(36) A little light is thrown on two Somerset 'villas' in Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset (xiv. 1914). (a) Skinner in 1818 excavated a 'villa' near Camerton which he recorded in his manuscripts. (British Mus. Add. 33659, &c.) and which I described in print in the Victoria History of Somerset (i. 315). His account did not, however, enable one to fix the precise site; he said only that it stood south of a certain Ridgeway and next to a field called Chessils. Mr. E. J. Holmroyd has now, with the aid of tithe maps, discovered a field called Chessils in the north of Midsomer Norton parish, about a mile east of Paulton village, at the point where a lane called in the Ordnance Survey 'Coldharbour Lane', which runs north and south, cuts a lane running east and west from Camerton to Paulton; this latter lane keeps to high ground and must be Skinner's Ridgeway. In Chessils and in adjoining fields called Cornwell, just 525 feet above sea-level, he has, further, actually found Roman potsherds, tiles, and rough tesserae. This, as he says (Notes and Queries, xiv. 5, and in a letter to me) will be the site of Skinner's 'villa.' (b) In the same publication (p. 122) I have pointed out that the Parish Award (1798) of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater, contains a field-name Chesters. This, as the Rector of Chedzoy attests, is still in use there, as the name of an orchard on the Manor Farm, just west of Chedzoy village. According to older statements, a hypocaust was long ago found in 'Slapeland', and Slapeland too lies west of Chedzoy village (see Vict. Hist. Somerset, i. 359). Two bits of slender evidence seem thus to confirm each other, although no actual Roman remains have been noted at Chedzoy lately.
(37) In the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London (xxvi. 137-44) Mr. A. Bulleid describes, with illustrations, some excavations which he lately made in the marshes north of the Polden Hills, near Cossington and Chilton. Here are curious mounds which have often been taken for some kind of potteries, and are so explained by Mr. Bulleid; many of these mounds were excavated about a hundred years ago, and Mr. Bulleid has now dug into others. His results are not very conclusive, but they seem to imply that the mounds, whatever they were, were not used for pottery making, since among many relics of various sorts no 'wasters' have been found. See further, for an account of the finds in this region, Victoria Hist. of Somerset, i. 351-3.
Surrey
(38) The Surrey Archaelogical Collections (vol. xxvi) note various small Roman finds?Roman bricks in the walls of Fetcham Church, possibly Roman plaster at Stoke D'Abernon Church (p. 123), some thirty coins and Roman urns and glass from Ewell (pp. 135, 148), and an urn from Camberwell (p. 149). The same journal (vol. xxvii, p. 155) notes the discovery, not hitherto recorded, of over 100 coins of A.D. 296-312 in an urn dug up in 1904 at Normandy Manor Nurseries, near Guildford.
(39) A Schedule of Antiquities in the County of Surrey, by Mr. P. M. Johnston (Guildford, 1913), seems intended for students of mediaeval and modern antiquities, and says little about Roman remains; it has no index and cites no authorities.
Sussex
(40) A Roman well has been examined near Ham Farm, between Hassocks railway station and Hurstpierpoint. It was 38 feet deep, the upper part round and lined with local blue clay, the lower part square and lined with stout oak planks. The only object recorded from it is a 'first century vase', taken out at half-way down, which suggests that the well collapsed at an early date. Another well, flint-lined, was noted near but not explored; Roman potsherds were picked up not far off (Sussex Archaeological Collections, lvi. 197). The remains probably belong to a farm detected close by in 1857 (S. A. C. xiv. 178). Traces of Roman civilized life are comparatively common in this neighbourhood.
(41) Mr. R. G. Roberts' volume, The Place-names of Sussex (Cambridge University Press, 1914), much resembles the Derbyshire monograph noted above (No. 7). Its selection of place-names is about as limited and its neglect of all but purely phonetic considerations is as marked. Names such as Cold Waltham (beside a Roman road), Adur, Lavant, Arun, Chanctonbury, Mount Caburn, do not find a place in it. From a full criticism by Dr. H. Bradley in the English Historical Review (xxx. 161-6) one would infer that its philology, too, is by no means satisfactory.
Westmorland
