Over the three days we kept a diary of finds, comments, discoveries.

Odd one out

Here are four pieces of pottery. Three are high quality Samianware, the fourth is a cheap imitation made in Oxford! It seems that although the inhabitants of the villa were well-off, they were not above buying fake stuff to impress. The villa seems to have a lot of ostentatious decoration, which possibly dates from the villa's refurbishment around the start of the fourth century.

Day Three, 1pm

The rain continues to pour down but, fortunately, news of finds and discoveries continues to pour in to the website HQ. The plunge pool in Trench 4 is still producing surprises. Armrests about 2ft (0.6m) from the top have been found, which give us a mental picture of the Roman residents lolling around the sides of the pool in complete comfort.

A coin found in the same trench tells a story. Daphne Briggs, the Time Team coins expert, says that the small Roman bronze coin – carrying the portrait of Emperor Honorius, and possibly worth one denari ('the smallest of small change'), would have been minted in Gaul between 395 and 402 AD. Very few bronze coins were ever imported into Britain and the supply completely dried up in 402, after the Roman/Vandal general Stilicho removed the troops for the safeguarding of Italy. This coin would have been worth enough to buy an oyster or an egg or a couple of sub-standard cabbages. It is certainly evidence that someone on the villa site had contact with officialdom and may have received an official salary from the Roman government. It even might have been dropped by one of the soldiers as the troops marched east, on their way out of Britain.

By the way, when not trying to decipher unearthed coins in a damp barn, Daphne Briggs works as a child psychotherapist! (She used to work at the Ashmolean.)

The Team has now begun Trench 7, the position of which was determined by promising geophysics results. It is further down the slope, south of Trench 1 (Phil's; now finished). It appears to contain a single-storey building with a roofed external corridor that once looked out over Courtyard 2. No significant finds so far, but we'll keep you posted.

This entire Roman adventure would have passed the Time Team by if it hadn't been for one man: Roger Box. Formerly a forensic policeman, Roger is now a mature student studying archaeology. One lovely summer's day, two years ago, he went for a ride in a friend's new helicopter over the Cotswold hills. Then, as they flew over a field, Roger saw before him what he could only describe as 'an architect's plan of a Roman villa', just like ones in the books he had been using for his studies. This one, however, consisted of marks in the grassland created by a dry spell. Luckily, Roger had a camera with him and took a series of photographs. Lucky indeed, because when he and his friend flew over the same field a week later, the lines had vanished.

Roger showed the photographs to David Viner, curator of the Corinium Museum in Cirencester, who confirmed his opinion: this had to be a Roman villa of substance. He then got in touch with the farmer who owned the land who, after a bit of persuasion, agreed that it would interesting to know what lay beneath the grass on that particular hillside. (Although it should be remembered that the landowner had already seen a photo similar to Roger's in 1976.) So, with the owner's blessing, Roger wrote a letter to Time Team ... and the rest is now history. And to complete this circular tale, Roger has been taking an active – digging – part in the excavation.

As the morning proceeds, the team in Trench 4 uncover a bath, complete with arm rests still in place. A lot of coloured plaster is coming from this trench, and rumour has it that a coin has just been unearthed which might help to date the room. We'll be updating this site again at 3pm.

Tesserae found in the bath house. The small black stone tessera is from a floor mosaic panel. The other is a larger red tile tessera, and would have come from either a coarse mosaic or the surround of a fine mosaic panel.

Were you right? Well, we have several theories about this object ourselves. It may be a cobbler's last for shoes, it may be a mobile anvil, or it could be a simple wall bracket. These differing ideas just go to show you that even the experts are sometimes baffled.

As Day Three gets under way, the field archaeologists and Victor are producing some excellent reconstructions of our villa, and its place in the surrounding countryside. We now think that the villa forms the centre of a huge estate, 10 kilometres square. We think that the villa was extended and made grander some time in the early 4th century AD.

Day Three, 3.30pm

Glory be, the sun has finally come out, and we are still being blessed with plenty of finds as well as new information about this Roman villa.

A coin was found right at the bottom of the pool in Trench 4. This must have been dropped in just before the rubble was deposited there, and so gives a date for the time when the villa changed its use: the new residents, deciding not to have a pool, filled it in to form part of the floor. The date when this happened was between 365 and 380 AD, during the reign of Emperor Gracian. After that time, another structure would have been on this site, but whatever was there has since disappeared without a trace (so far).

A terrific discovery was made in the new Trench 7. A hefty piece of wedge-shaped masonry turned out to be a voussoir – that's the technical term for a keystone of an arch. And because this keystone is so substantial, so must have been the arch that it was a part of. It may be that the side of the corridor bordering the courtyard was arcaded, like a monastery cloister.

And within Trench 7, the largest room so far has been uncovered. From the corridor entrance to the back wall measures approximately 6m (20ft).

Mick Aston and producer Tim Taylor taking photos of the coloured plasterwork in Trench 4.

Phil begins to get to grips with Trench 7. He thinks he's found the keystone of an archway.

Day Three, 5.30pm

We now have a complete plan of the bath house in Trench 4, thanks to both the excavation and the geophysics. A high-status Romano-Briton would enter by crossing through a porch (previously thought to be the grate) into a changing room – an apodyterium – adjacent to the excavated plunge pool. After shedding clothes, he – or she – would enter a cool room (frigidarium), then a tepid room (tepidarium) and finally hot room (caldarium), where people would stay and sweat for a bit. Off the corner of this room was a furnace, and in the other corner may have been a small hot plunge pool. After this routine, our Romano-Briton would return to the tepidarium where his slave would smooth oil over him or her and then scrape it and any dirt off the skin. It's then back into the frigidarium and finally a cool plunge in our pool.

There is a drain for this pool but no pipes to carry water into it. Professor Keith Branigan of Sheffield University has done his calculations and he reckons that it would have taken five slaves with buckets two hours to fill the pool with water from the nearby spring!

Archaeology is all about changing theories and, true to form, it is now thought that the rubble found in the pool did actually come from this bath house. This has lead to some extremely interesting discoveries. From an examination of the debris, it is thought that the room with the plunge pool had a white domed ceiling. Around it near the edges is a shading line that was intended to trick the eye into thinking that part of the ceiling was recessed.

Trench 6 is far less spectacular, but it has produced enough pieces of a pie dish to make reconstruction a definite possibility.

But Trench 7 is still producing marvels. Latest news is that Phil has found a lockplate (escutcheon), complete with a large keyhole, and two iron bindings, all of which once belonged to a wooden chest, which has now rotted away. Unfortunately, no treasure was found among the remains ...

Phil shows off a lock and bindings from a wooden chest which has rotted away.

Tony looks happy with the day's results, whilst Phil ploughs on before the light fades.

A new geophys shows that there are buildings to the east of our original square grid, near to the spring. There appears to be a square building there. Could it show the foundations of a Roman temple? Meanwhile, graphics races against the clock to render the final image of the villa.

So, as we sign off for the final time, let us leave you with the inscription of a wonderful inscribed brooch found amid the rubble of the cold plunge pool (and for which we are still awaiting expert information): UTEREFELIX – Latin for 'Be happy!'