Hypocaust

A floor of tile and concrete sometimes with mosaic, supported on low tiled pillars to allow the hot air from a furnace to circulate beneath it – the very efficient Roman equivalent of central heating. The gases escaped up box flue tiles at intervals round the wall, thus warming these also. Hypocausts were identified at the villas at Church Farm, Saunderton and The Rye, High Wycombe. Other villas in Buckinghamshire probably also had hypocaust systems.