257 
ROMAN VILLAS. 
The remains of a Roman Villa were discovered at Bishopstone in the year 
1812, by tha Rev. Adam John Walker. Mr. Walker was the Rector of the parish 
and had to build the parsonage house. He took much pains to fix on the site and 
at length decided upon a spot in the middle of a ploughed field, above the fog of 
the valley and commanding a good view. On digging the principal drain the work- 
men came upon a tesselated pavement, about 16 inches below the surface of the 
ground. It was very carefully uncovered, and found to be thirty feet square, of a 
very elegant and graceful design, and the colours seemed as bright as when first 
laid. The discovery created very great interest, and the country people were so 
impressed with the idea that some treasure was hidden beneath, that Mr. Walker 
was obliged to have a night watch to prevent it from being destroyed. The tesserz 
were laid on a bed of clay with so thin a layer of cement that it could not be re- 
moved without breaking it up, and after a sketch had been taken it was re-covered. 
Mr. Thomas Bird, F.S.A., exhibited this drawing at the Society of Antiquaries 
(Archeologia, Vol. xxiii, p. 417). “‘ At a distance of one to two hundred yards 
around this house,” says Mr. Walker in a letter to Mr. Bird in the year 1830, 
“we have dug up on every side Roman bricks, pottery (both coarse and fine), and 
many fragments of funeral urns; and I am rather surprised that only three coins 
have yet been found (of Constantine). A regularly pitched causeway, or rather 
foundation, has been found repeatedly; and in J une, 1821, in my kitchen garden, 
south-west of the house, a foundation of sandstone (which seems also at Kenchester 
to be the only stone the Romans employed) at the east end about three feet deep, 
and at the west end deepening to about five feet deep, were discovered. The 
foundation is full three feet wide, and increases towards the angle, where it turns, 
to five feet. I traced it fifty-five feet, parallel with the respective sides of the 
pavements ; but there was no appearance of walls round the pavement. I found 
also a twenty inch foundation wall most strongly cemented, on the east side of the 
house. Considerable quantities of black earth, near the places where the fragments 
of urns have been found, were also discovered. Bones have likewise been collected 
at about the general depth of sixteen or eighteen inches.” Mr. Walker also traced 
a causeway across two or three fields in the direction of Magna Castra. 
The site is one mile and a half west of Magna, and about seven miles from 
Hereford. It commands a view, not only of the higher parts of Magna, but also 
of Credenhill Camp and of Dinedor Camp in the distance ; and from the absence 
of any trace of hypocaust it is supposed to have been the summer residence of some 
general officer of Magna Castra, who seems, as was so often the case with builders 
of Roman country houses in Britain, to have been equally careful with the modern 
Rector in the selection of the site for his Villa. 
At Credenhill, Roman remains have been frequently found in the intervening 
village, between Magna and the Camp, and in the cutting for the Hereford and 
Brecon Railway, quantities of coins, pottery, small vases, horse shoes and various 
other articles were found, and the Roman road running from Magna to Credenhill 
was cut through transversely about two feet below the surface of the ground (Mr. 
