BOX QUARRIES . 227 



of a large and important industry. Box Hill is a 

 mass of tills stone, and the tunnel is consequently 

 pierced through it. Three of the quarries are situated 

 in the hill, some of them of great extent. The most 

 extensive is driven into the flank of the hill like a 

 tunnel, and has over three miles of sfalleries laid with 

 tram-lines : dark, damp places, whose roofs are sup- 

 ported here and there by timber struts. The coldness 

 of these quarry tunnels is remarkably piercing, even 

 in the height of summer. 



Box seems to have been a favourite country resort 

 of the Romans, away from the crowded streets of 

 Aquce Solis ; for on the land that slopes down toward 

 the little Box Brook there have been found many 

 Roman remains, while, only so recently as 1897, the 

 site of a Roman villa was excavated near the south 

 side of the church, with the result of unearthing a 

 complete ground-plan and such interesting relics as 

 mosaic pavements and votive altars. 



It is a crowded village to-day, and rather by way 

 of being a town. Lying in a deep hollow, its stone- 

 built houses climb steeply up both sides, with a 

 picturesque glimpse back from where the old village 

 lock-up stands beside the highway to the straggling 

 cottages that line the old road down the side of Box 

 Hill. 



Leaving Box we also, in the course of one mile, 

 leave Wiltshire and come into Somerset, with Bath 

 but four miles distant. The Box Brook runs on the 

 right-hand side of the road, the Great Western 

 Railway on the left. Soon, however, the road bends 

 to the right at Bathford, and we come to Batheaston. 



