The Roman villa has been shut off all summer, cocooned within a metal fence.  The sounds of hammers, saws and working men wafted intermittently through the open windows. Now and again the sound of a concrete mixer turning, maybe the odd mechanical tool and the radio gently playing. Visitors may have witnessed deliveries of wood, sand, lime plaster and, in the middle of August, the return of the sandblaster!The villa is undergoing awesome alterations, and will emerge transformed in September.Duncan Morrison and his team, brothers Matt and Phil, have worked tirelessly since June.  They have built a staircase and mezzanine barrier; widened unforgiving flint doorways for wheelchair access; raised a ceiling; built all the walls up to the roof; dug out forty tonnes of mud floor and replaced this on their hands and knees with mountains of opus signinum (Roman concrete) to level the floors.  Recently they have been seen perched on the roof in the sunshine mending the ridge tiles.Chris Allen and his team from Emsworth Plastering have laboriously lined the walls with thousands of oak lathes adorned with three coats of lime plaster of different consistencies.  The final, glassy coat creates a luxuriously cool, sophisticated air to the rooms and feels so Roman!In the middle of August, John of Airstrip Ltd, returned to blast the front of the villa with his lethal force of sand, to remove the lime coating and make it ready for plastering.As the summer draws to a close and autumn hovers on the skyline, children will be getting ready to return to school.  The villa will be ready and waiting for those lucky enough to be coming on a Butser trip!