praefurnium. Some of the stonework of this portion of the building is shown in Plate XIII., Fig. 4.
Alterations on the Bath Buildings
In the small building of which we have been speaking there is preserved a remarkably simple plan of a military bath-house. It is evident that later additions were made to it until probably its original outlines were entirely lost in the extensions. Doubtless the recovery of its plan is due solely to the debris of later constructions which overlaid it. These will be discussed in more detail later. The result of their investigation was on the whole unsatisfactory as the outer walls had well nigh completely disappeared, and even the foundation trenches could not be traced satisfactorily, owing to the damage done by recent draining. It was quite evident, however, that the baths reflected in some degree the successive alterations which had taken place in the fort itself. The most striking feature of these changes was the construction of the ditch which divided the whole block of buildings into two parts. It ran from south to north, and curved slightly towards the east as it passed through the block, as though to cover the bath more completely. It then resumed its northward course, and was probably joined to a second ditch which passed along the north side of the annexe, but which is now concealed underneath the public road. The dividing ditch was about ten feet wide and eight feet deep. From its position one might very naturally infer that it had been constructed during the earliest period of the baths. But it was clearly later. A denarius of Hadrian was found among the material taken from the bottom, while a 'second brass' of Faustina the Elder lay in the filling near the surface. The pottery, too, appeared to be entirely of the later period, among it being fragments of bowls bearing the characteristic stamps of CINNAMUS and DIVIXTUS.
The Building adjoining the Baths
Coincidently with the cutting of the ditch, the eastern portion of the block—that is, the one which the ditch was intended to protect—seems to have been enclosed by a platform or a defensive rampart. All round the block there lay a foundation of river cobbles twelve feet broad, enclosing an area 113 feet long by 78 feet wide, with rounded corners. The cobbles were embedded in clay, but the superimposed material had almost entirely disappeared except at the east end, which was still covered with yellow puddled clay to a depth of one and a half or two feet. The whole structure conveys the impression that it was intended to serve as a protection for the building. It is difficult, if not impossible, to cite any parallel instance of a rampart surrounding a bath-house. In the excavation of the block it formed an
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