By A. D. Passmore. 45 



operations on that horizon have revealed the fact that a large area 

 of land there was quarried in Roman times. The curious building 

 on the north-east corner of the Roman house may, therefore, have 

 been a limekiln. 



Leading up north from here are long hollows right across the 

 hill, and where they are cut through and exposed in the Westlecote 

 Quarry (wherein was the Roman house, now destroyed,) it is 

 plainly seen that the limestone and some harder rock below has 

 been removed, the excavation was then filled in by the waste sand 

 and turf, throughout the mass of which are numerous fragments 

 of Roman pottery and bones of edible animals, but nothing of a 

 later age. To this ancient quarrying is to be attributed the dis- 

 turbance and scattering of the third interment described above. 



Tbese facts led to an examination of the huge but little known 

 Roman foundations at Lotmead and Covingham Farms at Lower 

 Wanborougli, where a large town once existed on the junction of 

 the doubtfully-named Ermin Way and the road from Winchester. 

 Here Hoare committed an unfortunate error, by ■naming the 

 town on no evidence, Nidum. Wanborough, judging from the im- 

 portance of its buildings and the richness of the pottery found on 

 the site, must be the missing station in the thirteenth route of the 

 Antonine Itinerary, while Nidum is included in Iter XII. The 

 Roman name of Wanborough is lost, unless part of it exists in the 

 names of Nythe and Covingham. Swindon Stone (Portlandian) 

 was found in the foundations, which establishes the important fact 

 that in Roman times, possibly in the 1st century A. D., the valuable 

 limestones and building stones of Swindon Hill were worked by a 

 resident quarryman on behalf of the Roman station at Wanborough, 

 only 2\ miles away in a straight line. As there must have been 

 a good road between the two places, interesting speculations as 

 regards the Mercian advance to the battle of Ellandune are raised. 



In the autumn of 1906 the extension of the large clay pit 

 situated east of Victoria Road, 1 revealed the remains of a Roman 



1 Owned by Mr. George Whitehead, through whose enlightened generosity 

 a magnificent series of reptilian remains from the Kimmeridge Clay have 

 been preserved. 



