A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE the north side, which had two gates opening that way ; two roads were visible here." He also mentions burnt wheat, showing the destruction of the town by fire, and describes a room at Hampton Court as paved with red Roman tiles six inches square brought from here ; Stulceley also says : ' Colonel Dantsey has paved a cellar with square bricks dug up here : my lord Coningsby has judiciously adorned the floor of his evidence-room with them.' '* Stukeley himself, writing in 1722, says : — The city of Hereford probably sprung up from the ruins of the Roman Arkonium, now Kenchester, three miles off, higher up the Wye but not very near it ; which may be a reason for its decay. Ariconium stands on a little brook called the Ine, which thence encompassing the walls of Hereford falls into the Wye, . . . Nothing remaining of its splendour, but a piece of a temple, probably with a niche, which is five foot high and three broad within "... There are many large foundations near it. A very fine mosaic floor a few years ago was found intire, soon torn to pieces by the ignorant vulgar.^' I took up some remaining stones of different colours, and several bits of fine potters ware of red earth ... In another place is a hollow where burnt wheat has been taken up : some time since Colonel Dantsey sent a little box full of it to the Antiquarian Society. All around the city you may easily trace the walls, some stones being left everywhere, though overgrown by hedges and timber trees. The ground of the city is higher than the level of the circumjacent country. There appears no sign of a fosse or ditch around it. The site of the place is a gentle eminence of a squarish form ; the earth black and rich, overgrown with brambles, oak-trees, full of stones, foundations, and cavities where they have been digging. Many coins and the like have been found. Mr. Ja. Hill, J.C, has many coins found here, some of which he gave to the said society. He gives a ground-plan of the town (see Fig. i). This full description of the site and discoveries has been largely drawn upon by succeeding writers, from Gough onwards. Gough in his 1789 edition of Camden largely repeats Stukeley 's description, but with some additional details. He says that the town was an irregular hexagon, and describes the building seen by that writer as ' part of a temple, with a niche five feet high and three broad, built of Roman brick, rough stone, and indissoluble mortar, and called " the chair," round which are foundations and holes.' He adds that numbers of coins, bricks, leaden pipes, urns, and large bones have been dug up there." Price, writing in 1796, says 'There are visible to this day the ruins of some old walls called Kenchester Walls, about which there are often dug up stones of inlaid chequer work, British bricks, Roman coins and the like.'" The last of the earlier writers who need be quoted are Brayley and Britton, who say : ' Towards the east end is a massive fragment remaining of what is supposed to be a Roman temple. It consists of a large mass of cement, of almost indissoluble texture, in which are imbedded rough stones irregularly intermixed with others that have been squared. This fragment is called " the chair " from a niche which is yet perfect. The arch is principally constructed with Roman bricks, and " Stukeley Diaries and Letters (Surtees Soc), ii, i88 ; Reliquiae Galeanae, 120, 122 ; Morgan, op. cit. 73. " Itin. Cur. i, 70. Mr. J. S. Arkwright, M.P., the present owner of Hampton Court, states that to his knowledge this paving does not now exist. " See Camden, quoted above. Stukeley gives an illustration on plate 85. '* This seems to be the one 'of a fine pattern' mentioned as found about 1730 by Brayley and Britton ; cf. Gough, op. cit. iii, 74 ; Morgan, op. cit. 73 ; Arch. Jount. xxxiv, 353. " Brit. (1789), ii, 44.9 ; see also 1806 ed. iii, 66, 74 ; Price, Hist. Account of Here/. 11 ; Morgan, Rom.- Brit. Mosaic Pavements, 73. " Price, loc. cit. 178
