Cologne on Gardens of the Roman Empire

Atrium House

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dates

Middle of the first century CE until the fourth century CE

Garden Description

West of the House of Dionysos stood the so-called "atrium house" which covered an area of 1400 sq. m. (Plan 1). It was built around the middle of the 1st century CE.

Entering from the colonnaded street at the west, one passed through a room reconstructed as an atrium, continuing along a corridor around the tablinum, and arrived at a peristyle courtyard with a semicircular pool. This courtyard, approximately 10 x 13 m. in size, was almost certainly a garden (Plan 1, G). A ground level gutter ran around the edge of the unpaved courtyard. This part of the house remained unchanged until the destruction of the building in the 4th century.

Plans

Plan 1: Plan of the Atrium House at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium with an apsidal pool (P) in its garden courtyard (G).

Credit: Adapted from Precht 1971, fig. 2.

Bibliography

G. Precht, "Die Ausgrabungen um den Kölner Dom. Vorbericht über die Untersuchungen," Kölner Jahrbuch 12, 1971:55-56, fig. 2, pl. 7.2. (worldcat)
H. Hellenkemper, "Architektur als Beitrag zur Geschichte der CCAA," in H. Temporini, ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.4, Berlin, 1974, p. 810, figs. 20-21. (worldcat)

Keywords

House of Dionyius

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dates

Reign of Vespasian until the end of the fourth century CE

Garden Description

The largest urban villa excavated thus far in Cologne is the House of Dionysos (3400 sq. m.), named after the early 3rd century mosaic floor decorated with Dionysiac motifs in the triclinium (Image 1??). The house occupies part of an insula in the northeastern corner of the city, bordered on the south by a street leading to the harbor.

The original house, erected after CE 50, was rebuilt under Vespasian and included a peristyle garden courtyard measuring 23 x 27 m. (G on Plan 1). The garden was surrounded on three sides by a peristyle, 3.35 m. in width. A ground level gutter ran around the edge of the garden. At this time, a masonry pool with a paved floor occupied a position in the eastern part of the garden. A piece of lead pipe and a bronze opening were found associated with the pool. This was later replaced in the second half of the 2nd century by an apsed pool (4.20 x 5.40 m.) in the western half of the garden which drained into the gutter at the west. The pool was axially arranged between the entrance to the house on the east and the dining room on the west, from which a view through a wide doorway onto the garden was afforded. The triclinium was unheated, leading the excavator to interpret it as a summer triclinium. The connection with the garden would, in this case, be quite understandable. An axial planting pattern in the garden with a path leading from the entrance of the house to the pool is possible. There is, however, no evidence for the planting pattern or the type of vegetation in this garden. The house was inhabited until the 4th century.

Plans

Plan 1: Plan of the House of Dionysos, built around a central courtyard garden (G) with a pool (grey).

Credit: Plan adapted from Fremersdorf 1956, fig. 27.

Bibliography

F. Fremersdorf, Das römische Haus mit dem Dionysosmosaik vor dem Südportal des Kölner Doms, Berlin, 1956. (worldcat)
M. Carroll, Romans, Celts and Germans. The German Provinces of Rome, Stroud, 2001, p. 55, fig. 20. (worldcat)

Keywords

Urban House on Gertrudenstrasse

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dates

Middle of the first century CE until the fourth century CE

Garden Description

This Mediterranean-type house just inside the western city wall had a peristyle courtyard ca. 9 x 14 m. in size, in the middle of which was a pool (3 x 8 m.) with apsidal ends (P on Plan 1).

The courtyard was unpaved, and the presence of a source of water suggests that it was designed as a garden (G on Plan 1). Although the house was only partially excavated, evidence for several rebuildings from the second half of the 1st to the 4th century was retrieved. The peristyle courtyard was retained throughout, indicating the importance attached to the garden by generations of owners.

Plans

Plan 1. Plan of the partially preserved house with a peristyle courtyard garden (G) and pool (P) on Gertrudenstraße.

Credit: Adapted from Thomas 1993, fig. 3.

Bibliography

R. Thomas, Römische Wandmalerei in Köln, Mainz, 1993, pp. 321-327, figs. 138-39. (worldcat)

Keywords

Urban House on Lungenstrasse

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dates

mid-first to mid-second century CE

Garden Description

In the second half of the 1st century CE a large peristyle house was constructed on the western fringe of the city, built on the remains of abandoned pottery kilns. The peristyle courtyard of the house was at least 13 x 21 m. in size, but the structural remains were badly damaged when a temple complex was erected on the site around the middle of the 2nd century Neither the complete ground plan nor the extent of the building could be determined.

In the leveled remains of the 1st century house were fragments of painted wall plaster, including fragments of scenes depicting gardens (Image 1). These show trees against a sky-blue background. It is uncertain which rooms of the house were decorated in this way.

Images

Fragments of garden paintings from the peristyle courtyard house on Lungengasse (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium).

Credit: Photo courtesy of M. Carroll.

Keywords

Urban House on Wolfsstrasse

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dates

Middle of the first century CE until the fourth century CE

Garden Description

Only a fraction of this house in the immediate vicinity of the House on Gertrudenstraße was excavated. Enough was salvaged, however, to be able to recognize that the house was of the peristyle type (Plan 1). The house was built after the middle of the 1st century CE. By the mid-4th century the building was ruinous and the stones of most of the walls were robbed for reuse elsewhere.

The peristyle courtyard was ca. 7 m. wide and 11.30 m. long. Both faces of the wall surrounding it were plastered and painted red. Presumably the wall was several courses high, much like a balustrade, with columns on top. There was a doorway or monumental entrance, 3.50 m. wide, to the courtyard at the southeast. The corridor around the garden was 3.10 m. wide and had a beaten earth floor resurfaced more than once. Most of the original earth in the courtyard had been disturbed or removed in post-Roman times, but there was clearly no sign of a paved surface or beaten earth floors that had been trodden in the courtyard, so that one might postulate the existence of loose garden soil here during the occupation of the house (G on Plan 1). In the northern part of the courtyard was a deep, circular shaft which may have been a well (W on Plan 1), the stone courses of which had been robbed out.

Plans

Plan 1: Plan of the partially excavated courtyard house with a possible garden (G) containing a well (W) on Wolfsstraße.

Credit: Adapted from Carroll-Spillecke 1997, fig. 7.

Bibliography

M. Carroll-Spillecke, "Ausgrabungen in einem römischen Wohnviertel in der Wolfsstraße/Richmodstraße in Köln," Kölner Jahrbuch 30 (1997): 415-31. (worldcat)