Notes. 635 



243 Nicholson (F.) Rural Scenery in Italy, thirteen fine Draw- 

 ings in Water- Colours (from sketches by Sir R. C. Hoare), about 

 21mj. by 16m. neatly mounted on cards in a volume, russia gilt r 

 g. e. joints cracked. 



Roman Rubbish Heap at Basset Down. In August, 



1913, my attention was called by Mrs. Story Maskelyne to the fact that 

 a labourer in digging a hole for a gatepost just at the top of the hill 

 above the cutting of the farm road at the back of the grounds of Basset 

 Down House, had come upon a number of fragments of pottery which 

 he had brought down to the house. I went over to Basset Down 

 within a few days, and found that Mrs. Maskelyne had had a square 

 hole dug beside the post out of which a number more fragments had 

 come. She very kindly took her gardener up with us to the spot, and 

 he dug down to the solid chalk, finding more sherds, which appeared 

 to be most abundant in a layer of darker earth about 2ft. underground, 

 but as the spot was in the mound of a hedgerow on a slope it is difficult 

 to say exactly what the original level of the ground was, nor could we 

 discover any sign of its having been either a pit or a ditch. Mrs. 

 Maskelyne, however, very kindly proposed further digging on the spot 

 in the winter to try and settle this point. The objects found showed 

 quite clearly that it was the rubbish heap of a Roman dwelling which 

 must have stood near here. The majority of the fragments were of a 

 hard well-made grey ware of various thicknesses and shapes, but there 

 were also fragments of brown and good hard red ware, black ware with 

 " trellis " marking, three fragments of good plain Samian, a piece of an 

 apparently circular tile or flat brick lin. thick, and several fragments 

 of rough burnt clay showing a straight edge, and having the whole 

 surface pitted with what looks like the chaff or husks of corn ? It is 

 difficult to say what these pieces are. Part of the upper stone of a 

 quern and broken animals' bones were also found. The more important 

 fragments have been kindly given to the Museum by Mrs. Maskelyne. 



Ed. H. GrODDARD. 



Skeleton found at Preston, in Lyneham. In 1912 Mr. 



H. Hathway, tenant of West Preston Farm, found a considerable 

 portion of a human skull, at the mouth of a foxes' and badgers' earth 

 in a field called " Witchhill," which with the adjoining field nearer the 

 farm has been entirely quarried. Stone is being quarried in the next 

 field, and from the extent of very irregular ground, mounds and hollows 

 here the quarrying operations must have carried on probably for 

 many centuries. The hedge dividing the two fields runs over a more 

 or less conical mound of considerable height, which has much the 

 appearance of a barrow, and it was on the side of this mound facing 

 the brook which runs at the bottom of the field that the skull was 

 found. The top of the mound had of late years sunk into a hollow. 

 Mr. Hathway very kindly called my attention to the matter, presented 

 the skull to the Museum, and asked me to examine the mound with a 



