2 parts in One volume, large folio, text in English and French printed on thick paper. Dedicated to King George III with 34 aquatints. Only twelve copies said to be printed and now held at Yale, New York Public, Cornell, Harvard and John Hopkins among others. The author also has a copy.

The following are some extracts from the book that summarise the excavation and discoveries made by Lysons.
 

“The village of Woodchester is situated under a part of that range of high ground which forms the eastern boundary of the Vale of Gloucester, at an equal distance of twelve miles from the city of Gloucester, and the town of Cirencester.
Woodchester is indicated, by its name, to have been a Roman station, and many Roman antiquities have been at different times discovered there; of these, the most remarkable is a mosaic pavement, parts of which had frequently appeared on the digging of graves in the churchyard, and was probably observed soon after the ground was appropriated to the purpose of a cemetery.”
 

“About ten years ago a small part of the pavement was again uncovered, containing the figures of an elephant and several birds being a part of what was drawn by Mr Brown [Edmund Brown drew several pictures of the mosaic who Lysons said were done accurately]. Though much care was taken by the rector for it’s preservation, the wet and frost have long since entirely destroyed it.
In the year 1793, on the digging of a vault for the internment of the late John Wade Esquire, of Pudhill, at the depth of four feet below the surface of the ground, so considerable a portion of the same pavement was laid open, as, together with other openings which were made in the course of that and the following year, enabled me to ascertain its form and dimensions. The complete design of this pavement could now be ascertained, which, for size and richness of ornament, is, I believe, equalled by few of those discovered in other provinces of the Roman Empire, and is undoubtedly superior to anything of the same kind hitherto found in this country.”
 

“The tessarae of which the pavement is composed, are, for the most part, nearly cubes of half an inch; those of the outward border are larger and those near the centre much smaller. Many are triangular and of various other shapes. The whole, when entire, could not have contained less than a million and a half of them.
Most of the materials of which they are formed are the produce of this county, except the white, which are a very hard calcareous stone, bearing a good polish, and nearly resembling the Palombine marble of Italy. Nothing could answer the purpose better than this substance, and it was employed by the Romans in many of their mosaic pavements in other parts of Europe. The dark bluish grey are a hard argillaceous stone found in many parts of the Vale of Gloucester, and there called blue lyas. The ash colour is of a similar kind of stone, and frequently found in the same masses as the former. The dark brown are of a gritty stone, found near Bristol and in the Forest of Dean. The lightest brown nearly resembles a hard calcareous stone found at Lypiat, about two miles from Woodchester. The red are of a fine sort of brick.
Close-up detail of the pavement
In the autumn of 1794, an opportunity occurred of exploring the ground to a considerable depth near the northwest corner of the pavement where it had formerly been broken up. The cement on which the pavement was laid appeared to be about eight inches thick, and composed of fine gravel, powdered brick and lime, forming a very hard substance on which the tessarae were laid in a fine cement, consisting chiefly of lime.
The interstices between them appeared to be filled with so hard a cement, that it was more difficult to break it than even the stones of which the tessarae were formed. The next stratum was three feet thick, and appeared to be composed of a coarser gravel, with which great quantities of the tessarae were mixed; and below this, another reddish sand and clay, mixed with pieces of brick, about a foot in depth, which lay on the natural soil.”
 

“About twenty years ago, part of another pavement was discovered in an orchard lying on the Westside of the churchyard, which appeared to have belonged to a gallery running towards the fourth side of the great pavement. The part which was then laid open, being about fifteen feet in length, was very perfect when first discovered but has long since been entirely destroyed…The gallery, of which this pavement was the floor, appears to have been one hundred and fourteen feet in length and ten in width…Those parts of the wall of this gallery, which remained on the fourth side, were two feet thick.”
 

“In the spring of 1794, an opening was made in a field called the Parks, belonging to Samuel Wathen, lying on the fourth side of the churchyard, and separated from it by a road. This opening was made in a part of the field immediately opposite the great pavement in the churchyard, where ridges in the ground, running at right angles with the pavement, pointed out a continuation of the building. Here the remains of several walls were soon found at the depth of about three feet below the surface of the ground; but the discovery was not prosecuted to any great extent, as the tenant of the field was desirous that the work be postponed till the autumn, when considerable progress was made in tracing the course of the walls. These were built of the stone of the county (which resembles Portland Stone) roughly hewn. In many places only the foundation remained; they were generally two feet six inches wide at the bottom.
The dimensions of three large rooms were ascertained; one of them was thirty-eight feet square, another thirty-eight feet by forty-six feet and the third thirty-eight feet by fifty-one. The walls remained in several places to the height of four feet from the foundation…The outside of these walls was plastered in several places, and painted of a dull red colour. Many fragments of the stucco, with which they had been plastered on the inside, were found among the rubbish, painted with various colours in fresco, and on several of them were fragments of inscriptions.”
 

“The several buildings above described appears to be the remains of a Roman house or rather perhaps of a villa; they don’t seem, not withstanding their great extent to have been part of any town or group of houses.”
 

“From the magnitude of the building and the richness of the decoration it doesn’t seem probable that it belonged to any private individual. It was more likely a public work, built for the residence of the Propraetor or, at least, the governor of this part of the province, and occaisionally, perhaps for the Emperor himself as it is well-known several of the Roman Emperors visited Britain and some of them continued there a considerable time.
There are various reasons which might have induced the Romans to fix on this situation for the erection of such a building.
In the first place, it possesses the advantage of being abundantly supplied with water, not only from the brook running at the foot of the hill on which it stands but also by a very considerable spring that rises on the hill above it and runs through the orchard and churchyard over part of the ground which was formerly occupied by the building; and by means of which not only the bath might have been supplied but fountains also which the Romans were frequently had in the courts of their houses. Very good stone for building was to be found near the spot and clay for making bricks. The beauty of the surrounding country must have been a considerable inducement to building here.”
 

A summary of the finds that Lysons discovered:
*The Orpheus Pavement.
*Large flues, big enough to allow a person to walk through as they were four feet high and one foot eleven inches wide at the bottom. They were built of stone and plastered. In several parts he found soot and they were obviously used for the purpose of heating rooms
*Several other mosaics, in passages, in the gallery; and one mosaic in one of the large rooms which had the remains of an inscription on it.
*Fireplaces including one where a considerable quantity of skulls and bones of animals, for the most part sheep, were found. (It may be though, that these were not contemporaneous.)
*Coins, of Magnentius, Hadrian and Lucilla; many brass coins of the Lower Empire.
*Doric columns
*Part of a statue of Diana Lucifera
*Part of a statue of a young man
*A fragment of a bust
*Fragments of glazed pottery
*Some fragments of greenish and blue glass
*Fragment of a sculpture of Cupid and Pysche
*Pieces of stag horn and human bones
*Knives, scabbard and brass hatchet
*The remains of a laconicum or sweating room- circular and adjoining a warm bath.

Links
Illustrations from the book
Further illustrations from the book
A close-up of the detail of the Orpheus Pavement
Even more illustrations from the book
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Contents:

• Introduction and Description
• Home Page
• A Brief History
• Neolithic History
• The Romans and Woodchester Villa
• King Arthur, Myths and Legends
• Anglo Saxon History
• History of  Woodchester's Churches
• 1999 Selsley Electoral Roll
• Woodchester Views (photographs)
• Woodchester Mansion
• Flora and Fauna
• Selsley Church and William Morris
• Pictures of Selsley Church
• Journals, Poetry and Literature
• Woodchester Village Statistics
• The Woollen Industry
• Genealogical Information
• Maps and Ephemera