Page:VCH Northamptonshire 1.djvu/255

 ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE With it were found coins of Agrippa (' second brass,') Vespasian and others — nearly all fourth century — some other pavements of inferior character, two cisterns or cesspools, and other smaller objects. The ' villa ' was obviously a comfortable one.* (8) Great Weldon. Here was a fine ' villa,' placed on gently rising ground to the north of the Willow Brook, in Chapelfield — not an uncommon name for sites containing Roman or other ancient founda- tions. It was detected and partially uncovered in the spring of 1738. The building excavated measured 45 by 96 feet and comprised a corridor 10 feet wide, which formed the entire eastern (or rather south-eastern) face of the building, and six rooms, which opened westwards out of the corridor (fig. 22). The foundations of the building were of local Stanion stone ; the walls were thought to have been constructed in wood. Higher up the slope more foundations were noticed, and it is plain that the excavated portion was but a fragment of a large house. Four mosaics — all imperfectly preserved — were found and copied. They all formed centre panels for floors of plain tessera and were all geometrical in design. Two of them were long ornamental centre strips, each 5 feet wide, in the corridor. One of these, at the north end of the corridor, was a purely geometrical design in blue, white (or yellow) and grey ; the other, at the south end, had a conventional foliated pattern outlined in blue and red on brown and yellow grounds. A third pavement in one of the northern rooms showed a design which was outlined in red on the outside and in blue in the centre on a ground of grey. The fourth, in the southernmost room, had an intricate pattern of knots, Asiatic shields, squares and diamonds, in red, white and blue. The coins found on the spot range from about a.d. 260-353 ; most of them are Con- stantinian, and we may suppose that the villa was occupied, at any rate, during the first half of the fourth century.^ (9) Ashley, 4 miles east of Market Harborough, close to the Welland, which is the Leicestershire boundary. Here pavements, pottery, coins and other objects were found in a field called Alderstone when the Rugby and Stamford railway was constructed.' The site is hardly a mile from Medbourne in Leicestershire, where mosaics and other evidences of permanent occupation have several times been noted. A Roman road can be traced from Leicester to Medbourne, but its continuation into Northamptonshire is uncertain. Gentleman's Magazine, 1737, p. 256 ; Stukeley's Letters, iii. 33, 49 and Carausius, i. 170 ; Gough, jfJJ. to Camden, ii. 286 ; Gibson's Castor, p. 173; Vetusta Monumenta, i. pi. 48 ; Artis, pi. Ix. For the finds of 1798 see Gibson's Castor, p. 173, with a plate topsyturvy ; Artis, pi. lix. ; Wm. Fowler's Tessellated Pavements ; the Wollaston drawings in the South Kensington Museum. Part of the pavement found in 1736 was taken to Dene House (Stukeley, Diaries, iii. 67). Gibson's Castor, p. 172 ; Gough, Jdd. to Camden, ii. 284, etc. Apian was made by Lens and engraved by Cole at the time of finding ; coloured copies of this are in the library of the Society of Antiquaries and in the Bodleian (Gough Collection). It was enlarged by Lysons (i. 3, pi. vii.), but his colouring is apparently inexact. The rather different plan given by Gibson and Gough is from a rough inaccurate sketch by Stukeley, of which I have a MS. copy. ' F. Whellan, Hist, of Northamptonshire (cd. 2, 1874), p. 781. The site was knowrn earlier as a Roman site (see Nichols' Leicestershire, i. p. cliv.). 193
 * For the finds of 1736 see ^Northampton Mcnui-y, March 23, 1 737 ; Daily Gazetteer, April I, 1737 ;
 * Stukeley, Letters, iii. 40, i9i — Relliguiir Galeance in Nichols' Bibl. Topogr. Brit. ii. 460 ; hence