146 Hadrians Wall. [Sess, 



villa is chieliy remarkable because it shows ns one of the 

 very few examples of the presence of windows in Roman 

 houses in the north. A splayed window in stone occupies 

 the centre of the semicircular apse, which is an invariable 

 feature in all Roman villas. The use of the apse can only 

 be guessed at. Jt has been variously described as a bath 

 and as the private chapel of the house. 



In this villa is seen very perfectly the manner in which 

 the Romans heated their houses. Open fireplaces, if they 

 existed for this purpose, were not common, and the artificial 

 heat which our rigorous climate demanded was obtained by 

 an elaborate hot-air installation. It was done in this way. 

 The ground-floor of the house was raised up over the 

 foundations on rows of short pillars, usually about two feet 

 high, thus forming all over the area a space like the crypt 

 of a cathedral on a small scale. Upon these pillars there 

 was first laid a floor of heavy tiles, and among these, at 

 regular intervals, were laid rows of tiles of a special kind 

 known as flue-tiles, which were square hollow pipes and had an 

 opening on their under sides. These, carefully jointed together 

 and laid across from side to side at regular intervals, were 

 continued up the walls of the house. Upon the top of this 

 floor of tiles there was then laid a layer of concrete six 

 inches thick, and this was continued up the side walls with 

 cement, thus forming an absolutely smoke tight covering. 

 Upon this concrete floor were laid these mosaic floors, which 

 still, after sixteen hundred years, delight the eye by the 

 freshness of the colouring and the beauty of their design. 

 Outside of the house, very like the furnace for heating a 

 modern greenhouse, was placed the furnace which supplied 

 the heat, which, passing through the pillars of the hypocaust, 

 entered the flue-tiles by the openings in their lower surfaces 

 and so passed over the walls. Of course a chimney would 

 be necessary at some convenient place to carry off the smoke 

 and to create the necessary draught. And to-day you can, 

 by removing a stone loosened for the purpose, see the flue- 

 tiles in position, and see the soot from the fires, cold for 

 sixteen centuries, still clinging to the stones. 



We have been jumping about during this description of a 

 station between four different points, somewhat widely separ- 



