Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885

Excerpt

ROMAN REMAINS AT LEICESTER, ENGLAND.

The Roman tessellated pavement in Jewry Wall Street, Leicester, discovered in the year 1832, is well known to archaeologists; it has also been known as difficult of access, and hardly to be seen in a dark cellar, and, in fact, it has not been seen or visited, except by very few persons. Some time ago the Town Council resolved to purchase the house and premises, with the object of preserving the pavement in situ, and of giving additional light and better access to it, and, this purchase having been completed in the beginning of the present year, the work of improvement began. It was now seen that the pavement was continuous under the premises of the adjoining house, and under the public street, and arrangements were at once made to uncover and annex these adjoining parts, so as to permit the whole to be seen at one view. The pavement thus uncovered forms a floor which, if complete, would measure 23 feet square; it lacks a part on the west side, and also the entire south border is missing. It is a marvel of constructive skill, of variety and beauty in form and color, and not the least part of the marvel arises from the almost beggarly elements out of which the designer has produced his truly harmonious effects. No squared, artificially colored, or glazed tesseræ, such as we see in a modern floor, are used, but little pieces, irregularly but purposely formed of brick and stone. There are three shades of brick—a bright red, a dull or Indian red, and a shade between the two; slate from a neighboring quarry gives a dark bluish gray; an oolite supplies the warmer buff; and a fine white composition resembling limestone is used for the center points and borders. In addition, the outside border is formed with tesseræ of rather larger size of a sage green limestone. Speaking generally, the design is formed by nine octagon figures, three by three, surrounded and divided by a guilloche cable band; the interspaces of the octagons are filled by four smaller square patterns, and the outer octagon spaces by 12 triangles. Outside these is a border formed by a cable band, by a second band of alternate heart-shaped, pear-shaped, and bell-shaped flowers, and by alternate white and gray bands; and outside all is the limestone border already described. This border is constructed with tesseræ about five-eighths of an inch square. The remaining tesseræ vary from one half to one-quarter inch of irregular rhomboidal form. The construction of the pavement is remarkable. There is a foundation of strong concrete below; over it is a bed of pounded brick and lime three to four inches thick, and upon this a layer of fine white cement, in which the tesseræ are laid with their roughest side downward. Liquid cement appears to have been poured over the floor, filling up the interstices, after which the surface would be rubbed down and polished.

As to the probable date and occupation of the floor, it may be observed that the site of this pavement was near the center of the western Roman town....