10 



in Roman times, as it was common for old Celtic burial places 

 — as, for instance, barrows — to be used for later interments. 

 Instances of this are very common. (See Mr. Greenwell's 

 *' Researches," published in the "Archseol. Journal," 1865.) 

 Mr. Rudder, however, is of a different opinion, and puts 

 forth an explanation of the number three which is rather 

 ingenious, whatever we may think of its correctness. He 

 says, " It is supposed they were placed there after the time of 

 the Romans, as a memorial of some chief who fell in battle 

 in this part of the county ; and their number and nearness to 

 Dyrham, an adjoining village, lead me to conjecture that they 

 stand for the three British Princes whom Ceaulin the Saxon 

 slew in a bloody battle in the year A.D. 577." If we could 

 bring any evidence to substantiate this conjecture, it would 

 indeed render this Villa and its locality a place of no 

 common historical interest ; but I fear tlie upright stones 

 which are found in other places south-west of Dyrham 

 might put in their claims also for this honour. 



If the coins found at the base of the stone were known to 

 be ancient British, it might favour the idea ; but it is to be 

 feared they are now irrecoverably lost, and probably when 

 first found could not be accurately deciphered. It is not, 

 however, improbable that the battle of Dyrham decided the 

 fate of this and other Villas, as well as of the three cities of 

 Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, as all the country adjoin- 

 ing these three cities fell with them into the hands of the 

 victorious Saxons. The latest coin which has been found on 

 the site of the Villa brings it down to the year A.D. 455, the 

 veiy latest period of Roman occupation of this island. But 

 the coins may have been in circulation among the Roman- 

 ized Britons to a much later period, and probably were so ; 

 and as no Saxon coins have been found in the Villa, we may 

 conclude that it was occupied by a Romano -British master 

 till the Saxon conquest, when it shared the fate of the many 



