238 



The Roman Villa at Box. 



form as though intended for a seat, but now only 8 inches high. The pattern 

 of this passage is particularly elegant. The ground colour is white ; the 

 exterior tesserae coarse ; the blue lines of smaller cubes form the borders, 

 6 feet about, and the intermediate space is filled with semicircles, forming 

 waving lines, blue, crossing each other at right angles ; these are again 

 intersected by others of half the diameter, with their extremities united in 

 the centre, and terminating in small crosses shaded with red and yellow, 

 white and blue, and producing the most beautiful effect. I have preserved 

 several specimens of the plaster from the walls, the colours of which are very 

 bright when first exposed to the air. The patterns were principally imitations 

 of Egyptian marble, with elegant coloured borderings, but I have not been 

 able to discover a decided figure on any of the pieces. One small vase 

 holding about a pint, apparently of British workmanship, was taken up near 

 the pillars, but unfortunately damaged by the spade. Numberless fragments 

 of earthen vessels, small pieces of pavement, tesserae, and Koman bricks, are 

 now in my possession. One room was evidently paved with square red 

 bricks, quite plain. One small coin only was found, and this was so far 

 corroded as to be wholly illegible. There is another piece of pavement 

 (which, however, I have never seen), in a distant part of my garden ; and the 

 whole of the original buildings, if square, must have covered a considerable 

 portion of ground, the most distant of the pavements being at least fifty 

 yards apart." 



Although no plan accompanied this letter the late excavations 

 have made it quite easy to identify the various pavements described, 

 which will be referred to later when dealing with the respective 

 chambers to which they belonged. 



The next notice of the villa, so far as is known, occurs in the 

 British Archceohgical Journal for 1860 (xvi., 340), in a short 

 article by H. Syer Cuming, quoting a letter received from a friend 

 of his who occupied a house on the site (probably that formerly 

 occupied by Mr. Mullins,) who says : — 



" My garden is full of Roman remains — tiles somewhat ornamented, but 

 broken, bricks, tesselated pavement, fused iron, &c. I send all away to 

 mend the roads ; they are a perfect nuisance. We cannot put a spade into the 

 ground without bringing up these impediments to vegetable growth. There 

 is a bath quite perfect, in the centre of the garden. It has been opened, but 

 is covered up ; and a beautiful pavement runs all about. The bits I dug up 

 were white and black, very coarse work." 



Mr. Cuming goes on to say : — 



" I begged my friend to send me up some of the remains from his garden, 

 which he has kindly done, and a selection is now before you, consisting of 

 tesselae of rather rough-hewn dice of white limestone, and portions of four 



