Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/53

Rh The fire was kindled on one side, and the chamber for this purpose is also clearly defined in the smaller hypocaust at the south-west angle, on the floor of which, portions of several of the piers remain.

The plan of the other mansion, discovered at Chesterford, was of a more compact kind than the one just described. (See Plan). It exceeded 100 feet in length on either side, and each end measured 49 feet, the width of the wings being 26 feet, and the depth of the centre or body of the house full 40 feet. Each wing contained two apartments, and the centre three, towards the east, with a gallery or corridor at the back. The hypocaust was sunk under the room in the north-west angle, the flues being formed in a solid mass of flint-work, the cavities are about 9 inches wide, laid herring-bone fashion, the sides being finished with plaster. The adjoining room retains a fragment of the tessellated pavement with which it had been completed: it is in small squares of an uniform red colour. The principal walls are 2 feet 8 inches in thickness, composed in the manner common in this neighbourhood, of flint and blocks of chalk in even courses, but without any extra thickness at the bottom. The angles, as in the previous example, are formed wholly of brick, varying from 15 inches to 10 inches square, and 8 inches to 1 inch in thickness, and mortar joints of 1 inch. There is no appearance of this material in any other part of the construction. The whole of these foundations have sustained considerable injury: at the highest point they measure 2 feet 7 inches, but none of the walls have been entirely uprooted. The course of the flues designed to communicate warmth to all the apartments, seems to be clearly indicated by the thinner walls upon which they were supported, passing from the heating chamber in two places, from one along the gallery and turning at right angles stretching along the south wing, from the other by a branch extending along the centre, but at a greater distance from the front wall than in the parallel line of flue on the west side. The same mode of giving security to the foundations and of preventing in some degree the penetration of the damp, was adopted in this as in the foregoing instance: in both, the process of excavation has produced a vast variety of specimens of painting, showing that the walls of the different apartments of these houses possessed expensively finished decorations of this kind. The colours remain perfectly brilliant, and several fragments of plaster thus finished were found of sufficiently large dimensions to exhibit figures and patterns, such as a foot and the lower part of the toga, of (apparently) a person dancing, a very perfect red rose and flowers, arranged as trellis-work. A small circular pillar of stone, exactly similar to one found in the Roman villa at Hadstock, was discovered here: pottery also in abundance appeared, but in small fragments, many of superior quality, and with embossed ornaments, as well as much of a very common kind. Tiles of a curved form, some with zigzag patterns, flanged on one side, like those used to form covers to graves, or over apertures, were among the rubbish removed from the ruins, and the bones of animals have been discovered on all these occasions.

The subject of the latest discovery in this prolific tract of ground is of singular interest, on account of the general resemblance the building represented by the foundation bears to a "temple," the name which was at once