ROMAN VILLA AT CHEDJFORTH. 257 



Saxon coins have been discovered, and Mr Roach Smith 

 informs me that the relics are entirely Roman, It would 

 appear, from various evidences, that the villa had been 

 built or repaired after the time of Constantine the Great, 

 and an inscription 'Prasatia' leads to the surmise that it 

 belonged to the husband of Boadicea. 



But the most important feature in this discovery is 

 connected with our present subject : the recovery of one 

 whole shoe and several fragments, which are said to have 

 been with the other remains. But not one of these shows 

 the outline we have hitherto been studying, and which 

 has, with a few exceptions, so far as I have been able 

 to learn, been characteristic of the shoes found with 

 Roman or supposed pre-Roman objects. On the con- 

 trary, all exhibit what we would consider evidences of 

 more recent manufacture. We no longer have the un- 

 dulating border, the long and wide oval depressions, the 

 narrow cover, the rolled calkins, and the large semicircular 

 nail-heads. The nails and nail-holes are very like those 

 now in use ; the latter are stamped close to the margin 

 of the shoe, the nails have been driven through the hoof, 

 and the points twisted off and clinched in the usual way. 

 The workmanship is entirely different to that we have been 

 considering, and is much more advanced. One perfect 

 specimen (fig. 92) measures 3! inches long and 4 inches 

 wide, an imperfect one (fig. 93) 4.^ inches long and the 

 same in width, while another half-shoe (fig. 94) is 4| 

 inches long, and must have been equally wide. The 

 breadth of it is extraordinary, measuring no less than if 

 inch, and the shoe when complete must have nearly 



covered the whole of the horse's sole ; it shows four nail- 



17 



