A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



have been a dwelling house in which the rooms were arranged along 

 a corridor.* 



(2) Sutton Field, in the parish of Ailsworth, on the north bank of 

 the Nene, close to the water and nearly half a mile east of the Roman 

 bridge. Here Artis found a house of some size. His plan (pi. 

 xxxiii., XXXV,), which represents only the north-east side (as he tells 

 us), shows some fifteen rooms with a corridor along them, four of them 

 paved with mosaic, two and the corridor tessellated plainly, four warmed 

 with hypocausts, and one, at the east end, fitted with a drain, as if a 

 bath. From the east end also a wall ran out to what Artis calls the 

 chief entrance. Presumably this entrance led into a courtyard, and the 

 house as a whole resembled the ' villa ' at Apethorpe. In plate xlix. 

 Artis figures some pottery found here by him. He also marks a building 

 further north, on Sutton Heath. 



(3) Water Newton, south of the Nene and west of the Castles. 

 Here Artis found, in 1826-7, ^^° houses, one immediately east of 

 Water Newton and near the river, the other 500 yards south of it. Only 

 a small part of either was excavated. They contained tessellated and 

 mosaic floors and hypocausts and were obviously comfortable dwellings.* 

 Water Newton gravelpit has since yielded various remains — pillars and 

 other worked stones, pottery and the like.' 



(4) Sibson, near the Wansford railway station and south of the 

 Nene. Artis in 1820-8 noted here houses and potteries which he has 

 not described. At the construction of the railway in 1844 building 

 debris, potsherds, and three mutilated statues were discovered close to 

 the station.* The statues, all hewn from local ' Barnack rag,' represent 

 Hercules, Apollo and Minerva. The first showed Hercules with his 

 club and lion skin ; it was destroyed by the frost shortly after its dis- 

 covery. The second, an undraped torso of Apollo, seems to have pos- 

 sessed little interest. The third, though much weathered, headless and 

 footless, merits a word. The goddess, nearly life size, rests on her left 

 leg with the right knee slightly bent. She is draped in a long tunic or 

 chiton and a mantle which is passed over the left shoulder and round the 

 legs. On her breast is a large oval ornament which may be an ignorant 

 copy of the Medusa's head usual to Minerva. With her left hand she 

 holds the top of a small round shield which originally rested on a 

 pedestal ; a snake is coiled round this pedestal. With her right hand 

 she holds a spear (now nearly all broken off), and at the hand there are 

 traces of her familiar bird, an owl. The statue is obviously local work. 

 Its general adherence to classical types illustrates the general Romaniza- 



1 Morton, p. 510; Stukeley, Itinerailum, p. 83 ; Gentlemati's Magazine, (1822) i. 484 (alleges a 

 house of twenty-two rooms 230 by 300 feet in extent) ; Artis, pi. xvi.-xxii. 



* Artis, pi. xxviii., xxx., xxxiv., li. 



8 Now in the collections of Dr. Walker and Mr. Bodger in Peterborough ; sketches by Jas. T. 

 Irvine in the Bodleian. The Knipe collection at Cambridge comes mostly from this vicinity. 



* Hence probably the leaden ' thumb-vase ' with fluted sides, colander, Samian and other 

 pottery, coins, etc., mentioned in the Jout-nat of the British Archeeologtcal Association, xlvii. 187, 

 xlviii. 167. 



