A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



excavated, about 30 by 90 feet. Its entrance was a projecting porch or 

 doorway decorated with a mosaic panel 6 feet square — a pattern of red 

 crosses outlined between squares of red and grey, the whole enclosed in 

 a guilloche border of red, white, drab and grey. Another mosaic in 

 this block consisted of squares divided by double lines of red. If we 

 may assume that the excavations left a good deal of building undis- 

 covered, we might suppose that this block formed part of a range of 

 rooms facing on to a second or inner yard and adjoining the bathrooms 

 on the south. I have ventured to mark it in the plan, with an appended 

 query. Minor discoveries in one part or other of the site include a 

 column base, tiles, painted wall plaster, some good fragments of glass, 

 Samian and other potsherds, three stone weights, iron knives and imple- 

 ments, animals' bones, etc' 



(25) Chipping Warden. Here considerable traces of buildings 

 exist half a mile east of the village, on the north side of the Cherwell, 

 on a sheltered site with a southern aspect, sloping gently to the stream. 

 Only one building has been actually excavated — a detached bath-house, 



36 feet long by 18 feet wide 

 (fig. 27), found in 1849 close 

 to the water in a field once 

 known as Caldwiths (or 

 Caudwells). But remains of 

 walls have been noticed also 

 in the fields called Black- 

 grounds, which adjoin Cald- 

 withs on the north (away 



Fic. 27. Bath House at Chipping Warden. from the river), and Samian, 



A raised stonework ; b modern drain ; c furnace. CaStOr and Othcr pOtshcrds, 



glass and the usual small objects have been picked up, and indeed 

 still abound, over a considerable area. An urn with human bones 

 was found in 1826 and four skeletons in 1849. Many coins have 

 been recorded — three British of the class which Sir John Evans calls 

 the Central District coins, and numerous Roman, ranging from Domi- 

 tian to the end of the Roman period, but belonging mostly to the later 

 empire (a.d. 250—390).^ The place has frequently been called the site 

 of a Romano-British town, and the name Brinavis has been ascribed to 

 it. But the remains hitherto discovered do not justify us in supposing 

 more than a villa, perhaps with extensive outbuildings. Fragments of 

 pottery have been found, it is true, over an area much greater than that 



1 'Journal of the British Jrchieolopcal Association, vi. 73, vii. 107 (plan and plates) ; Arckteohgical 

 "Journal, vii. 172. The mosaic with red crosses has been needlessly supposed to be Christian. One of 

 the mosaics was given by the landowner, the Duke of Grafton, to Queen Victoria and relaid in a dairy 

 at Windsor. 



* Morton, p. 526 (hence Bridges, i. 11 1 ; Gough, Add. to Camden, ii. 272 ; Reynolds, etc.) ; 

 Baker, i. 531 ; Journal of the British Archirological Association, ii. 346 (coins), v. 83, 168 (excav. of 

 1849) ; Beesley's Banbury, 27-9 ; Numismatic Soc. Proceedings, November 23, 1843, January 27, 1845, 

 February 25, 1 846 ; a few objects in Northampton Museum. I have assumed, after visiting them, 

 that the earthworks, Arbury Banks and Wallow Bank, west and north respectively of Chipping Warden, 

 are not Roman : compare Architol. Journal, ii. 82. 



200 



