XVIII. A Letter from Smart Lethieullier, Esq; to D. Charles Lyttelton, relating to some Antiquities found in the County of Essex

Extract

In a letter I wrote some years ago to my worthy and learned friend Mr. Roger Gale, I acquainted him, that in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifteen, a Roman pavement was discovered in Wansted Park; that it was immediately destroyed by digging holes through it, for planting an avenue of trees, the owner of it having no great taste for things of that nature. But, from the account I got from Mr. Holt, the then surveyor of the works, I found that there was the figure of a man on horse-back plainly to be seen in the centre, with several borders of wreathed work and ornaments, as are usual in these kinds of pavements. From the situation of this pavement, as I remember the ground thirty years ago (though the face of it now is totally changed), viz. upon an easy declivity fronting the south, close by a beautiful well of bright water, and at a small distance from the foundation of a building, which, by the nature and size of the bricks, I was certain, was Roman; I was induced to believe, that this might have been the pavement of a banqueting house belonging to some Roman villa, by reason of the beauty of the situation, its vicinity to the capital, and the Icening-street, which I had the pleasure of shewing you, where it crosses the forest, passes through my eslate, and pushes for the passage cross the river Roden, now called Ilford, though two stone bridges have in more modern times been built there.