Ly Harold Brakspear, F.SA. 245 
work being of a very fine-grained hard straight-splitting limestone 
varying from a light cream colour to almost pure white,! the dark 
portions were of a blue-black fine-grained lias and dark grey and 
chocolate coloured Pennant stone, the red was of hard fine-grained 
tile, the yellow (which was very sparingly used), of an oolite from 
the upper brash beds. The borders of these rooms were of large 
tesserz in nearly all cases of the cream-coloured limestone. 
The inferior parts of the villa had floors of large tesserz of 
Pennant stone and a common buff oolite. 
All the materials used were procurable within a comparatively 
few miles of the site. 
The tesserze were laid on a thick bed of concrete formed of a 
rough mortar having a considerable admixture of broken bricks. 
This was supported above the hypocausts by large rough slabs of 
local stone from the fissile beds of the great oolite. Where there 
were no hypocausts the ground had been made up to a considerable 
_ depth with broken stones, gravel, and tufa. 
The general plan shows the buildings that have been discovered 
during the recent excavations, together with those found in 1881, 
in their respective positions. 
Each chamber is numbered on the plan and will be described 
in order. 
Chamber I., I., I., formed the passage round the central court, 
which was 80 feet wide from east to west. The passages were 
9 feet wide, but all evidence of a wall next the court, if any ever 
existed, had entirely disappeared. 
The pavement was formed of white, blue, and red tesserze with a 
cream-coloured border, and although not an uncommon design is 
! This material makes very regular and durable tessere, and in addition to 
the cream colour and white a few were found of a very light grey or pinkish 
shade, probably produced by the heating of the stone. It appears to be 
precisely the same stone as is used in the pavements of Cirencester and 
Silchester. The authorities of the Jermyn St. Museum say that it may be 
derived either from the white lias (Rhetic) beds, or more likely from the 
white limestone of the great oolite. This is the material which is spoken of 
as “Palombino marble,” by some of the earlier writers. Cf. Wilts Arch. 
Mag., xxvi., 409.—(E.H.G.) 
