Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/44

28 details of ancient construction, of which admirable drawings and a plan were preserved by Mr. J. C. Buckler, as also a valuable descriptive report. Mr. Neville has not only placed all these at our disposal, but he has generously presented the accompanying illustrations.

A great part of the foundations had, unfortunately, been taken up some years since, for the purpose of repairing the highways. There are several persons in the neighbourhood who state their recollection that, some twenty years ago, a great quantity of stones were obtained from what appeared to be very thick and solid walls. The line was indeed perceived, during the late operations, where the earth had been formerly moved, and the foundations broken up. It afforded indications, with the vestiges actually brought to light, that this villa must have been unusually extensive. The following memorials, by Mr. Buckler, will enable the reader to appreciate the interest and importance of these remains:—

"At the distance of about 150 yards, in a south-easterly direction, from the isolated fragment of a massive wall of Roman workmanship, formerly noticed, have recently been brought to light the foundations of a villa, with which have been preserved a greater variety of interesting features than appeared in the remains of other examples of similar buildings discovered at Ickleton and Chesterford, and described in the Archaeological Journal, Vol. vi., p. 14. In those instances, the walls, wherever any portions of them remained, had been destroyed, to within about two feet of their foundation; but, in the present instance, the destruction which seems to have commenced at one angle, extending even to the uprooting of the foundations, was stayed ere the buildings were uniformly demolished to the level of the ground or principal floor; and in this example it is evident that the subterranean chambers suffered greater injury from the descent of the materials of the superincumbent walls, at the time of their overthrow, than from violence offered to them in any other way

"The severity, with which the work of mischief commenced, precludes the possibility of knowing either the utmost extent or complete figure of the building; whilst the sparing hand, with which the sentence of destruction was finally carried out, has left so many intelligible remains in addition to a connected series of walls, that a considerable variety of