SDO10191 - 'The Roman Remains in the Gaol Grounds' Dorset County Chronicle

"THE ROMAN REMAINS IN THE GAOL GROUNDS -- During the excavations for the recovery of the beautiful tessellated pavement in the Gaol grounds, several other interesting relics have been found, among others a coin of Constantinius Augustus, which was discovered upon the pavement, and clearly shows its construction to have been anterior to the reign of that monarch. Several slabs of Purbeck stone have also been exhumed, which evidently constituted a portion of the Roman villa that once stood upon the spot. They are of a longitudinal shape, the lower part forming two sides of a rectangle, and they were evidently intended to overlap each other, having holes at the upper end, and a nail was found in one of them, by which it was, doubtless, attached to the supports beneath. When arranged in the manner of the modern slating, they would form what is termed a Testudo, the points of the upper stone only showing the square of that below, and then they would appear as a series of lozenge shaped slabs with the points downwards. From the fact of tiles having been found amongst the remains, and from the peculiar form of the roof called “testudo”, it would appear that according to Varro, they did not constitute, properly speaking the roof of the house, but the arched roof of the “impluvium”, where the rain water fell, and which admitted light from above. The remains of the pillars upon which it rested were found close by the side of the pavement. The slabs have been arranged, but scarcely in the correct order, in consequence of their not being a sufficient number, and sent to the Dorset County Museum. The coin, of which we have spoken, has been inserted in the panelling of the altar in the prison chapel, where the tessellated pavement has been so artistically relaid, and the following inscription has been added since our last notice:-- “This portion of the Roman pavement was discovered in the Prison grounds, four feet from the surface, August 10th, 1858, and transferred to the Chapel by order of the Visiting Justices, J. V. Lawrence, Governor.” In further excavating this week the dressed quoins of some substantial angular masonry have been disclosed, accompanied with much charcoal, and suggesting the discovery of the Balonae, or Baths of this Villa Romana."