In October 2001 an exciting discovery was made in Lopen where I live. Usually a quiet Somerset village of 250 people, it caught the imagination of the world when one of the largest and most important Romano-British pavements was found. Over three weeks it was slowly revealed to be in very good condition and of a great size.

It was photographed and fully recorded and then reburied and is unlikely to be seen again for a very long time.

I was invited as a monochrome specialist, to go up the scaffolding tower and take a high quality black and white photograph of the mosaic.  I waited until the sun was as low as possible to maximise the definition of the tesserae and the mosaic was damped down to increase the contrast.  I was absolutely thrilled with the resulting image as it shows the design of the mosaic much more clearly than similar colour photographs, including the infamous mistake.

A  reconstructed panel of the mosaic is sited on the floor of Lopen Parish Church

See more about the roman pavement on www.lopenmosaic.co.uk