GO 



Roman Villa at North Wraxhall. 



middle of tho southern wall of this inclosure are the square foun- 

 dations of what were probably the piers of its entrance gates. On 

 tho outer sido of this tho foundations wero uncovered of at least 

 two other separate ranges of building, each possessing several 

 apartments or small courts, and the whole inclosed by other boundary 

 walls to the south and east, the latter being the prolongation at a 

 very obtuse angle of the eastern wall of the first described inclosure. 

 On various points of these foundation walls several heavy squared 

 blocks of hard stone were met with from two to three feet across, 

 and from eighteen inches to two feet in thickness, which from their 

 position, as well as from the mortice-holes cut into some of them 

 would seem to have been the bases of gate-piers, and in some in- 

 stances of columns, or heavy square pillars. Indeed two square 

 bases of such pillars, with a very good oval moulding were found 

 in one place entire. To the northern extremity of one of these 

 ranges of building there was attached a furnace, with its ashpit, 

 having holes on either side as if to receive iron bars for the support 

 of the fuel. 



Among the rubbish of the buildings are many well cut and 

 squared stones formed of a Calcareous Tuff full of cavities, which 

 was no doubt taken from the side of a neighbouring hill where it 

 is still deposited in great abundance by a spring strongly impreg- 

 nated with carbonate of lime. This stone was probably employed 

 for the vaulting of roofs owing to its lightness, as a very similar 

 tuff is found so employed by the old Eoman builders in many parts 

 of Italy. A good many mill- stones or hand-querns, some entire, 

 many broken, were also dug up. They are formed of a quartzose 

 pebbly grit, probably from the coal measures. 



Many of the walls had evidently been disturbed down to their 

 foundations on several points, and in part removed either for the 

 sake of the building materials they afforded or because in the way 

 of the plough. The buildings had been roofed with stone-tiles 

 from the schistose sandstone of the coal formation of the Yale of 

 Severn. These were neatly cut into the form of elongated hexa- 

 gons, and the roof composed of them must have presented a hand- 

 some and ornamental character. (See plate iv. fig. 14.) The iron nails 



