NOTICE OF A ROMAN VILLA RECENTLY DISCOVERED

AT WHEATLEY, NEAR OXFORD. General Vie'w, Indications of a Roman villa having been recently dis- covered in a field called Castle-hill, between Wheatley and Cuddesden, near Oxford, Dr. Bromet proceeded thither on the 31 st of October, accompanied by Mr. J. H. Parker and Mr.W. Sanders, (master of the Wheatley National School,) with Mr. Orlando Jewitt as their draughtsman, and some labom-ers be- longing to Mr. Orpwood, tenant of the field, who had laudably interested himself in saving from destruction those parts of it most worthy of preservation. Having first laid bare some rough Availing 2 ft. thick, which enclosed a quadrangular space measuring internally 14 ft. by 12, they by careful digging exposed the inner face of the western wall, w^here, at a depth of 2 ft. from the surface, they arrived at an ovolo base moulding, and a plaster floor 2^ to 3 in. thick, composed of lime, sand, and broken brick. It was situated over the entrance to a furnace from the pre- furniuin described hereafter. On clearing away the earth in the north-east angle, they found that this plaster floor had been laid on solid flat tiles 2 ft. square by 2^ in. thick, the whole being su{)portcd by uniform and regularly disposed pillars, about 1 ft. 10 in. high, built up of flat tiles 7 in. square by 1;^ thick, set in beds of mortar f of an inch thick — the lowest or plinth tiles being about 11 in. square, and laid on a natural