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built upon the
floor, which was unbroken along its whole length, and some 2
feet north-west of its successor in Phase E. For this latter
wall, only 1 foot 6 inches wide and of standard construction,
was not contemporary with the construction of the floor on
which it rested; this is proved by the fact that it abutted
against the painted wall-plaster surface of the south-west
wall of Rooms 59 and 60 which it preserved in situ; moreover,
many of the large number of fragments of painted wall-plaster
found in this corridor show unmistakable signs of re-painting.
The only other reconstructed rooms in these phases are Rooms
67 and 68, the former largely replacing Rooms 61 and 63 and
the latter becoming the new and rather larger furnace-room for
the new hypocaust.
Room 67 measured 23 by 7 feet and was heated by a
hypocaust; the under-floor of this hypocaust was of opus
signinum, 5 inches thick, raised 6 inches over the level
of the earlier under-floor by the deposition of a make-up
layer consisting of mortar rubble and debris undoubtedly
originating from the walls demolished in the reconstruction of
this area. The upper floor of the hypocaust was suspended 19
inches on pilae, which had been almost totally removed,
except for a few base tiles (1 by 1 by ¼ in.) remaining along
the north-west wall of the room; the height of suspension is
definitely known in this instance as a remnant of the
suspended floor, 3 inches thick and built of opus signinum and
bridging-tiles, was found in situ at the junction of
floor and northwest wall.
Room 68, the furnace-room serving Room 67, measured 7
feet 6 inches by 10 feet 6 inches and reverted to the size of
the earlier Room 56; it contained a floor of bonding-tiles
laid over a layer of opus signinum and tile debris, and
served Room 67 through a flue (2 feet wide) in its north-east
wall. The amount of soot and ashes filling the lower levels of
this room makes its function as a furnace-room quite certain.
A further range of rooms, of unknown number as yet, was added
in Phase E, with walls of standard thickness and construction,
to the south-west of Room 57, but too little has so far been
exposed to establish their plan and probable purpose.
Associated with these rooms was a length of drain, with
ragstone walls and tiled bottom, likely to have been intended
for the disposal of rainwater from the roof of these rooms,
which it carried to its junction with the main drain to the
south-east of Room 51.
The whole area north-west of the main range of rooms and Room
46 was enclosed throughout Period III by a long wall of
standard construction, projecting south-west from its junction
with Room 59 and used later as the foundation for the
courtyard wall of the baths in |