North Leigh Roman Villa announces Minecraft Reconstruction Competition Winner

North Leigh Roman Villa Volunteers ran a Minecraft Reconstruction Competition over the summer, challenging visitors and the online community to build their best version of the site at its height in AD 325. Local volunteers, English Heritage and Blenheim Palace have judged the entries and are happy to announce Joe Raven as the winner!

Minecraft is a video game where players build anything they can imagine from blocks, which can show an almost limitless variety of materials and finishes. Perfect for a 3D recreation of our courtyard villa, as only foundations and one mosaic survive today. Entrants were able to consult everything from a room-by-room account of the villa’s original discovery to modern LIDAR scans of the site. Entrants submitted their creations via YouTube video tours.

Competition was fierce, and the judges were impressed by each competitor’s unique take on the site, their creativity, and most importantly the rich imagination displayed. From colourful mosaics, statues and bunches of grapes, to food-laden dining tables, stables, docks, hypocausts, and a wealth of different accommodation, there was so much to admire in the digital renditions of a lost era.

Ed McGregor, Volunteer and Engagement Manager at English Heritage, said “We’ve been blown away by the quality and attention to historic detail that these entries have shown. They are such a great way for visitors to visualise what the villa would have looked like in Roman times, and we look forward to sharing some of them with visitors to the site. We’re extremely grateful to the volunteer team, Blenheim Palace, and all the entrants for their contributions to bringing the history of the villa to life.”

Joe Raven will receive a £100 prize courtesy of Blenheim Palace, and his reconstruction will be used as an educational tool on the site’s open days, to help visitors to explore this vision of the complete villa complex.

Merilyn Davies, Head of Community Engagement at Blenheim Palace, said “As Blenheim embraces the use of technological innovation to preserve and protect our World Heritage Site, as well as engage with our visitors, we were delighted to be involved in this innovative competition.

Our Head of Innovation, David Green, and I had a hard time choosing from the many great entries, but in the end we both agreed Joe’s was outstanding. It is an amazing way to engage with visitors of all ages, and we can’t wait to meet Joe and congratulate him, and we look forward to seeing his Minecraft Reconstruction come to life at the Roman Villa.”

All entrants will receive a Blenheim Annual Family Pass and their videos may also appear in a future display in the Custodian’s Cottage.

You can find out more about Blenheim Palace’s use of innovation to support and preserve the historic estate for future generations, here: https://innovation.blenheimpalace.com/update/.

For more details about openings and access to the site, please visit: www.english heritage.org.uk/visit/places/north-leigh-roman-villa/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northleighromanvilla

To join Friends of North Leigh Roman Villa or arrange a special opening email: [email protected]

Notes to Editors
Set within a peaceful landscape on the banks of the River Evenlode, North Leigh Roman Villa is considered to be one of the largest villas in Roman Britain with a history of occupation spanning 5 centuries. At its most extensive in the early 4th century AD it included 3 bath suites, 16 mosaic floors and 11 rooms with under-floor heating.

Today visitors can imagine the villa’s former richness as they walk through the rectangular footprint of its walls – but the mosaic house hides the real gem of a near complete mosaic floor. The mosaics form the floor of villa’s winter dining room and, as the only example in Oxfordshire still found in their original location, they give a powerful sense of the Villa’s original opulence.

The mosaics returned to public opening in September 2019 after a gap of almost 30 years: thanks to the efforts of North Leigh Roman Villa Volunteers [NLRVV], a local group working with English Heritage. Since then, 9,900 visitors have seen the mosaics, in spite of covid restrictions in 2020 and 2021.

The efforts of NLRVV’s volunteers were recognised by a Heritage Alliance Commendation Award for volunteering in 2020. In 2021 the Blenheim Bursary fund awarded the group £5,000 to support renovation of the site’s Custodian’s Cottage. Visitor donations made at the site now approach £4,400.

At the start of 2022 it was announced that North Leigh was one of just 4 English Heritage sites to be supported by a £1m Michael Bishop Foundation donation. The work funded by this generous donation ran in 3 phases throughout 2024, transforming the Custodian’s Cottage, the condition of the NW range of the villa remains, and replacing the roof of the Mosaic House.

As well as North Leigh Roman Villa, English Heritage cares for over a million objects and hundreds of historic sites in every part of England. As Heritage is for everybody, that’s why the charity opens them up, shares their stories and finds new ways for everybody to enjoy, learn, play and create.

Registered charity no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales. www.english-heritage.org.uk