258 
James Davies, Hereford Times, Aug. 17, 1867). It is highly probable many 
suburban buildings existed in this locality. 
At Putley about five miles west of Ledbury, Mr. Thomas Blashill found, in 
digging the foundation of the north wall of the church, several Roman flue tiles, 
and flange tiles, with numerous bricks bearing upon them the marks of sandals, 
woven clothes, cats’ feet and thumb marks, together with Roman pottery. He 
exhibited them at a Meeting of the Woolhope Club, March 9th, 1876, and after- 
wards at a Meeting of the British Archeological Association (see Journal, Vol. 
xxxii, p. 250). The following year Mr. Riley found, on his estate at Putley, a 
number of Roman wall tiles, roof tiles, and pottery, which confirm the suspicion 
that a Villa existed near that spot, but its exact site has not been found. 
A Roman tesselated pavement was discovered at a place called ‘‘ Cored 
Gravel” about half a mile from the Roman Camp at Walterstone, and two miles 
north of Old Castle, which probably implies the site of a Villa (Archeologia, 
Vol. vi., p. 18.) 
A tesselated pavement has also been found in the extreme southern border of 
the county in the midst of the Roman iron smelting district. It is situated in a 
meadow on the right-hand side of the road to Monmouth, on the boundary of the 
parishes of Whitchurch and Ganarew. A number of coins have been found there, 
and the surface of the ground is very irregular, but no explorations have been 
made. 
It is extremely probable that many other Roman Villas, if not small Roman 
Stations, existed in the Roman iron mining district which extended throughout the 
southern portion of the county and the adjoining districts of Monmouthshire and 
Gloucestershire. These districts are close to the Forest of Dean, from which the 
iron ore seems to have been brought to the woods for the fuel to smelt it. Im- 
mense beds of iron scoriz and cinders, which in some places are from twelve to 
twenty feet thick, and many Roman coins and fragments of pottery have been 
found about there from time to time. These remains of hand ‘‘ bloomeries ” with 
ore more or less imperfectly smelted have been found, not only at Weston-under- 
Penyard (Ariconium), but also at Peterstow, Bridstow, Birch, Hentland, St. 
Weonards, Tretire, Llangaren, Walford, Welsh Bicknor, Ganarew, and many 
other places. Mr. Thompson Watkins has traced them for many miles round 
Goodrich Castle, and the number of “‘bloomeries” in the neighbourhood must he 
says have been immense. Hoards of Roman coins have sometimes been found in 
Herefordshire as elsewhere. At Copped Wood Hill, near Goodrich, a large 
collection of coins of the Lower Empire was dug up about 1817 ( Wandering of an 
Antiquary, p. 14), and Mr. Thompson Watkins states that in 1855 a deposit of 
many thousands of the same period, were found during draining operations in the 
Coombe Wood at Aston Ingham, in the south east corner of the county. They 
appear to have been deposited in two chests ready for transport. Thirty-seven of 
them (now in the Gloucestershire Museum) were exhibited at the Gloucestershire 
Meeting of the Institute by J. Irving, Esq. They were all small brass, and were 
of the reigns of Maximianus, Maximinus Daza, Crispus, Constantine II., and 
Constantius II. The most singular fact connected with the discovery is that 
