Bagford, in his letter to Hearne (1714), mentions a Janus head dug up at St. Thomas Watering on the Dover Road by Bermondsey, also a glass urn at Peckham, and several other Roman things at Blackheath. The Janus head was about a foot and a half high, and seemed to have been fixed to a square column or terminus. It was illustrated by Horsley. One of the two faces was Jupiter Ammon with ram’s horns, the other was female.
I cannot here do more than mention the dozens of small bronzes, some of high excellence, which have been found in London; doubtless most or all of these were imported. Mr. Chaffers saw a beautiful bronze of an archer with inlaid eyes of silver taken out of the mud in Queen Street, Cheapside, in 1842. A pretty bronze relief of Hope was found in Thames Street in 1840 (V.C.H.). I must just refer to a delightful little bronze Genius, found at Brandon, and now in the British Museum, which holds a double horn of plenty. This, again, is probably a locality genius. Many of the small clay lamps found in London have pretty reliefs on them, such as a figure of Victory, a head of Luna (Fig. [81]), a bird, or an animal. Altogether we have quite a large gallery of classical imagery of our own.
Fig. 82.
Ornament.—Carved decorations were for the most part rude and rapidly cut, but they show some fresh thought and are very different from the defunct details which now pass for “classic.” At the Guildhall is part of a frieze of small scale (Fig. [62]) which has running animals alternating with trees. This suggestion of the forest was a popular motive of the time, and is found frequently on our native-made Castor pottery. Haverfield suggested that it might be a Celtic motive, but it is found on Samian pottery, and Espèrandieu illustrates a similar frieze of higher quality found at Mainz. All the Roman architectural carvings found in Britain, it may again be said, very closely resemble works found in Gaul, and especially at Trèves.
Fig. 83.
Fig. 84.
The wide pilaster at the Guildhall (Fig. [70]), also mentioned before, has a boldly designed relief of foliage arranged in a series of oval forms, one over the other. The interior of each unit is filled by the leafage being bent downwards. The same scheme occurs on a mosaic floor found in Dorsetshire, now in the British Museum (Fig. [82]). Fine Corinthian capitals have been found at Cirencester and Bath; even in these we find the spirit of experiment constantly at work. An example sketched at Angers in France is given in Fig. [a]83]. The most elegant piece of architectural decoration executed in Britain, which is known to me, is a frieze found at Bath, which is somewhat singular in bold freshness of treatment (Fig. [84]). Again, this can be explained by comparison with a mosaic pattern. At first sight it seems an ordinary piece of scroll work, but examination reveals that the alternate elements were complete circles. This frieze is broken at a point which might seem to leave room for a little doubt as to this, and my figure is slightly restored; but the border of a mosaic floor found at Frampton furnishes us with a complete example of the same treatment, and this excludes any doubt (Fig. [85]). Fig. 86 represents a more ordinary scroll frieze from Chester, but even this is brightened by the little birds set in the corner spaces. Fig. [a]87] is the soffit of a corona member from Bath, also alive and inventive.