Fig. 18.
The use of window glass was very general. It was cast in small panes, as is shown by the large proportion of existing fragments which have edges and corners. Practically a whole pane, about 12 in. by 12 in., is in the Rochester Museum. Near Warrington, on a Roman site, was found a stone slab with a shallow recess 12 in. by 8 in., which Mr. May regarded as a mould for glass (Ward). The average size of panes would have been about one Roman foot long. Glassware seems to have been made in London, Silchester and elsewhere, doubtless from imported “metal.” Some windows, possibly unglazed, were protected by iron gratings. An iron star X in the Guildhall Museum came from such a window guard as is shown by a complete example I sketched many years ago in the Strasbourg Museum (see Arch. Rev., May 1913) (Fig. [19]). It had been suggested that such X-pieces were “holdfasts,” to keep the glass panes in position (Ward); but this is not the case; moreover, the pane at Rochester shows that it was “cemented” into place.
Fig. 19.
Lead must have been largely used; there are a dozen large “pigs” in the British Museum. Melted lead was found at Verulam in a position which suggested that it had been used on an important building. In the Guildhall Museum are some sections of lead water-pipes found in London, and at Westminster Abbey is a piece 4 in. in diameter, which must, I think, be Roman (Fig. [18], C).
A study of Roman building methods may suggest to us many points for our consideration and emulation. I would especially mention their excellent mortar made of crushed tile, opus signinum, and coarse tesseræ floors, cement skirtings, red external plastering, the tile-shaped brick, tile wall linings and down-pipes, hip and gable knobs, vaults of box-tiles and pipes, the hypocaust system of heating, turning of stonework, painted decorations, marble linings, cast leadwork. Some day I hope our sterile histories of “architectural styles” will make way for accounts of practical building methods.
CHAPTER II
BUILDINGS AND STREETS
“Set we forward friendly together, so through Lud’s-town march;
And in the temple of great Jupiter