A ROMAN VILLA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19939, 5 November 1926, Page 12

A ROMAN VILLA.

INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. Within a fenced area on the wooded summit of Ashtead Common great trees have been felled, and excavations are gradually revealing the ground plan and part of the actual structure o f a fine Homan village believed to date from about 100 A.D., f tales the Daily Telegraph. Both for drainage and defensive purposes such buildings were usually arect-ed on high ground, and in isolated positions, and this conformed to both those conditions. Its great age is testified by the fact that before the clearing was made trees many hundred years okl stood there, and the remains were covered by half a yard of soil. The first, indication of the likely presence of remains came to Mr Anthony W. Lowthcr. through the discovery of several pieces of ancient tiling, towards the end of 1924. Archaeologists became interested in the discovery, and with the permission of the lord of the manor, Mr A. R. Cotton, excavation work was begun under the direction of a committee of experts, and the immediate supervision of Mr Lowthe.r. Apparently the structure was of flint, with tile courses, and the flint must have been conveyed about two miles up to the spot. First to be revealed were the foundations and walls of a bath with heating chambers. Later the north-east end of the villa itself has been traced, and two paved rooms and a hypocaust revealed. Hollow tiles, in many cases curiously marked bv the workmen. and standing in their original position, plainly show the method of internal heating adopted by the Romans. _ These upright rectangular tiles began in chambers beneath the floors and lined the inner wails oi the living rooms. Sunken furnaces outside the building filled the chambers wuth hot air, and this-passed through the hollow tiles and out into the open through chimneys, warming the rooms on its way, the circulator in its earliest form as applied to dwellings. . The “finds” assembled are exceedingly interesting. They include tiles for walls, roofing, and floors in splendid preservation; window glass which, if not transparent, is translucent; articles for use and ornament in considerable variety and different materials; coins, a portion of gold chain, and iron safety-pin brooches so like in construction to the modern safety-pin as to suggest there is nothing new under the sun.