Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts

by W. R. Lethaby

The Bacchante Mosaic.—One of the finest of the London mosaics was found under the old Excise Office, Broad Street. I have an original drawing of it by Fairholt, dated March 1, 1854 (Fig. [90]). The best authorities are two large original coloured drawings, one by Archer in the British Museum and the other at the Society of Antiquaries. The central panel had a white ground and black border; the Nymph had reddish flesh and a light greenish scarf; the Panther seems to have been a grey-buff spotted black. There was much black and white in the pattern work, and some of the fillings were of black and white triangles.

Fig. 91.

It was described at the time of finding as having formed a square of 28 ft.; it was diagonally about north and south and 15 ft. below the surface. The central subject was “Ariadne or a Bacchante reclining on a panther.” In V.C.H. it was said to be “Europa on the Bull,” but the drawings agree with the former description. The composition is very similar to the Bacchus, and doubtless a wine cup was held by the Bacchante also. Notice that vases appear elsewhere in the design. The panel was about 2½ ft. square. This fine floor was taken to the Crystal Palace, where it seems to have disappeared. From its size and subject we may suppose that it was the floor of the central dining-hall of some big house. The drawing and balanced design of the central group is wonderfully skilful as space filling. Fig. [a]91] is based on original drawings of the floor at the Society of Antiquaries and the British Museum and a sketch in the Wollaston Collection at South Kensington. This mosaic should be compared with a floor found at Bignor, which is very similar in its details, and probably, I think, by the same artist. There the centre is occupied by Jove’s eagle and Ganymede, the cupbearer to the gods.

Vase-Panel Mosaic.—In his account of discoveries at Bucklersbury, Price describes a floor found in St. Mildred’s Court which must have been one of the finer kind. “A square enclosed a circle containing a vase in brown, red and white with the addition of bright green glass. Around the vase there appeared portions of a tree with foliage; also an object resembling an archway with embattled figures and other objects, the meaning of which is difficult to describe without an illustration. Around the whole were two simple bands of black tesseræ separating the circle from an elaborate scroll of foliage and flowers, analogous to that on one of the pavements at Bignor. At each corner was a flower showing eight petals of varied colours. From the centre of each sprang two branches, which united in a leaf in form like that within the scroll. The entire design is bordered by the guilloche in seven intertwining bands of black, red, brown and white tesseræ. A drawing of this interesting floor was in the possession of Mr. G. Plucknett.” The central panel must have been a formal landscape—a large wine krater backed by a tree and an arcade with figures on the parapet. In another place Price names it again amongst mosaics which had glass tesseræ; probably the tree was of green glass. This pavement also doubtless occupied a dining-hall. In an earlier account (London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc. Proceed. iii.) Price says: “When perfect it was of some extent, resembling those discovered at East India House and the Excise Office. In the centre was a vase similar to those at the Excise Office, and around it a scroll of foliage beautifully arranged. The fragments were packed in cases and sent to the workshops of Messrs. Cubitt.”

An Orpheus Mosaic (?).—Roach Smith reported the existence, below Paternoster Row, of what must have been an exceptionally fine pavement, which was broken up before any proper record of it could be made. This “superb pavement extended at least 40 ft.; towards the centre were compartments in which in variegated colours were birds and beasts surrounded by a rich guilloche border.” The wording suggests a square room, and the two former examples show that large square rooms existed in London. In the villa at Woodchester the chief central room was nearly 50 ft. square; the pavement had “a central circular compartment; within the border was a wide circular band containing representations of animals, inside was a smaller band containing birds; on the southern side was a figure of Orpheus.” The description of the London mosaic suggests that it, too, had for subject Orpheus charming the beasts. It was found about 1840 at a depth of 12 ft. In 1843 part of a mosaic floor, “with birds and beasts within a guilloche border,” was found at a depth of 12½ ft. below the offices of the Religious Tract Society at the corner of Cannon Row (V.C.H.). Is it not probable that this was another part of the pavement described by Roach Smith?

Inscribed Floor.—A mosaic pavement found in Pudding Lane as lately as 1886, and bearing an important inscription, was destroyed before any sufficient record of it was made. A printed version of the lettering was given in the Archæological Journal of the same year by Dr. Haverfield, with some comments. (Also see S.A. Proceedings, xiv. 6, and V.C.H.) In the collections of the Society of Antiquaries I find a sketch of it by Henry Hodge, a careful draughtsman of the time. This drawing is said to have been made “from a sketch by I. W. Jolly and fragments,” so that its strict accuracy is questionable. It appears that it was complete on the right but imperfect on the left-hand side. On the right some parts of the pattern covering the rest of the floor and a border are shown and some dimensions are given. It looks as if the panel was about 5 ft. across and was the centre of a strip 7 ft. or 8 ft. wide. The letters were about 3 in. high, black on a white ground; the last four seem to have been D. S. P. D.—de sua pecunia dedit—and this would imply that the mosaic belonged to a temple. The destruction of these mosaics is a sad witness to the nineteenth-century type of intelligence. Of all of them only the fragments of the Bacchus pavement are now known to exist. I should like to find out what became of the Bacchante pavement sent to the Crystal Palace, and whether the vase mosaic is still in packing cases at Messrs. Cubitt’s. I wonder, too, what became of Mr. G. Plucknett’s drawing, and wish I could get tidings of it. The great pavement in Paternoster Row seems to have been destroyed without even a drawing being made; while the sketch taken by Mr. Jolly of the inscribed floor has, so far as I know, been burnt. And this was the high age of university education!

Bucklersbury.—The most perfect of the existing mosaics is the complete and restored pavement with an apsidal end found in Bucklersbury. A good account of it while yet in its place is given in The Builder (1869): “It lies fresh and bright as when it was first put down.... It is to be hoped that some pains will be taken to trace the remaining walls of the building to which this speaking pavement belongs.” Here, again, although the apartment was not large and the ornamental mosaic was more than a central panel, there was a broad border of the coarse tesseræ. Besides having been a saving, the contrast of the plain red with the variegated central area seems to have been liked. The interlacing squares of this pavement resemble those of the Excise Office floor, and its central rose is like a panel in the same floor. An angle-filling is similar to a quarter of the central pattern filling the centre of the small India Office pavement, which, again, had interlacing squares. A single cross-like pattern filling a panel in the British Museum is again like that of the India House mosaic. Many such references could be carried much further, not only in regard to London pavements, but including the country ones also. I reach the conclusion that they are for the most part nearly of the same date, and that many were by the same artists.

Fenchurch Street.—A fragment of what must have been a fine floor was found in 1859 and is now in the British Museum. It is part of a panel which contained a vase and two birds. An illustration given in Price’s Bucklersbury shows that there was a margin of coarse tesseræ beyond, and that the panel must have been one of a series making up a handsome border. A fragment of a floor with a wide border divided into panels has lately been found at Colchester. Roach Smith described the former as “what would seem to have been an extensive pavement,” and he calls the bird a peacock. A good coloured drawing, in the Archer collection, of the fragment shows the bird’s neck a bright blue; the blue tesseræ were of glass. Fig. [a]92] is from Price, but I have dotted in on the top right-hand corner the line of a more modern building from Roach Smith’s illustration. This is one example of many cases in which more recent walls have been carried up from the Roman level and square with a Roman building. (A in fig., and compare Fig. [90].)