CELTIC AND ROMANO-BRITISH HERTFORDSHIRE 



measuring 7 ft. 7 in. long, 3 ft. 8 in. wide, and paved with a floor of mortar was built into 

 one room (3) and was probably a bath, for the rooms adjoining it (1-3) appear to have been 

 the bath buildings of the house. A later partition wall divided the originally large room 

 into two (2 and 3). They were separated from the rest of the house by a room (5) with walls 

 4 J ft. thick, one end of which had been worked into an apse. It was io|^ ft. wide and 

 13 J ft. long, and was paved with a very hard rammed-concrete floor 14 in. thick. Outside 

 the apse pieces of stone paving occurred. Adjoining it was a room (6) 21 ft. 7 in. long, 

 10 ft. 2 in. wide, and its floor a foot higher than (5) and covered with a tessellated pave- 

 ment in red and white parallel lines with a ' gridiron pattern ' in the centre. Beyond it 

 were two other rooms, one with a rounded fillet on two sides and containing a deposit of 

 charcoal and many animal bones on the centre of its 'mortar' floor, which was 6 in. 

 above (6). More rooms were traceable in this direction, but were not planned, for the floors 

 were here level with the present surface and had been destroyed by the plough. The walls 

 varied in thickness from i ft. 9 in. to 2 ft. 10 in., and everywhere were very close to 

 the surface. They were built of flint and mortar with tiles at the quoins and sometimes in 

 bonding courses, and in the face of the divisional wall of (3) was ' herring-bone walling 

 with radiating bricks.' Painted wall plaster occurred and a rubbish pit full of bones and 

 pottery outside the big furnace. ' Many cart-loads of broken roofing, flooring and flue tiles ' and 

 faced flints were removed. The small objects found in the debris included Upchurch ware, 

 white mortaria, a perforated hd, glass ' vessels of flne quality,' thick bottle glass and window 

 glass, a bronze steelyard, pieces of bronze, an iron gouge, a key, a style, nails, bone pins 

 and a ' band for ladies' hair,' bones of ox, sheep, red-deer, swine, goat, fox and birds, and 

 quantities of oyster shells — the bones and shells found on the floor of room (7) and the 

 following coins : 



Gallienus [a.d. 253-68] 

 2 Victorinus [a.d. 265-8] 



Tetricus [a.d. 268—73] 



Tetricus II [a.d. 268-73] 



Carausius [a.d. 286—93] 



The field in which the building stood yielded the following ; 



Allectus [a.d. 293] 

 Constantino [a.d. 306-37] 

 Valentinian II [a.d. 375-92] 

 Barbarous imitations 



Severus [a.d. 193-21 i] 

 Gallienus [a.d. 253-68] 

 Salonina [a.d. 253-68] 

 Victorinus [a.d. 265 -8] 

 Tetricus I [a.d. 268-73] 

 Tetricus II [a.d. 268-73] 

 Claudius Gothicus [a.d. 268-70] 

 Carausius [a.d. 286-93] 

 Allectus [a.d. 293] 

 4 Constantine I [a.d. 306-37] 



Crispus [a.d. 317-26] 

 2 Constantine II [a.d. 337—40] 

 2 Constans [a.d. 337-50] 

 Constautius II [a.d. 337-61] 

 Magnentius [a.d. 350-3] 

 Valentinian [a.d. 364—75] 

 Valens [a.d. 364-78] 

 Gratian [a.d. 375-83] 

 Several barbarous imitations 



It is obvious that here we have only a small part of a building, and too small even to 

 discover to what type of house its plan belonged. To judge from the coins, it was not built 

 till the beginning or middle of the 3rd century a.d., like many of the houses in Britain. 

 It was occupied for some time, as the excavators observed many traces of structural alterations, 

 and it was still standing in the late 4th or early 5th century, when no doubt it formed a 

 shelter to some members of a more unciviHzed race, unused to baths or kitchens, who 

 cooked their food on an open fire made in the middle of the large room, leaving split 

 marrow and other bones as traces of their habitation. Charcoal and ashes also occurred 

 in the centre of most of the rooms and were thought to be the remains of primitive fire- 

 places, not of the burnt roof. If this is so the large amount of building debris lying above 

 the foundations and other lack of evidence of fire (unless it has not been recorded) suggest 

 that the house was allowed to fall into ruins and was not destroyed by violence. [Ransom, 

 Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc. Trans. (1886), iv (2), 43-6, with plan]. 



Wymondley, Little. — ^A cemetery was found about 5 ft. below the surface about 1847 in 

 excavating a river 2 miles long near Little Wymondley, apparently not far from Stotfold 

 Mill, but the site is not precisely described. It contained many plain vases or urns 

 of rough yellow clay, some containing bones and smaller vessels. One jug-shaped bottle 

 at least was found. Near them lay a few small iron nails with thick heads and bent and 

 arranged in a semicircle and equal distances apart, probably binding some wood or leather 

 object. No other details are given. \Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. (1849), iv, 72-3]. See also 

 Hitchin, where many Roman finds have been made, and Willian. 



YouNGSBURY. — See Standon. 



171 



