On the Ancient British, Roman, and Saxon Antiquities of Worcestershire

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the white may be oolite, and the blue, probably, are lias. If artificial, the white may have been made of either macerated oolite, or of a species of fuller's earth called ' walker's clay, ' which is found in some places in this county; but I am at a loss to guess of what material the blue may have been...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the white may be oolite, and the blue, probably, are lias. If artificial, the white may have been made of either macerated oolite, or of a species of fuller's earth called ' walker's clay, ' which is found in some places in this county; but I am at a loss to guess of what material the blue may have been made, unless it were macerated lias. There were red sandstone foundations of a building at the spot, which appeared to have been of considerable extent, but we did not discover any Roman bricks. A small piece of the transparent talc (said to be the lapis specularis of the Romans) was found amongst these remains; but whether, as it has been conjectured, it was used in the windows of the building in question, in the same manner as we now use glass, I cannot pretend to decide. I am informed that, at a short distance from these foundations, a layer of human bones, in a state of crumbling decay, was discovered. Various relics, such as iron spear-heads, a fibula, key, bronze pins, fragments of tile scored with lines, and of pottery of various kinds, usually found near sites of Roman occupation, including a portion of ' Samian' ware, ornamented in relief, were found near these remains f. Amongst the earthenware may be noticed a fragment of one of those singular flat vessels, formed of whitish clay, with a broad recurved margin, and a spout, frequently discovered with Roman remains J; also red pottery, ornamented with chevrons, circles, and dots of white clay, in relief. A portion of a small vessel of red ware was found, resembling one preserved in the Museum at Worcester, which was found in one of the cists in the Roman burial-ground at Kempsey (see the woodcut, p. 56, No. 6). Another specimen, in my possession, was found with Roman remains, during the formation of the Severn naviga...