ROMANO-BRITISH LEICESTERSHIRE Wall Street 62 (now in situ under the Great Central Railway Station). The town council improved this district in 1882, and further discoveries were made. It was found that the pavement continued under the adjoin- ing house and under the street. Fragments of painted wall plaster were also discovered, but the walls appear to have been removed, probably for building purposes. 63 The pavement is a square of 23 ft., the design of the mosaic consisting of nine panels divided from each other by bands of braidwork. The panels are rilled with elaborate geometrical compositions, and the whole is framed by two bands, one of simple braidwork, the outer and larger of a frieze of flowers and leaves in flattened circles. The design is evidently a translation into mosaic of a coffered ceiling, the outer bands taking the place of frieze and cornice. The materials and colours of the tesserae are as follows : Black, perhaps slate ; blue grey, lias ; green grey, possibly limestone ; yellow in two shades, perhaps brick from its crude colour, or it may be an oolite. The white ground is either a limestone, or perhaps from its clearness, from the beds of the lower chalk. The reds in three shades are all brick. The use of the grey green (sage green) tesserae in the floor gives it a much softer look than most pavements, and offers a marked contrast to the mosaics of the southern counties. As for the tesserae the size is pretty constant everywhere in this country, the larger being ij in. more or less and the smaller in. or less. In this instance the larger are only f in. square. They always approximate to a square in shape, but are cut to fit a space if required. The larger sizes are only used as grounds for finer work, for borders, or for the pavement of corridors. This pavement is one of the finest of its kind in England (plate III). In 1885 a tesselated pavement was found in excavating under the premises of Messrs. Kimpson and Howell in Sarah Street, Old Bath Lane. It measured about 12 ft. or 14 ft. by 3ft. or 4ft., and was in good preserva- tion, the pattern distinct, the tesserae rather coarse. A small piece was exhibited at a meeting of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society by Mr. Freer in 1886. The level was below the surface of the river and considerably lower than the pavement discovered in Jewry Wall Street. Two columns in the Leicester Museum (Nos. 18-19) are sa ^ to have been found in this place." About ten years before, in the same street, while some drainage works were being carried out, a bed of concrete composed of lime and finely broken tiles was disclosed, 9 ft. from the surface. In some places the concrete was a foot thick and extended for 20 ft. in length, it was not explored in any other direction ; the surface was quite smooth, and rested on a bed of black mould from 4 ft. to 5 ft. in depth, below which were marl and gravel. The flooring was intersected by a rough foundation, apparently the angle of a building, one side being curved. Some thick walls of coarse masonry were also found, one running parallel to the street, north and south, and two others crossing it at right angles. Beneath the floor a passage or conduit was discovered leading to the river." " Thompson, Hist. Lite. App. A. 445. " Assoc. Arch. Sue. xviii, lix ; Thompson, Hist. Lelc. App. A. 445 ; Fox, Arch. Journ. xlvi, 62 ; MS. Min. Soc. Antiq. x, 196.
- Guide to Lelc. Museum ; Antiq. xii, 228 ; Lelc. Arch. Soc. vi, 210 ; ix, 175; Fox, Arch. Journ. xlvi, 62.
15 Lelc. Arch. Soc. ii, 22 ; v, 41 ; Fox, Arch. Journ. xlvi, 62. 195
