CELTIC AND ROMANO-BRITISH HERTFORDSHIRE 



found." In 1905 Mr. Charles H. Ashdown excavated a fragment of a 

 house in the north-west corner of Vineyard Field which showed portions of 

 two pavements, one plain red and the other red with a Hghter red band.*" 

 Numerous fragments of walls and pavements have been found from time to 

 time in ploughing and digging, but no further excavations have been 

 systematically attempted. 



Innumerable coins have been found on the site from British to early 

 Byzantine and mediaeval. Of Roman coins perhaps the commonest are 

 those of the 3rd century. 



Antiquities of various kinds have frequently been discovered, but records 

 of them have seldom been kept. Roman pottery is of course constantly 

 being turned up but has not been systematically classified. Two small bronze 

 female figures some 3 in. high have been found (PI. xi), and Dr. Stukeley 

 mentions ' a little brass lar or genius alatus ' from Verulamium, in the collec- 

 tion of Sir Robert Cornwall.'* 



According to Roman practice the cemeteries lay along the roads 

 outside the towns. In the case of Verulamium three groups of burials have 

 been discovered, one along the line of Watling Street, a second to the 



7 : sv. 



6'. 10' 



BED OF MORTAR 



LONGITUDINAL 

 n 

 12 6 O I 



SECTION 



CROSS sEcnon 



7 

 -J 



scale qf feet 

 Roman Srick Grave Found in Verulam Hill Field 



south-west of St. Albans Abbey, unconnected as far as we know with any 

 Roman road, and a third associated with the road going north-east from 

 Verulamium, probably to Braughing and Colchester. There is, as yet, no 

 record of the discovery of burials outside the town along the roads leading 

 north-west and south-west. With regard to the first group, both cinerary 

 urns and burials by inhumation have been found in the field called Verulam 

 Hill Field belonging to Mr. Charles WooUam, J. P., to the south-east of the 

 Roman town. In 1877 there was discovered a rectangular brick grave 

 6 ft. 10 in. long and i ft. 10 in. wide internally with the long axis running 

 north and south.*^ The floor was of mortar on a bed of chalk and the sides 

 were composed of a course of hollow hypocaust tiles double at the ends and 

 above them ordinary Roman tiles set in mortar to a height of about i ft. 

 The roof was formed by an arrangement of overlapping tiles, above which 

 was a line of flanged roofing tiles having on either side a coping of sloping 



'' Jrci. Journ. v, 357 ; Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc, v, 360. 



^ St. Albans Arch. Soc. Trans. 1905-6, p. 167. *^ Stukeley, I tin. Curiosum, i, 117. 



*2 Times, 10 Nov. 1877. The skull was given to Professor Rolleston and is novir in the Department of 

 Comparative Anatomy, The Museum, Oxford. The pot is in the possession of Mr. Charles WooUam 

 and the remainder of the burial was re-interred. The discovery was examined by the Rev. H. Fowler, 

 from whose sketch the accompanying drawing is made. 



4 137 '^ 



