centre.’ The room was lighted by a shaft cut into the middle of a transverse groin 19 ft. wide, in the centre of the north wall. The base of it was 5 ft. 9 in¹⁸  above the floor, and was 9½ ft. wide, decreasing gradually to 7 ft., as it sloped upwards and outwards. Its sides were splayed inwards 18 in., and it was of the same construction as the walls. In the east wall were three arched niches placed 3 ft. above the floor, and 9 in. apart (under a’ discharging’ arch), and measured about 4 ft. 8 in. high, 3 ft. 10 in. wide at the base, and 2 ft. 2 in. deep (fig. 26). The courses of masonry in the walls were carried round these recesses. An arched entrance about 11 ft. high existed in the southern end of the west wall. From it a passage, one side of which had been formed by the extension of the south wall, stretched outwards and westwards for a distance of 8 ft. and then turned at an angle south-westwards. It was said to have made a second angle north-west and so formed a zigzag or elbow-shaped passage, giving an entrance by a sloped way or staircase, but no remains of this were found when the plan was made. Traces of a flooring of opus signinum occurred and nails were found in the west wall.
   The whole of the interior of this room had been filled up with loose earth containing among the debris much building material, such as a block of sandstone or ironstone, with a mason’s mark on it, red and yellow flue, flanged, and paving tiles, one of the latter cut up as if for tesserae, an amphora handle, and many potsherds, iron nails, a coin of Constantinopolis type, and many animal bones of horse, bos longifrons, deer, sheep, pig, and oyster, mussel and snail shells. A spring existed under the floor of the room. After its disuse the roof seems to have fallen in and it was probably filled in with rubbish. The shape and site of this underground room suggested that it was a Mithraic temple, and this is considered highly probable by M. Cumont.¹⁸ But it must be remembered that cellars with niches are commonly found beneath villas in the Low Countries where they are supposed to have been storerooms. The only domestic cellars yet recorded in Britain have been found at Caerwent, Hartlip (p. 118), Richborough, and Verulamium. No trace of a house to which our building could have belonged has been recorded, though structures were found close by; also the stones of the west wall (inside) are all worked, whereas we should expect a cellar to be plastered. For the present it seems best to regard the Mithraeum as non-proven (P1. XVI, XVII).
   A little to the south of the room fragments of tiles, painted wall-plaster, potsherds, and at one place a bit of masonry were observed in the sandbank and suggest a second building or part of the above. For the relation of these two structures to others in the neighbourhood see Topographical. Index s.v. Eccles.
   13. CHATHAM.—Remains of buildings were discovered in 1779 near the top of Chatham Hill, in cutting the ditch of Amherst’s Redoubt, some 200 yds. west of Upbery Farm. The construction of the fort hindered exploration, and a plan made at the time shows only a small room measuring 7 ft. by 9 ft., projecting (as it seems) from the end of a range of larger rooms, with walling 2 ft. thick. Another piece of walling, perhaps connected with this, was found inside the area of the redoubt. The debris included wall-plaster painted in various colours, some spotted and some striped, broken tiles and wood ashes; many potsherds, including embossed Samian (type 37), a large brown urn, and an amphora handle stamped ‘LATRUS,’ probably L.ATILIUS RUSTICUS; further, some glass, a fragment of carved ivory, and four coins, a Claudius, a silver Vespasian (Iudaea Capta), a copper coin probably of Domitian, and a ‘large brass’ of Faustina. Burials and half a dozen coins (Gordian, Constantine, Constans, Valens, Valentinian, Anthemius) were found about the same time in the vicinity, but seem to belong to an Anglo-Saxon cemetery explored by Douglas.¹⁹ See also Topographical Index for a cemetery close by.
   14. CRAYF0RD.—Foundations of buildings and tiles, etc., were found on the site of Messrs. Swaisland’s Printing Works, on the south bank of the Cray, 200 yds. north of the main road. Pieces of brick, potsherds, and beads occur in the fields on the opposite bank of the river and hence east and north, right up to Eardmont Hill, clearly indicating the existence of some Roman building or buildings.²⁰  This site is only half a mile from that at Bexley (no. 7, p. 104).
   ¹⁸  Proc. Soc. Ant. xv, 184—5; xvi, 105—I 13 (with main account and plan), and 248. See also Antiq. xxxi, 3; Soc. Antiq. Scot. xxix, 1894-5, 204. Some fragments of rude ware are in Maidstone Museum. Cumont, les mystères de Mithra (Brussels, 1896), ii 510. M. Cumont also illustrates a good example of a cellar in a villa in Comment la Belgique fut romanisee (Brussels, 1914), p. 44!, fig. 13.
   ¹⁹  Hasted, ii, 74; Douglas, Nenia Britannica (London, 1793), p. 138, and plan on plate xxviii (2); Soc. Antiq. Minutes, 21 Nov. 1782; hence Gough (Adds. to Camden Britannia (1807), i, 338—9), copying Douglas and Hasted so carelessly as to make the 2 sets of foundations into 3, and other writers. For the amphora stamp see C.I.L. xiii, 10002, 112 and reffs. there given. The name is found at Pompeii and the amphora, therefore, is probably to be dated to the first century. The Athenian silver didrachm said by Phippen (Descr. Skesch of Rochester, p. 154) and others to have been found here, was actually found ten or fifteen years earlier in making ramparts round the dockyard on the lower ground; see Shrubsole and Denny, Hist, of Rochester (Rochester~ Fisher, 1772), p. 273. From Shrubsole’s illustration it seems to be considerably earlier in date than the Roman Empire, and indeed may have been brought to Chatham. by some modern sailor and lost there. On Greek coins in England, see Numis. Chron. (4th ser.), 1907, vii, 145.
   ²⁰  Spurrell, Arch. Cant. xviii, 313, and map.