CHERRY ORCHARD LEICESTER ~ ROMANO-BRITISH LEICESTERSHIRE Ketton stone was found, laid down carefully on the tesserae which were un- injured beneath it (No. 27 in Leicester Museum) (plate VI). Still further north in the same direction another floor about 14 ft. square was found, of a chess-board pattern in grey and red. The pavement of a corridor was then disclosed at right angles to the set of rooms already discovered. This was 56 ft. in length and 7 ft. 8i in. in width, consisting of alternate squares of grey and red tesserae each tessera being an inch square. At the upper end of this the corridor floor illustrated by Nichols was found. It ran beside the range of rooms already described, and at right angles to the corridor just mentioned, with which it probably communicated. This last discovery was upwards of 1 20 ft. long by over 1 1 ft. wide, and showed the same red and grey tesserae as the other rooms, arranged in three distinct patterns. No foundations of the walls were dis- covered, and no hypo- ^^ of causts appeared, though found jn thc flue -tiles were turned up, and one filled with concrete to serve as a support to a floor was discovered apparently in situ. Fragments of wall plaster and wall tiles, some bearing the im- press of reeds, and pieces of common pottery were plentiful. No Samian ware seems to have been found in i85i, 88 but in 1865 two fragments were discovered, one plain with a potter's mark, and one with an embossed pattern. 69 In 1868 another pavement was disclosed, 1 5 ft. by 9 ft. 6 in., with a pat- tern of intersecting circles in coarse black and white tesserae. A bronze statuette was also discovered, said to be ' of Apollo or Jupiter,' the feet roughly encased in a lump of lead which was evidently intended as a stand. Four coins found in 1851 were of the lower Empire (A.D. 268-364,) and one was of Vespasian (A.D. 70-79)." In 1863 a coin of Trajan, first brass (A.D. 98-117), one of Nero (A.D. 54-68), and a third brass of one of the Constantines (A.D. 306-40), were picked up near the site. 81 " This account is mainly taken from Mr. Fox's paper in Arch. Journ. xlvi, 56, but see : also Assoc. Arch.
- ix, p. cxviii ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), iv, 183 ; Leu. Arch. Soc. ii, 200 ; 111, 15, 3*7 ; 1"- **
Sac. Arch. Assoc. vi, 439, 442. " Fox, Arch. Journ. xlvi, 56. 69 Leu. Arch. Soc. iii, 15. A VSAy -/.I / */ I l/**> Ai * Ay ^ VJ * . . G. Thompson, Proc. Soc. Anllq. (Ser. 2), iv, 183 ; Fox, Arch. Journ. xlvi, 56. " Leu. Arch. Soc. ii, 200. 197
