Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- Great Britain
(36) A little light is thrown on two Somerset 'villas' in _Notes and
Queries for Somerset and Dorset_ (xiv. 1914). (_a_) Skinner in 1818
excavated a 'villa' near Camerton which he recorded in his manuscripts.
(British Mus. Add. 33659, &c.) and which I described in print in the
_Victoria History of Somerset_ (i. 315). His account did not, however,
enable one to fix the precise site; he said only that it stood south
of a certain Ridgeway and next to a field called Chessils. Mr. E. J.
Holmroyd has now, with the aid of tithe maps, discovered a field called
Chessils in the north of Midsomer Norton parish, about a mile east of
Paulton village, at the point where a lane called in the Ordnance Survey
'Coldharbour Lane', which runs north and south, cuts a lane running
east and west from Camerton to Paulton; this latter lane keeps to high
ground and must be Skinner's Ridgeway. In Chessils and in adjoining
fields called Cornwell, just 525 feet above sea-level, he has, further,
actually found Roman potsherds, tiles, and rough tesserae. This, as he
says (_Notes and Queries_, xiv. 5, and in a letter to me) will be the
site of Skinner's 'villa.' (_b_) In the same publication (p. 122) I have
pointed out that the Parish Award (1798) of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater,
contains a field-name Chesters. This, as the Rector of Chedzoy attests,
is still in use there, as the name of an orchard on the Manor Farm, just
west of Chedzoy village. According to older statements, a hypocaust was
long ago found in 'Slapeland', and Slapeland too lies west of Chedzoy
village (see _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 359). Two bits of slender
evidence seem thus to confirm each other, although no actual Roman
remains have been noted at Chedzoy lately.
(37) In the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_ (xxvi.
137-44) Mr. A. Bulleid describes, with illustrations, some excavations
which he lately made in the marshes north of the Polden Hills, near
Cossington and Chilton. Here are curious mounds which have often been
taken for some kind of potteries, and are so explained by Mr. Bulleid;
many of these mounds were excavated about a hundred years ago, and Mr.
Bulleid has now dug into others. His results are not very conclusive,
but they seem to imply that the mounds, whatever they were, were not
used for pottery making, since among many relics of various sorts no
'wasters' have been found. See further, for an account of the finds in
this region, _Victoria Hist. of Somerset_, i. 351-3.
_Surrey_
(38) The _Surrey Archaelogical Collections_ (vol. xxvi) note various
small Roman finds--Roman bricks in the walls of Fetcham Church, possibly
Roman plaster at Stoke D'Abernon Church (p. 123), some thirty coins
and Roman urns and glass from Ewell (pp. 135, 148), and an urn from
Camberwell (p. 149). The same journal (vol. xxvii, p. 155) notes the
discovery, not hitherto recorded, of over 100 coins of A.D. 296-312 in
an urn dug up in 1904 at Normandy Manor Nurseries, near Guildford.
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