THE ROMAN VILLA AT HEMSWORTH. 3 



from its, position, and possibly by etymology, may reasonably be 

 identified with the station Vindogladia.* From four to five miles 

 N.N.W., in the parish of Tarrant Hinton, is a villa imperfectly 

 explored in 1846, which would probably repay a thorough 

 investigation. According to information recorded by Morgan 

 (Rom. Brit. Mosaic Pavements, pp. 201, 214), the remains 

 extend over nearly 20 acres. The lately re-excavated villa at 

 Fifehead Neville lies a dozen miles \V. 



As noticed by Hutchins, there is a large stretch of pasture, 

 running almost up to the walls of the Hemsworth villa, which 

 bears the usual surface-signs of a large Romano-British village, 

 and it is not unlikely that it sheltered many of the dependants of 

 the house and its estate. I have in the case of villas elsewhere, 

 e.g., at Thruxton, Hants, observed the proximity of a village 

 settlement, especially where, as there and at Hemsworth, the 

 house seems to have had no considerable servants' wing. But 

 outlying extensions of the Hemsworth building may still await 

 discovery. The situation was, as usual, well chosen a level 

 area on a gently rising knoll which dominates all the immediate 

 country side. The house, so far as at present unearthed, has for 

 its longer axis a chain of rooms and passages lying E.N.E. and 

 W.S.W. for about 250 feet, but may have extended further in the 

 former direction, where a double cottage stands on the ground, 

 and, according to tradition, on tesselated floors. The width of 

 this long block averages about 50 feet, but had projections and 

 recesses which cannot be accurately planned in the destroyed 

 foundations. At the W.S.W. end a shorter and broader wing, 

 roughly 100 feet long by 60 feet wide, returned southwards. 

 There was also a shorter return S. at the opposite end of the 

 house, which thus seems to have stood partly round three sides 



* Vindogladia would have its first letter transitioually sounded as B or W, and 

 the modern and probably the ancient Italian sound of gl is ly. This would give 

 the form Windolyad, with 11 tending to drop out before d, which approaches 

 Woodyates and also Woodcutts, an adjacent place-name. This, however, must 

 stand as a guess only. 



