By Harold Brakspear, FSA. 239 
square flue pipes of red terra-cotta from the hypocaust, which are useful for 
comparison with examples found in London and elsewhere. The majority 
of the pipes met with at Box are scored with the common diamond pattern, 
a few have only bands of parallel lines, whilst one fragment is decorated with 
a succession of waved or undulated furrows of more novel design. From 
more careful examination of these air conduits I am inclined to regard them 
as the products of different kilns, for they vary both in hardness and colour 
and above all in the character of the material, which must have been obtained 
from different localities. The only example of stucco which has reached me 
is a fragment of the fine variety called albarium ; but much of the walling 
has been painted in fresco, in imitation of African marbles, with elegant 
coloured borderings.” ! 

‘In his Ague Solis, published 1864, Preb. Scarth, in his map marks the 
sites of seventeen or eighteen Roman villas existing within a radius of seven 
miles round Bath, of which this at Box is one, another at Ditteridge is 
scarcely more than a mile away, and a third at Colerne not more than two 
miles. Of the Box villa he says :—‘“ The tesselated floors of three rooms were 
found here quite perfect, but the patterns are plain and the work coarsely 
executed. The most interesting portion is the remains of the bath; the sides 
and circular end of which were covered with tessere of white lias. Careful 
drawings have, I understand, been made of these pavements, which were 
situated in gardens in the middle of the village. The remains of a hypocaust 
have also been found, with several pillars entire, and a Roman bath is also 
stated to have been found on the south side of the churchyard.” 
On page 127 he remarks :—‘‘ There are certain particulars of these villas 
(round Bath) which are worthy of notice. The regularity of their form. 
They were either built round a court, and formed three sides of a square; or 
else ran in a straight line, often with a projecting portion at right angles to 
the main body of the building. They were all provided with a hypocaust 
and baths, and had tesselated pavements of elegant workmanship. They 
were accompanied with outbuildings, and situated in an area of some extent 
enclosed by a boundary wall, within which were interments of two kinds, 
viz., cremation and inhumation. The villas were supplied with earthenware 
utensils of every description, and with glass, both for windows and domestic 
use. Coins are found in the greatest abundance and to the latest period of 
the Roman occupation. The situations are well-chosen, and the villas are 
for the most part represented at the present day by elegant modern country 
houses in the same localities and near the same sites. They were always 
well supplied with water, and the wells were of excellent construction. The 
villas round Bath do not seem to have equalled in dimensions those laid open 
in other parts of England, as at Woodchester or Bignor, nor the elegant 
remains which exist at Lydney, in Gloucestershire . . . Thesuperstructure 
of these villas is a subject which has caused much perplexity ; and antiquarians 
are not decided as to whether the upper portions were constructed of stone or 
wood. I am inclined to think that wood must have furnished the materials 
of the upper portions, and that the stone walls were only carried to a certain 
