Memorials of Old Dorset

by Unknown

We come now to a very interesting period of the Roman occupation, when we may imagine the military operations at an end, a firm and beneficial government established, and the colonists (at any rate), who usually obtained a third part of the conquered territory, becoming rich and enabled to build those houses that must have been the envy and admiration of the native population, with their decorative floors and walls, and ample comforts for seasons of heat or cold.

Still, as we have said before, it is not to any printed records that we can turn for its history, but rather to the result of careful excavation and the relics unearthed after fifteen centuries’ burial in the soil: in a word, we trust to the use of the spade for bringing before our minds the life of the past and restoring the memorials of ancient Dorset.

In Warne’s map of the county, prepared in the year 1865 after most patient research and personal investigation, there are more than fifty sites given where relics of the Roman colonisation have been found, exclusive of Durnovaria. Mr. Moule, writing in 1893, says: “Roman work of one kind and another has been found here in Dorset in eighty places, and that for the most part casually.” But year after year this number is increased, and, truth to tell, so frequent are the discoveries that in Dorchester the ordinary labourer, when excavating in the streets, or elsewhere, is ever on the alert, and many a treasure rewards his watchful care; and even children whose eyes have been trained aright will find, when digging in some neglected corner of garden or field, a bit of common pottery, a fragment of Samian ware, or perhaps a coin bearing the image of an Emperor of Rome. And thus our history is written: a word discovered here, a sentence there, until the story of the life of those days may be once more told afresh. The frequency of these discoveries is so far interesting that it draws attention to the large area over which the Roman settlers were distributed. No doubt they found this land of the Durotriges a pleasant land to dwell in, as we do now in this twentieth century. But here may be said, in passing, that Roman colonists were partly at least a Roman garrison. They were frequently old soldiers intended to keep in check the conquered nation, and liable to be called back to active service. But if there was no fear of a hostile rising, the military character of the colony would gradually be lost. And that, no doubt, soon happened here, for the very great majority of the relics of the Roman occupation are signs of its peaceful character.

The discovery of the sites of Roman villas scattered in more or less isolated positions throughout the county tend also to prove this, and especially when the villa is shown to have possessed one of those beautiful mosaic floors which can only have belonged to a prosperous and wealthy colonist or to a British landowner left undisturbed in his possessions, and who employed the Roman craftsmen to build him a house. These tessellated floors have been frequently exposed to view in various parts of Dorset, and too frequently, alas! through ignorance or carelessness, been neglected or destroyed; others, again, have been examined, plans or drawings made, and been covered up once more. Among those which have been described may be mentioned: Thornford and Lenthay Green, near Sherborne; Halstock, six miles south of Yeovil; Rampisham, twelve miles north of Dorchester; Frampton, six miles north of Dorchester; Preston, near Weymouth; Creech, near Wareham; Fifehead Neville, north-west of Blandford; Hemsworth, five miles north of Wimborne; and in Dorchester itself no less than twenty different pavements, either complete or in portions, besides one on the upper area of Maiden Castle. It is difficult to assign a date, even approximately, to these villas, for the coins found amidst the débris cover practically the whole period of Roman occupation, and the other objects generally discovered on the site are not of much assistance. There are no records of inscribed stones being found, which might have helped; and, as a rule, the more valuable part of the building materials, such as cut stones, roof slabs, and timbers, must have been taken away when the houses were left; but the wells and refuse pits are the happy and profitable hunting-ground of the antiquary.

The tessellated pavements are so interesting and attractive that it is worth while to describe them in detail. The system adopted in their construction seems to have been as follows:—If no provision was made for heating the rooms by means of a hypocaust or hot-air flues, the ground was prepared by rough levelling, and 6 to 8 inches thick of flints rammed, or coarse, gravelly mortar or concrete laid; on this 3 or 4 inches of better class white cement, and above some fine cement to take the tessellæ; and after these were laid a liquid cement would be run into the interstices before the final polishing was commenced. The system of laying is well shewn in the annexed illustration, taken of a pavement in situ, before removal to the Dorset County Museum.

Part of the Olga Road Tessellated Pavement, Dorchester.

The tessellæ themselves, as generally found in Dorset, consist of small cubes of stone or brick, but vary in size from about ⅜ or ½ inch to 1½ inch; the smaller are used for the decorative portions; the larger for the borders, or for passages, or for the floors of houses of a humbler character. The colours are for the most part only four—namely: white, dark slate (or blue-black), red, and a sort of drab or grey; occasionally yellow is found, but not often.

The materials of which the tessellæ are composed has given rise to much discussion and, indeed, much difference of opinion; but, as a general principle, it may be assumed that, wherever possible, local stone was used. The red tessellæ are merely brick or tile of a fine description; but, as a means of obtaining a scientific opinion of the other stones, microscopic sections have been cut from the tessellæ and submitted to an expert mineralogist, who has given them the following names. The very dark stone is a fine-grained ferruginous limestone; the grey is also a fine-grained limestone; the drab or yellow is an oolitic limestone; and the white is a hard chalk, showing foraminifera very well. It is believed that the colour may be altered by submitting the stone to heat, an opinion held by Professor Buckman, and explained in a very interesting chapter of his book, Roman Art in Cirencester.

The mosaic floors found in Dorchester are, as a rule, of very simple but effective design, consisting of geometrical arrangements of the single guilloche, the twist or plait, the double guilloche (which is extremely handsome in mosaic work), and the ordinary fret. These, being arranged as outlines of intersecting squares and circles, leave spaces of varying dimensions, spandrels, or trefoils, which are utilised for the introduction of many diverse emblems, such as the fylfot or swastika, the duplex, sprays of foliage, urns, and interlacing knots. In the County Museum may be seen laid on the floor (in which position alone can full justice be done to the skill of the Italian artist) two nearly complete mosaic pavements. One of these shows the area of three adjoining rooms, with entrances or vestibules; the other pavement, found in 1905, is in excellent preservation, measuring 21 feet by 12 feet 6 inches, and is remarkable for two ornamental vases, with two serpents issuing from each.