Volume 1

The gentleman's magazine library : being a classified collection of the chief contents of The gentleman's magazine from 1731 to 1868. Romano-British remains / edited by George Laurence Gomme.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The gentleman's magazine library : being a classified collection of the chief contents of The gentleman's magazine from 1731 to 1868. Romano-British remains / edited by George Laurence Gomme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Bedfordshire. Bedford. [1868, Part II., pp. 261, 262.] THE other day, as the workmen in a gravel-pit near Bedford were removing the upper earth, the subsidence of a portion of the face of the pit showed that the original soil had been disturbed— an appearance which always causes us to look out for Roman or Saxon relics. The section thus made indicated that a small hole about eighteen inches in diameter and two feet deep had been once excavated. The earth filled in was darker than that of the undisturbed sides, and at the bottom there were small fragments of charcoal. I made a careful examination of all the dark earth, and found several fragments of the bright red ware, usually described as Samian. No urn or other relics were there. The red-ware fragments were scrupu- lously collected, and on attempting to join them together, I discovered that no complete vessel could be made up, but that they were frag- ments of three distinct vessels—a small bowl, two inches high, one and a half inch diameter at base, four inches at top; a patera, with turned rim, bearing a leaf ornament; and a plain saucer, without rim. Now there was nothing uncommon in the forms of either of these vessels, but the fact of their being found together in a so-called grave, all imperfect a circumstance which I have observed several times before is noteworthy. I have been impressed with the idea, that fragments as well as perfect vessels were deposited on certain occasions, and I beg to offer it for the consideration of better antiquaries than myself., q here is reason to believe that this red-ware was imported into this country, and that it was much valued by the Romans, as well as by. the natives. We know that the Saxons highly esteemed it. In ancient graves found near Bedford and elsewhere, pieces of Samian ware have been discovered with undoubted Saxon remains, and these fiagments of red-ware have been worked into discs and 1—2