A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



villa at Boxmoor House. The first group of objects occurred at 3 ft. to 4 ft. below the surface, 

 and consisted of a Roman green glass globular urn, 14 in. high, 12 in. in diameter, containing 

 bones and small bits of gold fringe, &c., a small, narrow-necked earth jug with a handle 

 and a bronze lamp-stand much burnt, with variously iU-shaped nails, much corroded, lying 

 around them, as if they had held together a box or chest. The second group was 4 ft. distant 

 and 4^ ft. deep, and consisted of a square blue-green glass bottle with reeded handle, and 

 stamped on the bottom with two concentric circles round a figure, expanding at each end like 

 a dice-box, and filled with bones and nails, and above them a small portion of black ashes mixed 

 with chalk. [Gent. Mag. (1837), ii, 409 ; Jrch. xxvii, 434, fig., xxxiv, 392 ; Sir J. Evans, Boxmoor 

 Villas (1853), plate]. The lamp, glass bottle and bronze fragments of a box are now in the 

 British Museum. 



Lastly, the coins from both sites and the vicinity include the following : 



I denarius of Pomponia or Claudia 

 I „ of Nero [a.d. 54.-67] 



1 second brass Vespasian [a.d. 69-79] 



2 ,, „ Domitian [a.d. 8 1 -96] 

 I ,, „ Nerva 

 I first „ Hadrian [a.d. 117-38] 

 I second „ „ „ „ 

 I first ., Marcus 

 I denarius Caracalla [a.d. 212-17] 

 I first brass Severus Alexander [a.d. 222-35] 

 I „ ,, Maximinus [a.d. 235-8] 

 I third „ Valerian [a.d. 253-61] 

 5 ,, ,, Gallienus [a.d. 253-68] 

 I plated Postumus [? A.D. 259-69] 



3 billon „ 



I third brass X'ictorinus [a.d. 265-8] 



3 „ „ Claudius Gothicus [a.d. 268-70] 



5 ,, „ Tetricus I [a.d. 268-73] 



[Sir J. Evans, Arch, xxxv, 66-8]. 



We have thus a series of coins extending from the beginning to the end of the Roman 

 occupation, with rather more of the third and fourth centuries than of the earlier period. 

 This more or less agrees with the objects found. One or two of the Samian vessels and the 

 incense cup are early, while others are late ; the greater number, as far as one can tell, belong 

 to the middle and later period. 



Lastly, a small rude bronze figure of Mercury (pi. xiii, no. 6) turned up in a field on the 

 northern side of the Bulbourne valley, and a field a little to the south-west of the town has 

 yielded the following denarii at various times : 



I Baebia (Babelon), no. 12 [b.c 144] l Junia (Babelon), no. 37 [b.c 54] 



~ " I Scribonia „ „ 8 „ 



I M. Antonius (Babelon), no. 113 [b.c 31] 



I Petronia „ „ 9 [b.c 20] 



3 Augustus (Cohen), nos. 43, 47, I 37 or 141 [b.c i 2] 



I Vespasian (Cohen), no. 84 [a.d. 70] 



3 Vespasian (Cohen), nos. 387, 561 [a.d. 72-5] 



[Sir J. Evans, Arch, xxxiv, 397]. 



The sites of three other houses lie within a radius of 3 miles — at Abbots Langley to the 

 south-west, Sarratt to the south and Latimer, co. Bucks., to the south-east. 



Hertford. — Five Roman earthen vessels were found separately, but within a radius of 15 ft., 

 at a depth of 3 ft., west of a house on the brow of Mangrove Hill as it slopes towards Queen's 

 Road, in 1899-1900. They included one imitation Samian saucer, with a broad rim round the 

 middle of it, 4 in. in diameter ; two Castor vases, 4 in. and 4^ in. high, one decorated with 

 arches in white clay, the other vsrith raised spots ; two coarse vases, one in grey, the other in 

 red, 4 in. and 4! in. high. In one was a ' rusty nail.' About a hundred fragments of unglazed 

 black ware also were turned up in pulling down the Turk's Head Inn in Railway Street in 

 May 1899. [East Herts. Arch. Sac. Trans, i (2), 181-4]. 



Hexton. — ' Quantities of gold and silver coins, principally Roman and Saxon, have been found ' 

 [Lewis, Topog. Did. (1831), s.v. Hexton], perhaps thus interpreting a reference to 'coins' 

 being found about Ravensburgh Castle and Wayting Hill (both pre-Roman earthworks) 

 and in the barrows between there and Leagrave, co. Beds. [Salmon, Hist, of Herts. (1728), 170, 

 and Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough 1789), i, 342]. 



156 



