ROMANO-BRITISH LONDON Eldon Street. — Pottery in British Museum: Stamps of Avitus (La Graufesenque) and Paternus (Lezoux). Cinerary urns said to have been found in 1841 (perhaps identical with the Blom- field Street find) [see pp. 7, 90, and Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), vi, 171]. Falcon Square. — Part of the wall here illustrated in Hartridge's Coll. Newsp. Cuttings, Old London, i, 279 ff., probably the same as that mentioned under Castle Street {q.v.). Farringdon Street (formerly Fleet Ditch). — 'In digging Fleet Ditch, in the year 1670, between the Fleet Prison and Holiorn Bridge, at the depth of fifteen Feet, divers Roman utensils were discovered, and a little deeper a great quantity of Roman Coins of Silver, Copper, Brass, and all other Sorts of Metal, Gold excepted . . . and at Holborn Bridge were dug up two of their brazen Lares or Household Gods, about four Inches in Length, which by the Quality of the Soil they lay in were almost incrusted with a petrifick matter ; one whereof was Ceres and the other Bacchus [Maitland, Hist, of Lond. ii, 991 ; Allen, Hist, of Land, i, 23]. In 1846 a bone needle-case was found [Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxxiii, 226]. In the British Museum a fragment of Rutenian pottery ; in the Guildhall, a vase of 'Belgic' ware [Cat. 181]. See also Fleet Lane, Holborn. Fenchurch Street. — Walls found in 1833 near the end of Mincing Lane, and near the bottom of CuUum Street (Plan C, 20, 21), at a depth of 12 ft., two pavements, one with geometrical patterns of red, grey, and white tesserae, the other of red tesserae only, but large and perfect ; also fragments of plaster painted bright vermilion. With these was found some pottery (Gaulish, Romano-British painted, black-glazed, and plain yellow wares), also parts of a mortar, a clay lamp with stamp in form of a foot, a terra-cotta female head, a millstone, and a bronze vase [Gent. Mag. (1834), i, 156 ; Rom. Brit. Rem. i, 207 ; Arch, xxix, 153 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxii, 316 ; xxiii, 205 ; Morgan, Rom. Brit. Mosaic Pavements, 185]. In the same year were found on the site of St. Gabriel's Church (Plan C, 19) part of a hand in bronze of large dimensions [Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxiv, 75, with plate], and a Gaulish bowl of form 30, having a design of figures within arches [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), X, 92 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Soc. ix, 190]. An elaborately ornamented flue-tile from the first-named site is illustrated in Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc. Trans, iii, 216. Another pavement was uncovered in 1857, ^^ No. 37 (Plan C, 22), measuring 2 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 6 in., with richly-coloured design on white ground, representing a peacock and vase within a guilloche border [Illus. Rom. Lond. 58 ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), xvii, 322 ; Roach Smith, Retrospections, ii, 200 ; Morgan, Rom. Brit. Mosaic Pavements, 191] ; this is now in the British Museum. In 1886 were found Gaulish pottery, glass, a jet pin, and a silver medallion with repousse design of a chained house-dog, as in the Cave canem mosaic at Pompeii [Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xliii, 1 01]. Much pottery from this site in the British, Guildhall, and Bethnal Green Museums ; some of that in the British Museum was found in 1833, and is doubtless from the excavations mentioned above ; the potters' stamps include those of Virilis (Rute- nian), Beleniccus and Cobnertus (Lezoux) and Viro- nius. The ornamented ware is mostly of the first F'C- 43- — Bronze Lamp in Form of century. A clay lamp with the subject of a hound Silenus, from Fenchurch Street (i) and a circular bronze brooch found in 1866 are in the same collection, and in 1901 a fine bronze lamp in the form of a Silenus holding a wine-skin was acquired [Fig. 43; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), xviii, 354]. In the Guildhall, three glass vessels [Cat. 11-13]. In the collection of Mr. W. M. Newton of Dartford, parts of two bowls of form 29 with good scroll-work. A burial-ground reported in 1838, east of Rood Lane, but no traces of the 'bourne' mentioned by Stow were found [Kelsey, Descr. of Sewers, 84]. A leaden canister or ossuarium of cylindrical form'* and a 'cinerary urn,' found in 1833, probably near Mincing Lane, are in the British Museum. If really sepulchral these objects may, as Roach Smith pointed out, be of an early date, as the site is well within the walls ; but they were found on the line of the northern road from the bridge [Arch. Journ. ii, 252; Coll. Antiq. iii, 61 ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), xix, 209 ; see above, p. 37]. See also America Square, London Street. "Similar leaden ossuaria have been found at Enfield and in Herts. They are also known in the Mediter- ranean, e.g. in the islands of Delos and Cyprus [cf. Brit. Mus. Excavations in Cyprus, 59]. See also p. 11. lOI
