SDO9784 - 'The Alienation of the All Saints’ Roman Pavement' Dorset County Chronicle

A short article on the meeting of the DNHAS, reproduced in full below. "The Hon. Sec. read communications which he had received from scandalised antiquaries with regard to the report that the Rev. S.E.V.Filleul, rector of All Saints, proposed to present a Roman pavement found in All Saints’ glebe to the inhabitants of Dorchester, Boston, Mass. U.S.A. The Rev. W. MILES BARNES said he supposed that the pavement, if not sent to America, would be destroyed. The nature of the cement seemed to have gone, and the tesserae were so loose that one could take them up by the handful. Laying these pavements was a costly work, and he did not think that the museum had funds enough to lay the pavement if offered to them. Therefore it seemed that sending the pavement across the Atlantic really saved it from oblivion. Mr. RICHARDSON (Hon. Sec. Of the Museum) said that the pavement, from Mr. Moule’s description, was much like that laid in the hall of the Museum, and therefore he though that the Museum Council would not have spent any money in laying it. Mr. MOULE (Curator of the Museum) assured the meeting that the rector of All Saints was the last man in Dorchester likely to do anything vandalistic. (Hear, hear.) It was an extremely plain, rough Roman floor, interesting – as all Roman floors must be – but wholly inartistic, just a plain red red [sic] and grey chequer, with a grey border round it. When it was found in 1897 in All Saints glebe on Gallows hill he immediately measured it, made a sketch plan of it and notes, and inserted them in the Dorset Museum Album. This plan he now exhibited. The Rector had the plan taken down on paper, had the tesserae removed to his house, and had a portion of the pavement relaid carefully, exactly according to pattern, in the porch of the new rectory then being built. The remainder he conceived the idea of sending to Dorchester, Mass. In their little Dorset County Museum they already had a representative group of Dorchester Roman tesselated pavements, ranging down from an exceptional specimen 30 feet long to small fragments in frames. The letter from Canon Rawnsley, Hon. Sec. of the National Trust, which appeared in the Standard, showed ignorance of the circumstances and of locality, for he seemed to imply that they were sending away absolutely the one evidence of the Roman occupation of Dorchester. (Laughter.) Captain Acland added that it appeared to a Dorchester mind that the pavement was not worth preserving. The Noble President: I think were all satisfied that no sacrilege has been committed. (Hear, hear.)"