ABSTRACT
The contrast between rural and urban topography only became a reality in Britain during the Roman period, with the construction of nucleated towns and villages. Undoubtedly, the emergence of towns affected the landscape, bet in very restricted areas. Similarly the growth of villas and rural sanctuaries, often to replace their Iron Age equivalents, must have made some difference. Yet many areas in the north and west of Britain were devoid of villas, while the relatively small areas occupied by their buildings in the south and east would have produced little more than a series of pinpricks on the countryside But they may have been responsible for introducing more orderliness, as the result of better management as well as considerably more clearance for cultivation. Neither must we forget that even in the regions where villas predominated, many Iron Age farms continued largely unaltered by the growth of the new system. It can be argued, therefore, that even the growth of up to about 1,000 villas in Britain produced only a small impact on the visual appearance of the countryside.
