By Harold Brakspear, F.S.A. 



239 



square flue pipes of red terra-cotta from the hypocaust, which are useful for 

 comparison with examples found in London and elsewhere. The majority 

 of the pipes met with at Box are scored with the common diamond pattern, 

 a few have only bands of parallel lines, whilst one fragment is decorated with 

 a succession of waved or undulated furrows of more novel design. From 

 more careful examination of these air conduits I am inclined to regard them 

 as the products of different kilns, for they vary both in hardness and colour 

 and above all in the character of the material, which must have been obtained 

 from different localities. The only example of stucco which has reached me 

 is a fragment of the fine variety called albarium ; but much of the walling 

 has been painted in fresco, in imitation of African marbles, with elegant 

 coloured borderings." 1 



1 In his AqucB Solis, published 1864, Preb. Scarth, in his map marks the 

 sites of seventeen or eighteen Roman villas existing within a radius of seven 

 miles round Bath, of which this at Box is one, another at Ditteridge is 

 scarcely more than a mile away, and a third at Colerne not more than two 

 miles. Of the Box villa he says : — " The tesselated floors of three rooms were 

 found here quite perfect, but the patterns are plain and the work coarsely 

 executed. The most interesting portion is the remains of the bath ; the sides 

 and circular end of which were covered with tesserae of white lias. Careful 

 drawings have, I understand, been made of these pavements, which were 

 situated in gardens in the middle of the village. The remains of a hypocaust 

 have also been found, with several pillars entire, and a Roman bath is also 

 stated to have been found on the south side of the churchyard." 



On page 127 he remarks : — " There are certain particulars of these villas 

 (round Bath) which are worthy of notice. The regularity of their form. 

 They were either built round a court, and formed three sides of a square ; or 

 else ran in a straight line, often with a projecting portion at right angles to 

 the main body of the building. They were all provided with a hypocaust 

 and baths, and had tesselated pavements of elegant workmanship. They 

 were accompanied with outbuildings, and situated in an area of some extent 

 enclosed by a boundary wall, within which were interments of two kinds, 

 viz., cremation and inhumation. The villas were supplied with earthenware 

 utensils of every description, and with glass, both for windows and domestic 

 use. Coins are found in the greatest abundance and to the latest period of 

 the Roman occupation. The situations are well-chosen, and the villas are 

 for the most part represented at the present day by elegant modern country 

 houses in the same localities and near the same sites. They were always 

 well supplied with water, and the wells were of excellent construction. The 

 villas round Bath do not seem to have equalled in dimensions those laid open 

 in other parts of England, as at Woodchester or Bignor, nor the elegant 

 remains which exist at Lydney, in Gloucestershire . . . The superstructure 

 of these villas is a subject which has caused much perplexity ; and antiquarians 

 are not decided as to whether the upper portions were constructed of stone or 

 wood. I am inclined to think that wood must have furnished the materials 

 of the upper portions, and that the stone walls were only carried to a certain 



