( 283 ) 
villa at that place, ENGLEHEART!) says in a memoir dated Nov. 
25, 1897: 
About the set of metal vessels from Appleshaw now exhibited, I 
will say little, since they are submitted for the opinion of experts. 
It was my curious good fortune to hit upon them at once in a 
first experimental trench dug on the site already mentioned, one mile 
south of my house. They appeared to be designedly hidden in a 
pit sunk through a cement floor, 3 feet below the surface of the 
field. The smaller vessels were carefully covered by the larger dishes. 
One suggestion I may make with regard to their date. Lying at 
the floor below which they were buried was a fragment of wall 
plaster bearing a peculiar pattern of red flower buds on a white 
ground, absolutely identical with plaster found in the Clanville Villa. 
Now the inscribed stone found in the latter proves that the house 
was inhabited in the year 284 a. D., while the coins cease with 
Decentius, 351 a. D. 
Therefore, on the not unreasonable suppositions (1) that the plas- 
ter as found represents the wall-decoration of the houses at the 
time of their destruction or abandonment, (2) that the identity of 
design shows a correspondence of dates, (3) that the vessels were 
concealed when the house was abandoned, we may assign the ves- 
sels to a period not by many years removed from 350 a. D. 
Dr. GOWLAND?) adds the following notes regarding the vessel 
N°. 27, at present preserved in the British Museum at Londen. 
“27. Portion of low vase, probably of oval section; feot rim. 
Height 2'/, inches, diameter uncertain, about 8 inches. 
Composition: 
Tin Lead Iron Copper Oxygen, carbonic-s acid and loss 
94.35pCt 5.06 trace trace 0.59. 
The extraordinary molecular change which the metal of this ves- 
sel has undergone is of more interest to the physicist and metallur- 
gist than to the antiquary; a brief note respecting it, however, cannot 
be omitted here. The metal is not much oxydised, yet it is so ex- 
1) On some Buildings of the Romano-British Period, discovered at Clanville, 
near Andover and on a Deposit of Pewter Vessels of the same Period, found at An- 
pleshaw, Hants, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by the Rev. G. H. 
Engleheart, M. A., with appendixes by Charles H. Read Esq. Seeretary and William 
Gowland, Esq. F. S. A. F. C. S., Associate R. S. M. 
*) Loc. cit. pag. 12 and 14. 
