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Notes on Building-Construction in Roman Britain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
No systematic survey of the methods adopted by military and civil builders in Roman Britain has yet been attempted. Nor does the present brief paper profess to fill the gap. It is merely a collection of notes based mostly upon a personal experience of varied types of Romano-British structure observed during excavation. As such, it may have a contributory value when a more comprehensive review of the subject is undertaken.
The best single collection of Roman building-material from Britain is that recovered from the factory of the 20th Legion at Holt, near Chester, and now exhibited in the National Museum of Wales at Cardiff. For the rest, building-materials and methods receive less than their due in our museums.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1: Papers Dedicated to Sir George MacDonald K.C.B. , 1932 , pp. 117 - 134
- Copyright
- Copyright ©R. E. M. Wheeler 1932. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
page 117 note 1 See W. F. Grimes, Y Cymmrodor, xli.
page 119 note 1 Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc., xxiv (1931), 205 ff.
page 120 note 1 Northumberland County History, vol. x, p. 458.
page 120 note 2 Wroxeter Report, 1913, p. 3.
page 121 note 1 Somerset Arch. Soc. Proc. lxxiv, 1929, pl. A, fig. 2, facing p. 130.
page 121 note 2 Cited by W. R. Lethaby, Londinium: Architecture and the Crafts, p. 13. Lethaby remarks that ‘One of the advantages of coarsely-crushed tile is that it absorbs and holds water, so that the mortar made with it dries very slowly and thus hardens perfectly.’
page 121 note 3 Arch lx, 219: Roman London (Roy. Com. Hist. Mon.), p. 120.
page 122 note 1 See JRS x, 88; N.E. Essex (Roy. Com. Hist. Mons.), p. 25.
page 122 note 2 Middleton, J. H., (Remains of Ancient Rome 1892), i, 48.Google Scholar
page 123 note 1 VCH Herts, iv, 129, note 64.
page 123 note 2 Déchelette, , Manuel d'archéologie, iii, Pt. 3, p. 986 ff.Google Scholar See also de la Noë, Lt.-Col. G., ‘Principe de la fortification antique. La fortification gauloise,’ in Bulletin de géographie hist et descr. 1887, nos. 5–6 (Paris: Leroux, 1888).Google Scholar
page 123 note 3 See above, pp. 60 ff.
page 124 note 1 See above, p. 63.
page 124 note 2 Nash-Williams, V. E., Arch. Camb., 1931, p. 102.Google Scholar
page 124 note 3 Grenier, A., Manuel d'archéologie v, 264.Google Scholar
page 124 note 4 Arch. Camb. 1927, p. 335.
page 124 note 5 JRS IX, 161.
page 124 note 6 Essex Arch. Soc. Trans., n.s., xvi, 360; and unpublished material from Verulamium.
page 124 note 7 London in Roman Times (London Museum Catalogue), p. 37. Several Roman architectural fragments from London are of oolite from the district between Wincanton and Bath.
page 125 note 1 Cardiff Naturalists' Soc. Trans. lv, 45.
page 125 note 2 Roman London (Roy. Com. Hist. Mons.), p. 42.
page 125 note 3 Archaeologia, lvi, pl. xix, facing p. 371.
page 125 note 4 Arch. Camb., 1931, p. 146.
page 125 note 5 A. Blanchet, Les enceintes romaines de la Gaule, p. 311.
page 126 note 1 Lydney Report (Soc. of Ant., Research Cttee. Report), pp. 24, 55.
page 126 note 2 Arch, lxxviii, 118. The adjacent corner-tower of the legionary fortress was similarly treated, and the practice recurs on the German Limes—ORL Lief. 44, p. 28 and pl. 15.
page 126 note 3 Paris, Matthew, Vitae XXIII Sancti Albani Abbatum, Ed. Wats, W. (1684), p. 1016.Google Scholar
page 126 note 4 Arch. Journ. lxxxvi, 34.
page 126 note 5 Arch. Journ. lxxxvi, 302.
page 127 note 1 VCH Northants, i, 188.
page 127 note 2 Wheeler, Segontium and the Roman Occupation of Wales, p. 50. In the fort at Cannstatt on the German limes, a building decorated with painted wall-plaster may represent a civil rather than a military occupation.—See Goessler and Knorr, Cannstatt zur Römerzeit, p. 9.
page 127 note 3 Wroxeter Report, 1912, passim.
page 127 note 4 But Giraldus Cambrensis claims to have seen them at Caerleon in 1188; for the decoration of bath-walls at Wingham (Kent), Silchester and Wroxeter, see Arch. Cantiana xiv, 135, Arch, lix, 352, and VCH Shropshire i, 231.
page 128 note 1 Essex N.E. (Roy. Commission on Hist. Mons.), 25; from JRS IX; 146, and x, 87.
page 129 note 1 ‘Rain-waters charged with carbonic acid gas, as they percolate through the limestone rocks on which they fall, dissolve the lime and carry it in solution till they issue in springs, where in process of evaporation they deposit it to calcify the soil and vegetation, and to form here and there lumpy or even thick layers of fairly solid rock…. Easily cut when freshly dug, it hardens on exposure and… forms a light and serviceable building stone’—Arch. Journ. lxxxvi, 257.
page 129 note 2 Fragments of the Bath vaulting still lie in the great bath there. For the subject generally, see W. R. Lethaby, Londinium: Architecture and the Crafts, p. 18. See also Archaeologia lx, 442, 444.
page 129 note 3 Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series, viii (1931), 278 ff.
page 131 note 1 Arch, v, 328 and pl. xxvii.
page 131 note 2 See Roy. Com. Hist. Mons., Roman London, p. 41 and pl. 5.
page 131 note 3 Ib., p. 90, no. 27.
page 132 note 1 Arch, lxxviii, 145.
page 132 note 2 Trans. Cumb. and Westm. Antiq. Soc., new series, xxviii, 359.
page 132 note 3 Wheeler, The Roman Fort near Brecon, figs. 16 and 22.
page 132 note 4 JRS XXI, 231, fig. 20.
page 132 note 5 Arch. lix, 360.
page 133 note 1 Van Deman, E. B. in American Journ. Arch., 2nd series, xvi (1912), 230 ff., 387 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar