By G. Poulett Scrope, Esq., M.P. 



67 



by which these tiles were fastened to the rafters generally remained 

 in the holes drilled through their upper angles. Very strong 

 timber must have been needed to carry such a roof, the tiles averag- 

 ing in weight at least 5 lbs. They measured about a foot in 

 width, and eighteen inches in length. It is remarkable that the 

 Roman builders should have preferred to employ the heavy tile- 

 stone of the coal formation which had to be fetched from a distance 

 of at least fifteen miles, instead of that of the lighter Forest-marble 

 beds, which might have been quarried close by, and which has 

 been exclusively used for roofing purposes in the neighbourhood 

 in modern times. The same kind of stone-tile and of the same 

 hexagonal pattern seems to have been employed by them at 

 Uriconium, according to the recent discoveries of Mr. "Wright. 

 The roofs were topped by a ridge crest of stone hollowed out, each 

 piece fitting into its neighbour like the modern drain-pipes. Some 

 of these were found entire, and several in fragments. The apex of 

 the gables, as has been said, seems to have been capped by an 

 ornamental pinnacle. 



At the distance of about sixty yards outside the western boundary 

 of the group of buildings hitherto described, indications of walls 

 induced a search which led to the discovery of the foundations of 

 four or five contiguous chambers, measuring inside about twelve feet 

 by seven ; the outer walls of the neighbouring chambers being sepa- 

 rated by a narrow interval, or pathway, from 18 inches to two 

 feet wide. Within these inclosures the earth had evidently been 

 disturbed. On digging within the central chamber the workmen 

 came upon an oblong hole excavated in the rock, and containing 

 at the depth of six feet an entire skeleton doubled up, as well as a 

 number of iron nails. This was evidently a grave in which a 

 body had been interred in a wooden coffin that had been at 

 some time broken up. In an adjoining chamber to the north 

 another similar grave was found, in which at the depth of five 

 feet lay a skeleton apparently undisturbed in a direction nearly 

 east and west, the head being to the west. In this grave there 

 were no nails or other indications of a coffin, except that several 

 broad slab-stones, of no great size however, had been placed edge- 



f 2 



