50 
On a Roman Villa Discovered at Northstoke. 
By Rev. C. W. SHICKLE. 
(Read February 9th, 1898). 
That Roman Britain is little more than a myth to most of us 
is due in a great measure to our early training, and to the fact 
that the account of it in English History is limited to two or three 
pages, and yet it comprised a period as great as from the Conquest 
to Henry VI. or from Elizabeth to our own time. 
Can we imagine the history of the United States condensed 
into such a space, and yet in A.D. 62, 70,000 Romans and 
foreigners are said to have been massacred in London alone, a 
population nearly equal to that of the American Colonists in 
New York at the outbreak of the War of Independence. 
Roman Britain was a rich, highly civilized, and thickly populated 
country, and the devastating wave of Pict and Saxon hordes swept 
over the land with as obliterating an effect as did those which 
effaced Nineveh and Mexico. 
Even now the pick and shovel are daily showing to us more 
and more plainly what great men these Romans were, and the 
pavements of many of our public buildings are but imperfect 
imitations of those which adorned their private houses. 
Allow the best houses around Bath to fall into decay, and would 
they offer in 150 years, as interesting fields for search as do those 
Roman villa residences which have been destroyed 10 times that 
length of time ? 
One of these villas, with which our neighbouring hills were 
dotted over, existed at Northstoke. In Mr. Scarth’s map in 
Aque Solis mention is made of a building between the Church 
and the village, and it is to be regretted no further information is 
now obtainable by means of which we may know whether the 
remains alluded to were parts of the building now under 
discussion. 
