This is a picture of what a villa looked like around 350 AD. This one is a reconstruction of a villa that stood at Chedworth, England, but it is typical of what villas looked like throughout the Western Roman Empire. Compare it to the German farm. What differences and similarities can you find? The villa is built around a central square garden. This is where the owner and his family would live or stay for a visit. Many land owners lived in towns and cities, and had their estates managed by a landlord, in which case the landlord would live here. The main buildings are made of stones or bricks with a tile roof. The villa could include many different workshops, such as a black smith, bake ovens, stables and so on. Gardeners, maids, nannies for small children and other household servants, most of them would be slaves, lived right at the villa. Some field workers would live at the villa, but most would live in small huts with their families in the huge fields surrounding the main villa. Some would be slaves, others would be free people renting land from the land owner. The rent of these tenant farmers would be paid with a share of the crops they grew. A villa could have hundreds of people living there, surrounded by hundreds and even thousands of hectares of fields. Located in or near the villa were orchards, herb gardens, flower gardens and vineyards. Animals kept here included horses, sheep, goats and pigs. A villa was a self-contained community, the focal point in many rural areas of the empire. Many villas survived the collapse of the empire and grew into permanent settlements, what eventually came to be called a village.