238 The Roman Villa at Box. 
form as though intended for a seat, but now only 8 inches high. The pattern 
of this passage is particularly elegant. The ground colour is white; the 
exterior tessere coarse; the blue lines of smaller cubes form the borders, 
6 feet about, and the intermediate space is filled with semicircles, forming 
waving lines, blue, crossing each other at right angles; these are again 
intersected by others of half the diameter, with their extremities united in 
the centre, and terminating in small crosses shaded with red and yellow, 
white and blue, and producing the most beautiful-effect. I have preserved 
several specimens of the plaster from the walls, the colours of which are very 
bright when first exposed to the air. The patterns were principally imitations 
of Egyptian marble, with elegant coloured borderings, but I have not been 
able to discover a decided figure on any of the pieces. One small vase 
holding about a pint, apparently of British workmanship, was taken up near 
the pillars, but unfortunately damaged by the spade. Numberless fragments 
of earthen vessels, small pieces of pavement, tesseree, and Roman bricks, are 
now in my possession. One room was evidently paved with square red 
bricks, quite plain. One small coin only was found, and this was so far 
corroded as to be wholly illegible. There is another piece of pavement 
(which, however, I have never seen), in a distant part of my garden; and the 
whole of the original buildings, if square, must have covered a considerable 
portion of ground, the most distant of the pavements being at least fifty 
yards apart.” 
Although no plan accompanied this letter the late excavations 
have made it quite easy to identify the various pavements described, 
which will be referred to later when dealing with the respective 
chambers to which they belonged. 
The next notice of the villa, so far as is known, occurs in the 
British Archeological Journal for 1860 (xvi., 840), in a short 
article by H. Syer Cuming, quoting a letter received from a friend 
of his who occupied a house on the site (probably that formerly 
occupied by Mr. Mullins,) who says :— 
‘My garden is full of Roman remains—tiles somewhat ornamented, but 
broken, bricks, tesselated pavement, fused iron, &c. I send all away to 
mend the roads; they are a perfect nuisance. We cannot put a spade into the 
ground without bringing up these impediments to vegetable growth. There 
is a bath quite perfect, in the centre of the garden. It has been opened, but 
is covered up; and a beautiful pavement runs all about. The bits I dug up 
were white and black, very coarse work.” 
Mr. Cuming goes on to say :— 
‘*T begged my friend to send me up some of the remains from his garden, 
which he has kindly done, and a selection is now before you, consisting of 
tessele of rather rough-hewn dice of white limestone, and portions of four 
