Listen to the voices of all those who have lived, worked or interacted with the hypocaust on display in Verulamium Park over the last 2000 years.
A Bad Day At Work
Meet the mosaic artists who laid the floor. Can you spot the mistake they made?
Lady of the House
Will the owner of the villa be pleased with her new room? What will her neighbour say?
How the Other Half Lives
Meet the slave who kept the hypocaust system working. What did her job involve?
Keeping Up Appearances
The man of the house meets with his steward. What is he trying to imply by holding meetings in this grand space?
Are You Taking The Bricks?
Lots of Verulamium mosaics were destroyed in the Medieval period. Why did this one survive?
An Extract from the diary of Helen Carlton-Smith
Helen was a real teenager who volunteered on the excavations of Verulamium in the 1930s and kept a detailed diary of her experiences. Find out what happened when the archaeologists discovered the hypocaust, but needed to know what was beneath the mosaic.