ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



right angles to it on each side and other walls, not traced, running in 

 various directions. The smaller finds included a silver fibula, a bronze 

 figurine of a Cupid, much Samian and other pottery, tiles and twenty- 

 two coins ranging from Marcus ('first brass') to Gratian, but principally 

 of the fourth century. The site was not further explored,^ but in 1849 

 pottery was dug up 70 yards south of the foundations. 



(23) Foscote. Here, about a mile and a half on the road from 

 Towcester to Abthorpe, close to a little delf, a sawpit and the road 

 itself, numerous bricks, building and roofing tiles, Samian and other 

 potsherds, including a pelvis stamped pertvim, and a coin of the ' Lower 

 Empire' were found about 1846-8. The site was not explored.^ 



(24) Whittlebury. Here a ' villa ' was found and partially exca- 

 vated in 1850 near 'the Gullet,' in Holton Coppice, three miles east 

 of Whittlebury village and a quarter of a mile west of Watling Street. 

 The plans and records of the excavations are not wholly satisfactory ; 

 they are not quite free 

 from discrepancies, and 

 they omit to indicate how 

 much of the site was ex- 

 cavated and how much 

 may contain undiscovered 

 buildings. It appears 

 however that, as often, a 

 square entrenchment sur- 

 rounded the building 

 area. The plan of the 

 buildings (fig. 26) in- 

 cluded a walled yard, not 

 rectangular, in size 150 

 by 195 feet, with a gate- 

 way in the middle of the 

 south-east side and an- 

 other opposite it in the 

 north-west side. On the 

 south side of this yard 

 was a block of rooms, 

 measuring 50 by 100 feet, 

 so far as explored, and 

 containing hypocaustsand 

 bathrooms. One of the 

 rooms had in the centre of 



its floor a small panel of mosaic, 4 feet square, representing a head in a 

 square guilloche border. Outside the yard, and facing its northern gate 

 at 100 feet distance, was another block of rooms, covering, as far as 



1 Anheeohgia, xxx. 125-31, with plan and illustrations ; the plan is too fragmentary to be worth 

 reproducing. Wetton's Guidebook, p. 167. 



2 "J oumal of the British Archaolo^cal Associotion, ii. 355, iv. 396, vii. 109 ; Wetton's G««V^3m*, p. 194- 



199 



Fig. 26. 



^cAuc or rccT 



Villa in Whittlebury Forest. 



