2 THE ROMAN VILLA AT HEMSWORTH. 



On the Map of Ancient Dorset, &c., prefixed to the 3rd Vol. 

 of General Pitt-Rivers' "Excavations," the site will be found, 

 marked as a Roman villa, just N. of Badbury Rings, within the 

 angle formed by the junction of two Roman roads the main 

 road from Dorchester to Salisbury and its branch from Badbury 

 to Winklebury Camp and Shaftesbury. General Pitt-Rivers, 

 no doubt, followed Hutchins, who says in his history of the 

 county : 



"At Hemsworth Farm, on the Eweleaze, are extensive irregu- 

 larities on the surface which betoken ancient location. About a 

 quarter of a mile distant some workmen came upon several 

 buried skeletons ; and in an adjoining field were found the 

 remains of a Roman villa, consisting of foundations and six 

 pavements, three of which were tesselated." 



And in Vol. XL, p. 19, of the Proceedings of the Dorset Field 

 Club, Dr. Wake Smart writes : 



"On Hemsworth Farm in 1831 were discovered the founda- 

 tions of several rooms, in one of which I saw a beautiful 

 representation of a dolphin, surrounded with a fine ornamental 

 border, all in mosaic work." 



The site appears to have been immemorially known at 

 Hemsworth as "Walls Field," a name which stands sadly as an 

 indication both of the house and of its destruction. It has been 

 evident in the course of the excavation that lengths of the walls, 

 as from time to time they impeded the plough, have been 

 followed up and grubbed out, usually to their very footings, so 

 that it is almost impossible to trace their lines and obtain a 

 satisfactory plan. For this reason much of the labour has been 

 concentrated on securing the two good pavements before winter. 

 Hemsworth, to measure in bee lines, stands five miles N.W. of 

 Wimborne and the same distance due E. of Blandford, in a 

 neighbourhood rich in antiquities. Bradford Down, with its 

 imposing long and round barrows, is one mile S.E., Badbury 

 Rings two miles S. Half-a-dozen miles northwards take us into 

 Cranborne Chase and the " Pitt-Rivers' Country." Eight miles 

 easterly of north, on the main Roman road, is Woodyates, which 



