Monument record MDO18604 - Colliton Park, Dorchester; Roman Building I, 'The Roman Town House'

A Late Roman town house was exposed in the NW corner of Colliton Park during excavations in 1937 and 1938. This building now displayed to the public and is known as the ‘Roman Town House’. It had a complex development history, which in its final form comprised two separate ranges of stone buildings, which were never directly interconnecting, aligned E-W and N-S., which underwent a number of phases of development, plus a number of timber structures. The walls were all similar in construction and consisted of mortared roughly-knapped flints laid in herring-bone courses with some use of limestone for quoins and bonding courses. They were generally plastered on both sides and were painted Pompeian red externally. The roofs appeared to have been of hexagonal limestone roof tiles. Eight of the rooms had tessellated floors. The West Range of eight rooms appears to have grown from a nucleus of two rectangular units which were subsequently joined together and elaborated. One room in this range had a hypocaust. One room in the northwest of this range was probably of two storeys. The South Range in its final form comprised a block of five rooms with a corridor along the northern side, based around a nucleus of a rectangular three-roomed unit. A heated room had been added to the west, a corridor to the north, and a kitchen to the east. There was evidence for an L-shaped post-built timber building forming the north and east sides of a courtyard with the stone buildings, and may have included a kitchen at its southern end. Further timber structures lay to the west of the South Range. The L-shaped building was apparently demolished in the 4th century and a cobbled path was laid over the top. Traces of another stone building were found further to the east, which were also sealed by this path. To the north of the South Range was a well, about 1m, which had been deliberately filled up with demolition debris, including the remains of several small stone columns and hexagonal stone bases, perhaps as a closing deposit. The site does not appear to have been built on previously and the earliest phases probably belong to the early 4th century AD. It probably continued in use until the late 4th or early 5th century, though there is no secure dating evidence for the end of the occupation in this building.

A Late Roman town house was exposed in the NW corner of Colliton Park during excavations in 1937 and 1938. Due to the outbreak of World War II, the excavations were never completed or written up. The following account is based on the interim report (1) and the Royal Commission Inventory entry (2). This building has been uncovered and is displayed to the public.

Building I had been deeply buried and was in a good state of preservation. The building had a complex development history which has not been fully elucidated to date. It comprised two separate ranges of stone buildings (which were never directly interconnecting) aligned E-W and N-S, and which underwent a number of phases of development, plus a number of timber structures. The house may have begun as a series of small simple three-roomed rectangular stone buildings which were subsequently enlarged and elaborated. The walls were all similar and consisted of mortared roughly-knapped flints laid in herring-bone courses with some use of limestone for quoins and bonding courses. The walls were generally plastered on both sides and were painted Pompeian red externally. The roofs appeared to have been of hexagonal limestone roof tiles. The site does not appear to have been built on previously and the earliest phases probably belong to the early 4th century AD.

The West Range appears to have grown from a nucleus of two three-roomed cells, one at the westernmost end of the range (Rooms 16-18) and the other further to the east (Rooms 10, 14). The western part of the range, in its final form comprised a narrow central room or passage (Room 16). A fragmentary mosaic was found close to the west wall, of coarse red and white tesserae in a grid pattern (4). Room 17 to the south was heated by a hypocaust fed by a stokehole added to the east wall. The arrangement of the flues running up the walls suggest the position of a window in the middle of the south wall. The tessellated floor appeared to have been deliberately broken up and consisted a red and white border of swastika meander enclosing concentric rectangles with a central panel perhaps of linked circles of guilloche and stepped triangles enclosing stylised flowers (4). The painted plaster on the south wall had a dark red border on the base and there were many fragments from panels and a floral pattern with a blue flower and green leaf. One fragment had the cursive graffito PATERNVS SCRIPSIT (Paternus wrote this). An earlier pit beneath the floor in the SE corner of the room produced a shale table leg (3). The northern Room 18 also had a tessellated floor in red on a white ground, of which only parts of the border survived, a swastika pattern within chevrons, with a dentil pattern to the east. There was an earlier pit in the NW corner of the room, with a number of flagstones overlying it, one of which was roughly inscribed VAL.

The eastern cell in its final form comprised three rooms (10, 14, 15), the existing northern room (15) is an enlargement and replacement of the original north room. Room 10 contained the main entrance to the wing and there was a window in the south wall. It was decorated with painted wall plaster in a rectangular panelled design with curvilinear elements. There was a tessellated floor in dark grey, white, red, yellow, blue-grey and pale grey, with an original central design of twelve octagonal panels which were formed by guilloche borders, with a guilloche or fret-bordered circle which enclosed a rosette pattern. The border was of swastikas between square chequered panels and two-strand guilloche along the southern side. Room 14 lay to the north of Room 10 and was divided from it by a partition. This room also had a coarse tessellated floor, of broad red and grey stripes. The simplicity of this mosaic suggests Room 14 was an anteroom (4). There was a step up into the northern room 15 which was of a different, more massive, construction with two buttresses to the east. There were straight joints with Room 14, indicating that it was an addition. A part of the collapsed wall lay to the east of this room and it is likely that Room 15 was originally two storeys high. It had the remains of a very fine but very fragmentary mosaic, which has been reconstructed by Cosh and Neal as having a central rectangular panel (now entirely lost) surrounded by an inner border of meandering guilloche with rectangular panels midway along each side containing a medallion, of which parts of two survive. These have been identified as Winter and perhaps Spring (or Autumn). The outer border comprises a band of coarse red tesserae closest to the walls with a band of white stepped triangles and then a swastika meander with rectangular panels containing guilloche (4). An infant burial lay outside the north wall. An earlier L-shaped pit was found beneath the floor. Parts of a later rough limestone floor were found in this room, which sealed a number of coins, the latest being an issue of 367-375 of Gratian.

A long rectangular room (Room 13) was inserted between the two original three-roomed units to link the two together, with a step down from Room 10 to the east. It contained a tessellated floor with an overall swastika-meander pattern in coarse red and white tesserae with a border of red and white chequers and a red band next to the wall. Over the threshold with Room 16, there was a coarse red and white tessellated mosaic (the pattern of which reflects the mosaic in Room 13), overlain by a later floor of stone flags. A drain at floor level in the north wall of Room 13 lead out to a stone-lined sump (which was also fed by similar drains from Rooms 14 and 18). A later chalk floor was apparently inserted into this room. A coin hoard of AD317 or later was buried near the east door.

A small room (Room 8) was added on to the southeast corner of Room 10. It was accessed by a doorway in the SE corner of Room 10. It was provided with a tessellated floor, which survives almost complete. A rough window sill survived in the centre of the eastern room. Fragments of painted plaster in a panelled design in black, blue, brown, green, red, and white were found in this room.

The South Range in its final form comprised a block of five rooms with a corridor along the northern side. Its nucleus was a three-roomed unit comprising Rooms 2, 3 and 6, to which a heated room had been added to the east (Room 7), a corridor to the north and a kitchen to the east. Rooms 2 and 6 had opus signinum floors. There was a plastered semi-circular niche recessed into the south wall of Room 2, perhaps for a domestic shrine. The cement floor in Room 6 may have been a late addition as it seals an earlier stoke hole for Room 7 in the southwest corner. A coin of Constans of 341-346 was found beneath the floor. Room 3 had no surviving flooring, but the walls had painted plaster in a green leaf pattern on red. An infant burial was found in the SE corner of Room 3 and another in the SW corner of Room 6. The corridor (Room 4) ran along the north side, with a step up to the east to form a small lobby (Room 1) at the north end of Room 3. The corridor was provided with a chalk floor. Room 5 was added on to the east of Rooms 1 and 3. Its walls were apparently unplastered and it had a rough limestone floor. In the NE corner of the room was a stone-lined oven and another in the southern half of the room. A rough hearth of tile and stone roof tiles was found near the north wall. This room was probably used as a kitchen. Several coins, the latest dating to 341-6, give a terminus post quem for the limestone floor. Room 7 was added on to the east end of the range, to the east of Room 6 and had a channelled hypocaust with an opus signinum floor supported on large limestone slabs. The hypocaust was originally fed by a stokehole in the SW corner of Room 6, but was later remodelled with a new external stokehole added on to the SW corner of the room. Painted plaster in a panelled, perhaps foliate, design in white and red with green and brown lines was recovered from this room.

To the west of the South Range parallel lines of postholes, with some evidence for the replacement of posts, indicated a timber building in this area, perhaps to shelter the stokeholes feeding Rooms 7 and 17, or forming a linking structure between the West and South Range. An L-shaped post-built timber building of two rooms was found forming the north and east sides of a courtyard with the West and South Ranges. The southern room had an oven in its southern end and it may have been a kitchen. This building was apparently demolished in the 4th century and a cobbled path was laid over the top. Traces of another stone building were found further to the east, which were also sealed by this path.

To the north of the South Range was a well measuring about 1m in diameter and 10m deep. It was deliberately filled up with demolition debris, including flints, mortar, plaster and stone roof tile, together with eight small stone columns, two hexagonal stone bases, and several slabs. These may have been deliberately placed as a closing deposit.

The dating evidence from the building suggests that it was constructed in the early 4th century and probably continued in use until the late 4th or early 5th century, though there is no secure dating evidence for the end of the occupation in this building.

Rigg, J, Field Investigators Comments JR, F1 JR 01-SEP-54 (Unpublished document). SWX1255.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 453300 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1937-1938, Colliton Park, Dorchester (Excavation archive). SDO10066.

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1939, Journal of Roman Studies, 219 (Serial). SDO20471.

Martin, P, and Valentin, J, 2003, The Roman Town House, Colliton Park, Dorchester: Results of an archaeological watching brief during the excavation of drainage trenches. (Unpublished document). SDO9594.

Cox, P W, 2006, Colliton Park Town House - Proposed Restoration by Dorset County Council of the South Range, Disabled Access Provision and Improvements to Drainage and Interpretation: Archaeological Impact Assessment (Unpublished document). SDO9768.

Kelland S, and Kelland L, 2009, Dorchester Roman Town House Conservation Work carried out December 2007-October 2009 (Unpublished document). SDO21159.

Green, Cheryl, 2021, Roman Town House, Dorchester, Dorset. An Archaeological Programme of Works. Report (Unpublished document). SDO20810.

Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F2 JGB 10-OCT-80 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<1> Drew, C D, and Collingwood Selby, K C, 1937, First Interim report on the Excavations at Colliton Park, Dorchester, 1937-1938. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 59, 1-14 (Article in serial). SDO9764.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 588 (Monograph). SDO149.

‘Monuments (182–187), in Colliton Park, now occupied by the County Council offices, were excavated in 1937–9 by C. D. Drew and K. C. C. Selby. Interim reports appeared in Dorset Procs. LIX (1937), 1–14, and LX (1938), 51–65. Where the following accounts differ from these reports they are based on unpublished finds and site notebooks in D.C.M., and on a re-examination of the visible remains including the re-exposure in 1959 of the floors of rooms 14 and 18 of Monument (182). For the street and water conduit also excavated by Drew and Selby, see Monuments (180) and (227b).

(182) HOUSE, in the N.W. corner of the town (68959096; Building I in op. cit. (1937); Figs. pp. 554, 556; Plates 218–21). The wall footings and hypocausts, and the mosaic of room 8, are on view under the care of the County Council, and are scheduled as an Ancient Monument. There were two separate ranges, never directly intercommunicating, aligned respectively N.—S. and approximately E.—W. parallel with the town defences, each involving extensions to an earlier nucleus. The basically L-shaped plan embracing a small courtyard is anomalous in that extension of the main residential wing was largely to the W. instead of around the remaining sides of the yard. These sides were however occupied by timber buildings, perhaps until the cobbled path was made apparently in the late 4th century. These timber buildings may have supplemented the limited service accommodation available until the S. range was extended.

The site does not appear to have been built on previously, and material of the 1st and 2nd centuries was scarce. The nucleus of the W. range, rooms 10, 13 and 14, probably belongs to the early 4th century; of its extensions room 15 at least seems to have been added after c. 341. The S. range consisted of three rooms, 2, 3 and 6, built probably after c. 307 and extended, probably after c. 341, by the addition of a heated room to W., a corridor on the N., and a kitchen or bakehouse to the E. perhaps replacing an equivalent timbered room, 19, to the N. If coins are a reliable guide, civilized occupation would not appear to have continued long after c. 375, although it is to this phase that the neatly cobbled path seems to belong. There was, however, evidence for deliberate wrecking in both ranges, and for occupation of slum character even after collapse of some of the walls, though this may have happened in the 5th century.

The walls of both ranges, 2 ft. thick and laid on natural Chalk, were largely of roughly knapped flints often laid in herring-bone courses; limestone was also employed, normally for quoins and bonding courses. The walls were generally plastered on both sides and painted a Pompeian red externally; inner faces were predominantly red or white with evidence for geometric and floral patterns. Impressions of laths and reeds on plaster fragments imply timbered upper walls even in the heated rooms, although room 15 was wholly of masonry and possibly of two storeys. All rooms of the W. range were tessellated, normally with a thin mortar bedding on the natural chalk; those of the S. range were concreted or stone-flagged. At the junction of walls and floors quarter-round fillets were normal, and in the W. range the floor levels of rooms 15, 14/10 and 13 were lowered progressively, with imbrex-tile drains through the walls to facilitate washing the mosaics. Room 14 afforded a rare example of a collapsed window embrasure, now rebuilt. Roofs were of hexagonal lime-stone slabs, except for the two external stokeholes, which were apparently roofed with red tiles.

The West Range. In the W. wing of the range the N. room, 18, measuring 16½ ft. by 15 ft. internally, had a mosaic floor in red on a white ground, of which only parts of the borders survived, a swastika pattern within chevrons, with a dentil pattern to the E. (Plate 219). A stone amongst several flag-stones over a pit in the N.W. corner was roughly inscribed VAL (R. G. Collingwood and R. P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, I (1965), no. 190; J.R.S. XXIX (1939), 227). There was a door near the S.W. corner leading into a room or passage, 16, measuring 16½ ft. by 6 ft. Here traces remained of a coarse red and white tessellated pavement apparently of diagonal lattice pattern, as well as of a later floor of flagstones, which overlay a mosaic panel in the threshold of the doorway to E.

Room 17 to the S. (Plate 219), 16½ ft. long by 10½ ft., was heated by a hypocaust 3 ft. deep with 11 channels circulating between engaged piers of masonry or of stone-faced natural chalk; the brick-lined, stone-capped furnace was served from a stokehole against the E. wall. The irregular plan of the channels, leading to box-tile flues in the walls, suggests the existence of a window in the centre of the S. wall. The mosaic floor, with its mortar foundation 5 ins. thick over stone slabs, had been deliberately smashed; its red and white border was of rectangular panels between swastikas, while the centre had included circular medallions with guilloche and chevron borders in blue-grey, red and white. The painted wall plaster on the S. wall had a dark red border at the base, 1½ ft. high, above which were remains of a white ground with two narrow horizontal lines. Fallen fragments included panels and traces of a floral pattern with a blue flower and green leaf. One fragment bore the cursive graffito PATERNVS SCRIPSIT ('Paternus wrote this'). A shale table leg was found in the filling of an earlier pit in the E. part of the room; sherds of metallic-lustred New Forest pottery in its lower filling and in a pit underlying the stokehole, 17a, may imply a date after c. 330 for the W. extension of the range. (fn. 76)
Room 13, linking the two wings of the range and entered from the E. by a step of limestone blocks, measured 20½ ft. by 11 ft. but straight joints in the walls 3 ft. from the W. end showed that it had been extended when rooms 16–18 were added. The mosaic floor (Plate 219), a secondary feature appropriate to the enlarged room, had a border of red and white chequers around an overall swastika pattern in coarse red and white tesserae partly covered by a later floor of packed chalk. A drain at floor level through the N. wall led by a gully to a stone-lined sump, as in rooms 14 and 18. A small coin hoard of A.D. 317 or later was buried near the E. door.

In the E. wing, room 15, 19½ ft. by 17½ ft., had walls of solid masonry at least 15 ft. high perhaps supported to the E. by two piers or buttresses. This height, indicated by the outward collapse of the E. and W. walls, the former in mass, suggests an upper storey, and the piers may have carried instead an external wooden stair. The latest coin below the collapsed wall was an issue of Constans of 341–6; a rough limestone floor laid over it during the slum phase sealed several coins, the latest an issue of 367–75 of Gratian. The fragmentary mosaic pavement, once the finest in the house, had an outer border of red and white chevrons and a wide inner swastika border enclosing rectangular panels of 2 and 4-strand guilloche and chequers. Within this, bands of 2-strand guilloche flanked two circular medallions (Plate 218) at the centre of the W. and N. sides, containing respectively a female head with long ringlets and a flower on either side of the face, perhaps Spring or Flora, and a head with parti-coloured hood, perhaps Winter. The tesserae were in four sizes from ¼ in. to 1 in. square, and colours used were white, red, dark and medium grey, pinkish brown and yellow, with blue, brown, green and light yellow in the faces. Straight joints showed that this room was an addition to the original plan; two Constantinian coins in the underlying level imply that it was not made before c. 341. An infant burial lay under the eaves to the N. (see Burials (215c)).

A doorway in the centre of the S. wall of room 15 led down a Purbeck stone step to the main part of the original nucleus, a room 28 ft. by 14 ft. divided by a wooden or plaster partition into a N. part 10 ft. long (room 14) with a coarse tessellated floor of broad red and grey stripes and a S. part (room 10) with a much damaged mosaic pavement (Plate 220). The border was of swastikas in red on white between square chequered panels, with a rectangular panel of two-strand guilloche in the centre of the S. side. The central design had probably consisted of twelve octagonal panels of which six and part of a seventh remained. In each of these, formed by guilloche borders, a guilloche or a fret-bordered circle enclosed a rosette pattern. Colours used were dark grey, red, yellow and white. At the S. end a fallen portion of wall, rebuilt in 1950, included the splayed opening of a window with rebates for a wooden frame still clear in the plaster (D. B. Harden, in E. M. Jope (ed.), Studies in Building History (1961), 49–50, pl. vi). The sill had been about 2½ ft. above the floor, some 4 ft. wide internally narrowing to some 3 ft. Fragments of window glass were found in this and other rooms. The main entrance to the house, 5 ft. wide, was in the E. wall at the N. end of room 10; two post-holes perhaps indicate an external porch. The wall plaster of this room seems to have had a rectangular panelled design with curvilinear elements; that on the window splay showed remains of a panel in red with traces of blue and grey, while loose fragments bore bands and lines of red, white, blue, green, purple, yellow and shades of brown, mainly on a red or white ground.

Room 8, 10¾ ft. by 9¼ ft., regarded as an addition on account of its awkward position, was reached by a doorway near the S.E. angle of room 10. Its well-executed mosaic floor was substantially complete when uncovered (Plate 220), and is now on view under a protective cover. A coarse border in red on a white ground, consisting of chevrons outside a chequer pattern with a central swastika in each side, enclosed a rectangular panel of smaller tesserae. In this panel, borders of two-strand guilloche, doubled at each end, framed a central circle containing a rosette, four semicircles tangential to it, and four quarter-circles in the corners. The intervening spaces contained knots. Colours used were three shades of grey, red, white and yellow. A rough window sill of flint remained in the centre of the E. wall about 2½ ft. above the floor. Fragments of plaster in panelled design in black, blue, brown, green, red and white presumably came from the walls.
The South Range in its final form was a block of five rooms 77 ft. long overall with a corridor along part of the N. side. The W. room (7), 11 ft. square with channelled hypocaust 3 ft. deep and concrete floor carried on massive flagstones (Plate 220), had been added to room 6, as shown principally by its disalignment with the nucleus and the failure to carry the foundation of the W. wall of room 6 to the basement of the hypocaust. The exposed chalk face had been in part protected by clay tiles, secured by T-shaped nails. These tiles had blocked the upper part of the brick-lined, stone-capped furnace channel leading from an original stokehole 7b in room 6. The disposition of the masonry piers implies a complete remodelling of the hypocaust when the external stonelined furnace 7a was made, while a narrow channel alongside the walls, and shallow transverse slots in the tops of the piers, were required to serve the flues of the W. wall. Both walls and piers, including the slots, appear to have been plasterrendered. Plaster debris from the room above indicated a panelled design, perhaps foliate, in white and red, with green and brown lines. A Portland stone step led up to room 6 through a doorway in the E. wall and the well-worn threshold was a block of Ham Hill stone slotted for a door frame.
Room 6 with concrete floor 14 ft. square, was entered from the N. between two pedestals or pillars. It had probably been a fuel-store and wash-kitchen before the remodelling, since stokehole 7b had stone bearers in the sides evidently for a hotwater tank. There was an infant burial (215c) in the S.W. corner. The concrete floor may have been first laid rather than patched when the stokehole was filled; a coin of Constans of 341–6, found in a gully somewhere beneath the floor, may therefore be taken to give an earliest possible date for the reconstruction rather than for the initial building.

A doorway in the E. wall led to room 2 (Plate 220) which was at a slightly higher level and measured 14 ft. by 10½ ft. It was notable for its well-preserved concrete floor with quarter-round moulding, a plastered semicircular niche partly recessed into the centre of the S. wall, and an outfall pipe in the N. wall above floor level. The niche, probably an original feature since it was recessed into the wall, was possibly for a domestic shrine, with which the provision for water may have been connected. Room 3, entered from the N., was 14 ft. by 7½ ft. and apparently had walls painted with a green leaf pattern on red; there were no remains of flooring. An infant skeleton (215c) with bird bones in the S.E. corner belonged to a late stage. A coin of Licinius I (307–24) in the E. wall of 3, and a sherd of coarse pottery (cf. Gillam, Arch. Ael. xxxv (1957), type 228) in the S. wall, suggest a date in the early 4th century for the construction of the nucleus.

The corridor (4), 5½ ft. wide, had a rough chalk floor lower than the floors to the S., and during its construction the adjacent wall of room 2 had had to be underpinned with a mass of herring-bone masonry made up of broken limestone roofing slabs. The N. wall, as now suggested in a rebuilt portion, was almost certainly a dwarf wall carrying a lean-to roof on small Portland stone columns, roughly carved and varying in detail but about 3½ ft. high and 9 ins. in maximum diameter (see Fig.); parts of nine columns were found in the well to the N. and part of another in the hypocaust of room 7. There was a doorway in this wall opposite that of room 6 and another at the W. end flanked by stone jambs or pedestals with a patch of rough limestone paving to the E. A step flanked by pedestals, probably for small columns, cut off the E. end of the corridor to form a small chalk-floored lobby (room 1).
Room 5, 23 ft. by 14½ ft., with straight joints in the masonry at the W. end, had clearly been added when 3 and 1, from which it was entered, already existed. The walls were apparently unplastered. Several coins, the latest of 341–6, give an earliest possible date for a floor of limestone slabs at the W. end, if not for the addition of the room itself. A kerb at the N. edge of these slabs possibly indicated a partition in line with the S. wall of the corridor. In the N.E. corner was a stonelined oven, perhaps roofed, and near the N. wall a rough hearth of tiles and roofing slabs. There was a small oven S. of the paving and two infant burials (215c) near the S. wall. A line of post-holes extending E. from the S. wall of the room was backed in part by remains of a dry-stone wall.

Other features. A well 3½ ft. in diameter and 33½ ft. deep lay N. of the S. range and contained much debris including the dwarf columns and two hexagonal bases. A neat cobbled path 4½ ft. wide ran E. for at least 100 ft. from a point where a small gully ran N. from the well and perhaps delimited a contracted courtyard in front of the house. The path was aligned on the entrance to the W. wing and its interruption implies the existence in the yard of stone flagging later removed. A coin of Valentinian I of 367–75 beneath the cobbles suggests a late 4th-century date for the feature. A narrower path branched S.E. from the main one 60 ft. from its W. end and partly sealed a well (F), 27 ¾ ft. deep, containing 4th-century pottery.
To the W. of the S. range parallel lines of post-holes, some of them renewed, indicated two long, narrow rectangular sheds with chalk floors, perhaps erected after c. 330. They may have served as fuel-stores for the hypocausts. A series of more regular post-holes on the N. and E. sides of the courtyard apparently supported a more substantial L-shaped building (19) of two rooms set at right-angles (Plate 219). The S. room, with an oven at its S. end, was sunk about 1 ft. below the surface of the natural chalk and perhaps served as kitchen or bakehouse before the construction of room 5. The building had been demolished and its site levelled on or before construction of the cobbled path. Rubble footings of a small rectangular stone building (20), apparently of the 4th century, were also found under the cobbled paths.

Immediately W. of room 18 of the W. range, a stone-lined pit of key-hole plan, 14 ft. across and 16 ft. deep, evidently had a corbelled roof; it had a basin-shaped hollow in the centre, 4 ft. deep, into which ran a narrow channel cut in the floor of a passage leading into a roughly square stone-lined chamber of neater build. There was some ash and many of the lining stones of the circular chamber had been reddened by fire. It was filled with rubble some time after A.D. 270 and before room 18 was built. Of several other pits and gullies the most notable was a system of chalk-cut channels about 2 ft. wide just N. of room 18, presumably for drainage, and a storm-water gully for the W. range cut across the filling of the stone-lined pit. For a boundary ditch to the S., see Monument (183). A stone-lined oven 75 ft. S.E. of room 5 has been relaid near the cobbled path.’

<3> Calkin, J B, 1972, Kimmeridge shale objects from Colliton Park, Dorchester. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 44-48 (Article in serial). SDO9766.

<4> Cosh, S R, and Neal, D S, 2005, Roman Mosaics of Britain. Volume II South-west Britain, 89-97 (Monograph). SDO10182.

Record last edited

Nov 29 2024 2:54PM