scantily clad statue and was taken whilst I chomped on a cheese and honey sandwich.

​I was in year four, or perhaps year three - so about eight or nine years old.

It will tell you everything you need to know about me that my only memories of the day were a) the rude statue and b) what I had for lunch. 

And so, I was excited to return to Newport Roman Villa three decades later to see what I had forgotten - and to check if the rude statue was still there.

Newport Roman Villa was discovered 100 years ago

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An old-fashioned day out

Newport Roman Villa is not an expensive day out and it won't fill hours and hours. It usually costs about £5, but they were doing a special offer of £1 entry as part of a half term deal. I have a policy of not paying full price for anything, so I leapt at the chance.

The whole setup has a wonderfully old fashioned feel to it. That's perhaps not surprising for a Roman Villa, but what I really mean is that it has a school-trip nostalgic charm that you wouldn't get from a trip to a London museum. Newport Roman Villa is certainly not the sort of place that has a greenwashing sponsorship deal or a wing named after a dodgy donor called (NAME REDACTED). Instead, this is a museum held together by volunteers and 27p per year of funding from the local council.

It doesn't have a website, but just about manages a page on the council website.

Opening hours are limited and it mostly seems to be somewhere for schools planning a day out without needing to catch a ferry.

It doesn't have any parking, so you have to do six laps around Shide looking for a space that won't block someone's driveway (Morrisons is another option). 

There's no café, or even a jar of instant Nescafe Gold. ​There's a gift shop, but it's tiny and hasn't been strategically located so that you can't leave without walking past it.

When we arrived, the person on the ticket office asked with some concern if we wanted to pay by card, as the card machine was misbehaving. I got the impression that this happens regularly. She looked relieved when I whipped out my emergency £20 note that lives between my phone and my phone case. 

Newport Roman Villa has underfloor heating (unlike my house, 1800 years later)

This mosaic is one of the best preserved parts of the museum

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Taking a tour of the Roman Villa

Next month - March 2026 - marks 100 years since Newport Roman Villa was discovered (see our 100 years, 100 stories page for more of this sort of thing). A local resident was digging foundations for a garage when he found a third century farmhouse. A former mayor of Newport (shout out to John Curtis Millgate) bought the site and put a roof over it so it wouldn't be ruined. When he died, national government said they didn't want it, so it ended up being rescued by the local council.

History fans may be interested to know that another Isle of Wight villa wasn't so lucky. Clatterford Villa in Carisbrooke was partially dug up in the 1850s but it was covered up again and has been sat there ever since.

Newport Roman Villa is not huge but there are well preserved remains of mosaics and a bath suite, which has underfloor heating and a selection of cold, tepid and hot rooms. When we visited, the villa's vintage Dimplex fan heaters matched the temperatures of the different rooms. I wasn't sure if this was designed as an immersive experience or if only one of them was working properly.

There's also a reconstruction of a kitchen and an activity room, where we were offered some clay to make into a Roman coin and some broken pots to piece together.

My assumption is that most of the Roman Villa is still buried underneath the houses that are either side of the museum. If I lived next door, I'd be itching to dig up the garden.

We spent about an hour at Newport Roman Villa, with most of the time being spent on an activity. It's certainly not as large as Brading Roman Villa but if you like lesser known days out then it's certainly worth a visit.

And yes, the rude statue was still there, thank goodness.

The dead swan isn't from Roman times