246 Collections for a History of West Dean. 



a moveable metal dome, raised or depressed at pleasure, retaining or 

 releasing the vapour. The adjoining chamber, k, was a cooling or 

 dressing room; l, a passage, on either side of which were the baths 

 M and N, the former for hot water, the latter for cold, the first heated 

 by a fire-place at m, which seems to have served also as the pre- 

 furnium of the chamber o, the second approached by a tiled step at 

 n, and supplied with water by a leaden pipe, carried through the 

 wall at n n. Both had floors of pink concrete, and were only 2^ft. 

 in depth. The southern wall of the oblong room o had been 

 destroyed, but its flues remained, with their substantial pite of flint 

 and chalk, without any traces, however, of pavement upon them. 



The floor of the adjoining room p was perfect, but without a 

 hypocaust. Its centre, composed of twenty squares each way, 

 alternately of brick and stone tesserse, each square of 6in. containing 

 thirty-six, was surrounded by an 8ft. border of red tesserse of the 

 same size. I think that this room may have been the dining-room, 

 and have contained the triclinium, in which case the ante-room Q 

 with its floor of common Gin. tiles — many of which remained in situ 

 — would have been the serving-room for the attendants. 



In the corridor r and the large hall 3 patches of similar tiles 

 were found, and the impressions of others which had been removed 

 were indented in the concrete of the floors. 



The room t, heated by flues of similar construction to those at o, 

 and S^ft. deep, had the arch of its prefurnium entire at t, with a 

 square plastered stoke-hole at 1 1. The little recesses at the corners 

 may have received the upright timbers supporting the roof. Many 

 bones of oxen, pigs, and deer were found in the flues, but there were 

 no indications of a tesselated floor. The corridor u was in an im- 

 perfect state of preservation, the courtyard or ambulatory v retaining, 

 however, its boundary wall to the south, and a small portion of its 

 tiled pavement. The vestibule w, divided into two equal parts by 

 short walls on the north and west, was probably open to the south, 

 a strong pier, 5ft. square, taking the place of a wall on that side. 

 Three similar piers, ranging with this, and, once supporting columns, 

 formed the southern front of the important chamber X, 26ft. by 20ft., 

 having strong walls, 3ft. in thickness, and intersected by principal 



