Londinium, Architecture and the CraftsLethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
History
Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts
Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
England -- Antiquities, Roman; London (England) -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- England -- London
_Birchin Lane, etc._—In 1785 a small piece was discovered here of “a
fine tesselated pavement of very small bricks and stones; of this, only
one corner appeared, which is composed of black, green, and white stones
and brick, forming a beautiful border.” Another account says that “the
tesseræ measured about one-quarter of an inch and were of various
colours.” I am particular about this, for the bright colours were
doubtless of glass. I find a contemporary drawing of this fragment in
the Guildhall Library, from which it appears that there was a fair blue
besides the colours mentioned. (Fig. 93; compare Fig. 92 and a border
illustrated by Mr. Ward.) Outside it were big red “brick” tesseræ. There
is in the Guildhall Museum a fragment of another mosaic found in Birchin
Lane. It is part of a star-shaped all-over pattern of a well-known type
(the Barton Cirencester, etc.). Fig. 94 A shows the fragment, and Fig.
95 is a diagram of the complete pattern. Another piece at the Guildhall
has a sea-monster of small scale but most skilful execution. The place
of finding is not noted, but it is probably a fragment discovered in
Birchin Lane in 1857, described in _V.C.H._ as part of a pavement
“representing a sea-horse.” Two other small pieces in the same museum
are very similar in colour and quality, and may have come from the same
source. One of these seems to have belonged to a pavement of square
panels of knot-work framed in scroll bands (Fig. 94, B), or it may have
been part of a panelled border similar to Fig. 92. Morsels of painted
plaster were also found in Birchin Lane, where there must have been a
good house.
[Illustration:
FIG. 96.
]
A fragment of mosaic at the London Museum comes from another all-over
star-pattern similar to that at the Guildhall, but this piece was next
to the outer border of the pavement. This fragment is of particularly
beautiful colouring—quite a purple floor. I give a sketch of the
fragment in Fig. 96; it must have come next the border of a pattern like
Fig. 95.
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