London (PTI): Archaeologists have discovered what they claim is the biggest and best-preserved Roman villa ever unearthed in Britain -- a church-shaped building built around 1,800 years ago on the Isle of Wight.

"It would have sung out the status of the owner. It's a very impressive building, absolutely magnificent. It could have been seen for miles around," Head of the excavation team Sir Barry Cunliffe of Oxford University told 'The Times'.

According to the archaeologists, the Roman villa is as vast as an Olympic swimming pool measuring 50ft wide and 150ft long, with massive pairs of timbers supporting the roof and soaring up to 20ft in height.

It also has a medieval hall suggesting that the Lord of the manor lived at one end and a communal space for other inhabitants of the estate at the other, Sir Barry said.

The residential part has under-floor heating and walls plastered and painted with mock marble patterns. The communal end may have been used for meetings and legal matters such as boundary disputes and payment of dues.

Moreover, the symmetry and precision of construction reveals the extraordinary skill of its builder -- the tops of the pier bases are all level to within half an inch.

There are depictions of peacocks signifying eternal life, Orpheus charming the beasts of the forest and Tritons, or sea deities, carrying reclining nymphs on their backs. It may have belonged to Allectus who murdered in AD 293 Carausius who was a Roman Army Commander and had proclaimed himself as Emperor of Britain.

Although the Victorians explored this part of the site in the 1880s, they dismissed the remains as a barn. "They did not understand what they're excavating. But this was the main building for at least 150 years before the other villa was put up," Sir Barry said.