Ebrington

EBRINGTON

(26 miles N.N.E. of Cirencester)

According to O.S. records, Roman coins were found in 1850 at SP 18794007, where now a garden and buildings on the S. edge of a natural terrace overlook the Romano-British site (1), 200 yds. to the S.E.

(1) Roman Villa (SP 19013990), described by the excavator as a 'bathing establishment', lies between The Grove and an old mill-pond on a shelf of ground which slopes S.E.; it was partly excavated in 1958–9. An exceptionally copious spring just to the N. occurs at the foot of a steeper slope. The rooms were sumptuously appointed and very little domestic rubbish was found.

Room 1, with a tessellated floor of white Oolite and Blue Lias (Plate 8), lay next to a heated room (2), where the pavement had been almost entirely destroyed. The furnace of the heated room received its air supply through an arched vent with a tufa-block ceiling, running under corridors 3 and 4. A drain built of very large dressed stones led out of the cold plunge bath (p) and through room 'e' which is thought to have been a latrine.

Local stone was generally used, but steps into the plunge bath were faced with imported white marble. Painted plaster from the bath area included a design with fishes; a doorway soffit had foliage pattern. Pilae under room 2 included a few constructed of upright box tiles packed with mortar. Some of the roof tiles were inscribed TCM. Cotswold stone tiles were also found.

There were remarkably few small finds. Among the little pottery was a sherd of 2nd-century samian ware and one rosette-stamped sherd.

JRS, XLIX (1959), 127; LI (1961), 186. PCNFC, XXXVI (1971–2), 87–93.