10 THE ROMAN VILLA AT HEMSWORTH. 



the two pebble pavements have a singularly fresh appearance. 

 In these the mortar was laid so as to nearly cover the crowns of 

 the pebbles, and must have been rubbed away from them if 

 trodden for any length of time. But wherever debris has 

 protected it from later ill usage it shows no signs of wear. 

 The quarter-round skirting moulding between the floors and the 

 walls has the same curiously sharp surface, particularly in the 

 water bath. The flues do not show the ordinary effects of many 

 years' heat and smoke and cleaning out. 



It is said that most of our greater English mansions have been 

 burned at least once. The Villa, largely timber-built and heated 

 by several furnaces, must have been still more endangered. It 

 was probably for this reason that the bath-house was sometimes 

 isolated at a considerable distance from the main building, as at 

 Appleshaw, Hants. A reconstruction upon burnt floors, as at 

 Clanville, may be reckoned evidence of an accidental fire. At 

 Hemsworth we find no such reconstruction, and may think that 

 the house was plundered and fired. But there are possible 

 indications of a somewhat leisurely plundering before the firing. 

 It is a fact singular in my experience of villas that no fragment of 

 window glass has been found over the whole large area. Glass 

 shivered by fire or falling was not worth taking away, and lies 

 imperishable and visible on the hard floors. I see no 

 explanation but that the windows were carefully taken out entire 

 in their leaden or wooden frames. My friend Colonel Hawley, 

 F.S.A., an acute investigator of Romano-British village sites, has 

 commented on the occurrence in them of personal ornaments 

 and other material of a quality much superior to what would be 

 looked for in the huts of peasants or slaves. He suggests that 

 when invaders had attacked a villa, seized the more valuable and 

 portable plunder, and passed on to another house, the villagers 

 would afterwards complete the pillaging.* I have myself found 

 much window glass on a rude village site near villa remains in 



* It is recorded that after the sack of Basing House by the Parliamentarians the 

 cottages of that neighbourhood were for a long time full of its various furniture. 



