ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



repeated assertion that the church is itself a Roman building is quite 

 wrong.' 



(16) Near Daventry, at the north end of Borough Hill, a mile 

 east of the town. Here the remains of a Roman villa have been found 

 inside the great prehistoric earthworks, 

 and a portion has been excavated, first by 

 George Baker in 1823 and subsequently 

 by Beriah Botfield in 1852. A block 

 of buildings 70 feet wide by 145 feet 

 long has been uncovered (fig. 23). This 

 seems to have contained the baths of the 

 villa ; foundations were noticed to branch 

 off from it, for the most part in a westerly 

 direction, and it is obvious, as indeed the 

 character of the plan suggests, that we 

 have only a portion of a larger whole. 

 At least two of the rooms had mosaics. 

 One mosaic discovered and removed in 

 1823 from room k had a design 9 feet 

 square, consisting of a central circle fitted 

 into two interlacing squares and framed 

 in a larger square, the ornament in each 

 case being guilloche. The other, in room 

 J, had an outer border of Vitruvian scroll 

 and an inner one of guilloche ; the 

 centre was destroyed. The minor objects 

 found were of considerable interest — 

 painted wall plaster ; Samian, Castor and 

 other wares ; pewter and iron articles, 

 including some curious keys ; fragments 

 of local marble ; window glass and glass 

 vessels, and so forth. The coins found 

 were few and late.* 



About a mile south of this, and just under the south end of 

 Borough Hill, is a spot which has borne the name of Burnt Walls for at 

 least six centuries. Here, along the north side of the Weedon and 

 Daventry road, the surface shows signs of extensive disturbance, and 

 Morton records the occurrence of foundations and ruined walls, while 

 Baker states that Roman bricks and tiles have been found south of the 

 road, and a building close by on the site of the now vanished Daventry 

 Wood. Excavations on the north side of the road, made in 1900, 



Fic. 23. Borough Hill, Daventry. 



A well ; B I hot baths ; c E i o T furnaces 

 (o unfinished) ; F I j N T hypocausts ; 

 ) K mosaic floors ; M N E p Q R plain tessel- 

 lated floors ; L s opus signinum floors ; 

 K T painted stucco walls. 



' Sir Hy. Dryden, Aisociated Anhit. Soc. Reports, xx. 345, xxii. 78 (compare xix. 40S) ; Sir Hy. 

 Dryden's MSB. in Northampton Museum ; fragments of pottery in the same museum : Gentleman s 

 Magazine (1841), i. 305 ; Murray's GuiJe to Northants, p. 181 ; for the church see Micklethwaite, 

 Archtrological Journal, liii. 300. A carved eagle built into the church has been called Roman (Archir- 

 ologia, xliii. 1 19), but is apparently of later date. 



' George Baker, i. 345 ; Botfield, Archaolo^a, xxxv. 383 ; C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, 

 i. 1 1 3 (iUustr. of pavement k), iii. 208 ; remains in Northampton Museum and British Museum. 



195 



