Page:VCH Northamptonshire 1.djvu/263

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ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE right angles to it on each side and other walls, not traced, running in various directions. The smaller finds included a silver fibula, a bronze figurine of a Cupid, much Samian and other pottery, tiles and twenty- two coins ranging from Marcus ('first brass') to Gratian, but principally of the fourth century. The site was not further explored,^ but in 1849 pottery was dug up 70 yards south of the foundations. (23) Foscote. Here, about a mile and a half on the road from Towcester to Abthorpe, close to a little delf, a sawpit and the road itself, numerous bricks, building and roofing tiles, Samian and other potsherds, including a pelvis stamped pertvim, and a coin of the ' Lower Empire' were found about 1846-8. The site was not explored.^ (24) Whittlebury. Here a ' villa ' was found and partially exca- vated in 1850 near 'the Gullet,' in Holton Coppice, three miles east of Whittlebury village and a quarter of a mile west of Watling Street. The plans and records of the excavations are not wholly satisfactory ; they are not quite free from discrepancies, and they omit to indicate how much of the site was ex- cavated and how much may contain undiscovered buildings. It appears however that, as often, a square entrenchment sur- rounded the building area. The plan of the buildings (fig. 26) in- cluded a walled yard, not rectangular, in size 150 by 195 feet, with a gate- way in the middle of the south-east side and an- other opposite it in the north-west side. On the south side of this yard was a block of rooms, measuring 50 by 100 feet, so far as explored, and containing hypocaustsand bathrooms. One of the rooms had in the centre of its floor a small panel of mosaic, 4 feet square, representing a head in a square guilloche border. Outside the yard, and facing its northern gate at 100 feet distance, was another block of rooms, covering, as far as 1 Anheeohgia, xxx. 125-31, with plan and illustrations ; the plan is too fragmentary to be worth reproducing. Wetton's Guidebook, p. 167. 2 "J oumal of the British Archaolo^cal Associotion, ii. 355, iv. 396, vii. 109 ; Wetton's G««V^3m*, p. 194- 199 Fig. 26. ^cAuc or rccT Villa in Whittlebury Forest.