Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/164

We are indebted to Mr. Jabez Allies for the following interesting account of discoveries recently made at Droitwich, which have supplied ample evidence of a Roman settlement in that locality, supposed to have been the British town Salinæ, in the country of the Dobuni.

"In pursuing my further researches relative to the Roman occupation of various parts of Worcestershire, I was anxious to discover evidences of such occupation at Droitwich, the Salinæ, or supposed Salinæ, of the ancients. In addition to the Roman urn found there during the excavation for the foundations of Mr. Ellins's salt-works, the particulars of which I communicated on a former occasion^[1], a fine Roman tessellated pavement has since been discovered, about eight inches beneath the surface, in Bays Meadow, on the northern bank of the river Salwarp, close to the town of Droitwich, and on the northern limb of the Stoke Prior branch of the Wolverhampton, Worcester, and Oxford railway, being near the spot where that branch joins the main line.

"This branch, on entering Droitwich from Stoke Prior, passes at the back of Mr. Ellins's salt-works, and crossing the Worcester and Birmingham turnpike road by means of a viaduct, runs along the ridge called "The Vines," which lies below Doderhill church, and proceeds to a point a little beyond Wood's salt-works, where it is divided into two parts; a little further on, upon the northern limb of it, is the spot where the tessellated pavement was found.

"A large portion of the pavement has been presented to the Museum of the Worcestershire Natural History Society, by the gentlemen acting officially upon the line. The Rev. William Lea, of Droitwich, invited me to the spot on the 3rd of April inst., where I had the satisfaction of examining the pavement, and of witnessing its removal. It measured about three yards long and two yards and a half broad, (but there may have been more of it on each side of the cutting,) and it was curiously ornamented in compartments with various interlaced figures, formed of white, red, and blue coloured stones or tesseræ, a little larger than dice. The meadow was formerly a ploughed field, and the pavement lay at the bottom between two plough lands, and the plough must for centuries have passed over tl)e pave-