In the church-yard are two priests cut in stone. This has been a populous place; for here are great quarries about it, and the rock lies very little under the surface. Mr. Camden speaks of vaults found here; and W. Harrison, in his description of Britain, II. 17. mentions Mosaic pavements.[75] The road seems to bend somewhat in this part, which I conjecture was with an intent to take in the springs.
A mile and half off to the west, in the parish of Hunnington, upon a hill surveying a lovely prospect, both toward the sea-coast, and into Nottinghamshire, is a summer camp of the Romans, or a castrum exploratorum, of a square form and doubly trenched, but of no great bulk: the entrance seems to have been on the east side. Not long ago, in this place, have been dug up, in ploughing, bits of spears, bridles and swords, and two urns full of coins: I saw a large brass one of Agrippa, and Julia daughter to Augustus, with many more, in possession of the Rev. Mr. Garnon of North Witham: his daughter gave me a score of them at Newark, Dec. 1728. Mr. Banks, 1735, digging for his new house at Ancaster, found much Roman antiquity.
All the way from this road, upon Ancaster heath, we have a view of the sea, and the towering height of Boston steeple. A little further we come to a place, of no mean note among the country people, called Byard’s Leap, where the Newark road crosses the Roman: here is a cross of stone, and by it four little holes made in the ground: they tell silly stories of a witch and a horse making a prodigious leap, and that his feet rested in these holes, which I rather think the boundaries of four parishes: perhaps I may be too fanciful in supposing this name a corruption of vialis lapis. I mentioned before, that here I apprehended the Roman road from the fen country passed down the hill toward Crocolana. Upon our road there are many stones placed; but most seem modern, and like stumps of crosses, yet probably are mile-stones: it would be of little use to measure the intervals; for one would find that the whole distance between two towns was equally divided by such a number of paces as came nearest the total. Over-against Temple-Bruer is a cross upon a stone, cut through in the shape of that borne by the knights Templars, and I suppose a boundary of their demesnes: some part of their old church is left, of a circular form as usual. Bruer in this place signifies a heath. The Hermen-street hereabout is very bold and perfect, made of stone gathered all along from the superficial quarries, the holes remaining. I observed, whenever it intercepts a valley of any considerable breadth, whose water must necessarily drain past it, there is an intermission left in the road; for otherwise their work would be vain: and the ends of the road are flaunted off neatly for that purpose, laying perhaps a small quantity of solid materials to vindicate the track, and not hinder the voidance of the rain: it goes perfectly strait from Ancaster to Lincoln full north, butting upon the west side of Lincoln town. A tumulus some time upon the centre of it: it is notorious from hence that the intent of these roads was chiefly to mark out the way to such places in the march of their armies; for there can be no need of a causeway for travellers, the heath being so perfectly good; and that our English word highway is hence derived, and applied to public ways. When we come to the towns upon the cliff side, they have ploughed up this barren ground on both sides the road, and basely lowered it for miles together, by dragging the plough a-cross it at every furrow; so that every year levels it some inches, and, was it not a public road, it would soon be quite obliterated. Here are six villages on the left hand, at a mile distance each, and a little off the road, which make an agreeable prospect. Just descending Lincoln hill, I saw the true profile of the road broke off by the wearing away of the ground: it is about thirty foot broad, made of stone piled up into an easy convexity: there is likewise generally a little trench dug in the natural earth along both sides of the road, which is of great use in conducting the water that falls from the heavens into the vallies upon the long side of the road both ways, and prevents its lodging and stagnating against the side of their work: the turf that came out of those trenches they threw upon the road to cover it with grass: thus had they all the curious and convenient ways for beauty, use, and perpetuity.[76]
Below the hill the Hermen-street meets with the Foss, which now united march directly up to the city, across a great vale where the river Witham runs, by Mr. Baxter thought the Victius of Ravennas: Mr. Leland calls it Lindis. As it descends towards Boston, it is besieged, as it were, by religious houses, planted at every mile; such as Nocton priory, founded by Robert D’arci, lord of the place, 1164. now the elegant seat of Sir William Ellys, bart. Kyme priory, founded by Philip and Simon de Kyme, knts. to which the Tailboyses added, who married the heiress; Barlings abbey, founded by Ralph de Hay, and his brother Richard; Stanfield, the seat now of Sir John Tyrwhit, bart. Bardney abbey built by king Ethelred, who was buried here anno 712. much added by Remigius bishop of Lincoln; Tupholm, founded by Rob. de Novavilla; Stikeswold priory of the Benedictine nuns; TAB. XXVIII.Kirksted abbey, by Hugh de Breton, whose ichnography is discoverable from its ruins; Revesby abbey, by William de Romara.
I think it not worth while, in a Roman journey, to dwell upon these places, and haste up hill to Lincoln,[77] a great and most famous city of theirs, graced with the title and privilege of aLindum. colony; therefore called Lindum colonia; a bold and noble situation upon a TAB. LXXXVIII.high hill, which we may think no less than five cities united into one; of all which I shall give a short account in their order, as to what I observed, without transcribing such matters as the reader will find better delivered in authors. My business is to illustrate the 88th Plate, which I made by pacing as I walked about the city, intended to give the idea of the place as formed originally by the Romans, and of their roads leading to and from it. 1.Below the hill, and westward of the city, the river throws itself into a great pool, called Swan pool from the multitude of swans upon it. All around this place the ground is moory, and full of bogs and islets, called now Carham, which means a dwelling upon the car, that is, the fen. Now here, without question, was the British city in the most early times, where they drove their cattle backwards and forwards, and retired themselves into its inaccessible securities; and from thence I apprehend the name of caer, signifying a fortification or inclosure in all the most ancient languages, came in this country to be retained in these morasses: this was its name as a dwelling, or a collection of native inhabitants; but the pool in their language was called lhyn, and that denominated the Roman city Lindum, being the hill hanging over this pool. From this Carham you have a pleasant view of the west front of the cathedral. The shape of the pool is thought very much to resemble a 2.map of England, when you survey it from the top of the cathedral. The Romans, pleased with this notable eminence, placed their city upon it, which they first built in the form of a large square, the southern wall standing upon the precipice or edge of the hill, and wanted no other external fence: quite round the other three sides they carried a deep trench too, which still remains, except on the south-east angle. This city was divided into four equal parts, by two cross streets that cut it quite through upon the cardinal points: the two southern quarters were taken up, one by the castle, the other by the church which Remigius built; but, when Alexander the bishop projected a structure of much larger dimensions, they carried the sacred inclosure beyond the eastern bounds of the city, and so built a new wall farther that way, as it is now, with battlements and towers. The north and south Roman gates of this part of the city remain; the one intire, the other pulled down about fifteen years ago by Mr. Houghton: the northern, called Newport gate,TAB. LIV is the noblest remnant of this sort in Britain, as far as I know. Upon the first sight of it I was struck with admiration, as well of its noble simplicity, as that hitherto it should not have been taken notice of: it is a vast semicircle of stones of very large dimensions, and, by what I could perceive, laid without mortar, connected only by their cuniform shape. This magnificent arch is sixteen foot diameter, the stones four foot thick at bottom: from the injuries of time, but worse of hands, it is somewhat luxated, yet seems to have a joint in the middle, not a key-stone: on both sides, towards the upper part, are laid horizontal stones of great dimensions, some ten or twelve foot long, to take off the side pressure, very judiciously adapted. This arch rises from an impost of large mouldings, some part of which, especially on the left-hand side, are still discoverable: below on both sides was a postern, or foot passage, made of like stones; but against that on the left side is a house built, and when I went down into the cellar I found a chimney set before it. The ground here in the street has been very much raised, and the top of the wall is of a later workmanship: it is indeed a most venerable piece of antiquity, and what a lover of architecture would be hugely delighted withall. They that look upon a gate among the vestiges of the forum of Nerva at Rome, will think they see the counterpart of this; but, of the two, this has the most grandeur in aspect: the drawing supplies any further harangue about it. From this gate eastward, some part of the old Roman wall is to be seen by a pasture, made of stone and very strong mortar: thereabout too are some arches under ground. The west gate toward the gallows was pulled down, not beyond memory: that on the south side, which I spoke of, still shows one jamb from between the houses, and two or three stones of the same make as the former, just above the springing of the arch: if you go up stairs in the adjoining house within the city, you may see the postern on the east side, which is big enough for a bed to stand in. I doubt not but there is, or was, another answerable on the other side; but this street is much contracted from its original breadth by the subsequent populousness of the place; and the ground here, being upon the edge of the hill, is much worn down, as the first is heaped up, from the condition of former ages. But by Newport gate before described, is another large and curious remnant of Roman workmanship: this is called the Mint wall, and stands in a garden in the north-west quarter of the city: it is still sixteen foot high, above forty foot long, and turned again with an angle: on the left-hand side behind it are houses built and marks of arches. What it was originally cannot now be affirmed; the composition of it is thus: upon squared stone of the common sort, but a little decayed through age, is laid a triple course of Roman brick, which rises one foot in height; the bricks seem to be a Roman foot long, and our seven inches broad: above this three courses of stone, which rise about a foot more; then three layers of brick, as before; upon that twelve courses of stone, then brick and stone to the top: the scaffold-holes are left all the way: the mortar is very hard, and full of little pebbles.
But this city being happily seated for navigation of the river, and the chief thoroughfare to the north, soon increased to that degree, that the Romans were obliged to add another to it as big as the former: this they did southward upon the declivity of the hill, and so tallied it to the other, that the new side-walls answered in a parallel to the old, and the most southern lay upon the river. Eastward the ditch without is turned into a broad street called the Beast-market, and there below Claskgate a great part of the old Roman wall is left, made of stones piled sideways, first with one direction, then with another, as was a common method with them: one piece of it is now eighty foot long, eighteen high; a little bit of it lower down is twelve foot long, as much high: between that gate upwards and the old city-wall, by the Greestone stairs, is the old ditch to be seen, much talked of, but not understood: it is called Weredyke. The people have a notion that the river came up here, and that these stairs were a landing-place from the water-side, and denominated from I know not what Grecian traders: but this is utterly impossible in nature. To the west the ditch and foundation of the wall is still left, though many times repaired and demolished in the frequent sieges this town has sustained, especially in the wars of Maud the empress: at the bottom of it, towards the water, is a round tower called Lucy tower, and famous in her history. This then was the state of this place in Roman times: the Foss and Hermen-street entered the city at Stanbow, or the stoney arch; there they parted: the Hermen-street went directly up the hill, and so full north through Newport; the Foss, according to its natural direction, ascended it obliquely on the eastern side without the ancient city, and so proceeded to the sea coast north-east.
But still here were two more great additions to the length of this city, and which stretched it out to an enormous bulk; the first northwards above the hill: it is called Newport, or the new city, 500 paces long. This I apprehend to have been done in the reign of the Saxon kings: it lies on both sides the Hermen-street, and was fenced with a wall and ditch hewn out of the rock: at the two farther corners were round towers and a gate, the foundations of which remain: there were several churches and religious houses in this place; and I suppose it was chiefly inhabited by Jews, who had settled here in great numbers, and grown rich by trade: there is a well still called Grantham’s well, from a child they ludicrously crucified and threw into that well.
[78]After the Norman conquest, when a great part of the first city was turned into a castle, I apprehend they added the last intake southward in the angle of the Witham, and made a new cut, called Sinsil dike, on the south and east side, for its security. The city then being of this huge compass, gave occasion for that prophecy, as they call it, and fancy to have been fulfilled in the year 1666:
It is observable that the Normans could not well pronounce Lincoln, but called it Nichol, as we find it in some old writers; and to this day a part of swan pool is called nichol pool: in some places of Lincolnshire the vulgar pronounce little, nickle, and some other words of that sort. Though this place is much declined since those times, yet of late it begins to flourish again very considerably. The meaning of grecian stairs I suppose borrowed from the Normans, importing only stone steps (grees) as they appear at this day, a commodious descent from the minster yard. Within this two years, two new churches, large and fair, have been built at the charge of the inhabitants, and a great many handsome dwelling-houses: trades and manufactures too reflourish.
[79]In this last part of the city, on both sides the Roman road, were many funeral monuments of the old Romans; some of which they now dig up, and doubtless much more when they first built upon this ground. I saw a pit where they found a stone with an inscription, this summer: through age and the workmen’s tools it was defaced, only small remains of D. M. & VIX. ANN. XXX. such letters as showed its intent, with carvings of palm-trees, and other things: this is behind the house where the lord Hussey was beheaded for rebellion in the time of Henry VIII. the great bow window through which he came upon the scaffold was taken down this year: it stands over-against another stone building, of an ancient model, said to be the palace of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, who lived here in royal state, and had the privilege of coining: his arms are here carved in stone. Upon the steeple of St. Mary’s church they have placed in the wall an ancient monumental stone, with this imperfect inscription:
There is another obscure inscription upon the upper part of the stone, but has been added since, and is christian. Upon the church-wall lies an old stone by the conduit, which Leland takes notice of, and says is Ranulf de Kyme. Immense are the Roman antiquities dug up about this famous colony: nor has the perpetual turning up the ground exhausted them. The late Dr. Primrose had a great collection: I remember to have seen a fine glass urn in his possession, now with Martin Folkes, esq; found near Newport gate; also a very large silver seal of one of the Quincys earls of Lincoln, now with Nevil King, esq. Wm. Pownal, esq; has many coins very well preserved, particularly a Carausus with his wife on the same coin, which is a great rarity. I am in hopes he will some time favour the learned with an accurate account of this place, as it highly deserves. Upon the Roman road eastward are some barrows: many urns, and the like, have been dug up about them, especially near the stone pits, with earthen aqueducts, and all kinds of antiquities. Mr. Pownal showed me a brass armilla, found with a corpse which possibly was British.[80] Upon the road going to Staynton, is an hospital of St. Giles, built by Remigius; and behind it are great cavities in the rock under ground, which people fancied to be Roman catacombs, and affirmed they had seen earthen and brazen pots, inscriptions and the like, with many other strange stories: to search this matter thoroughly, provided with torches, we traced them to the utmost corners, but found them only quarries. Let us now survey the cathedral. It is far more magnificent than any I have yet seen: there are two great gate-houses or entrances to it from the west: the lower part of the front, and of the two towers, are of Remigius his building, as is easily discoverable by the colour of the stones, and by the manner of architecture: but Alexander built the additions upon it, the body of the cathedral, the choir and St. Mary’s tower, which once had a very lofty spire upon it; a prodigious work for a single man, and that not the only one, as appears by what we have mentioned of him. St. Hugh the Burgundian built the east end, orTAB. XXIX. St. Mary’s chapel, where he had a shrine; and the chapter-house cieled with a beautiful stone roof, one pillar in the middle. The cloysters and the library are fine: here are many books and manuscripts, and an old leaden inscription of William d’Agincourt, cousin to Remigius, already printed. Here are many bells, particularly one remarkably large, called Tom of Lincoln, which takes up a whole steeple to itself; probably consecrated to that great champion of the church, St. Thomas of Canterbury, the first cathedral mentioned in Bede; I suppose an humble building, and contained within the ancient walls. Two Catharine-wheel windows, as called, at the ends of the larger transepts, are remarkably fine for mullion-work and painted glass. Here are great numbers of ancient brasses and monuments: one I have engraven from a drawing procured by Browne Willys, esq; TAB. XVI.Tab. 16. the stone only is left near the west door. To set down the particularities of the church would require a volume. South of it, upon the very brow of the hill, is the bishop’s palace, built by Robert de Chesney, who gave two great bells likewise: bishop Bek and other successors enlarged it to a magnificence equal with the cathedral: it stands just south of the Roman wall; a very expensive work, for the foundations of it reach, as it were, below hill: over this hung many large bow windows of curious workmanship, looking over the tops of the lower city into Nottinghamshire: the kitchen had seven chimneys in it: the hall was stately: the gate-house remains intire, with coats of arms of the founders. This palace was ruined in the time of the civil wars: good part of it might be handsomely rebuilt without an extravagant expence.
In Leland’s time one of the stone crosses of queen Eleanor was here standing in the market place: it were endless to enumerate the religious houses, gates, and old buildings, that croud up every part of the streets. Here were originally fifty two churches. I never saw such a fund of antique speculations in any town in England: I heard continually of coins and urns found all the country over, as at Cathorp, Methringham, Nocton, &c. I found this inscription on a stone in the stable wall of the Rein-deer inn.
+RANDOLF: DE: BORTON: GYT: ICY: DEUI: DE: SA: ALME: AYT: MERCY: AMEN.
This castle of William the Conqueror’s is a large place, and exceedingly strong with walls, ditches, keep, and towers: over against it westward is an intrenchment made by king Stephen.
Through the whole length of Lincolnshire, from north to south, in a strait line runs a ledge of hills, that is, from Stanford to Winteringham: the Romans, observing this, carried their road upon it, and left the original stem of Fokingham. This high ground is similar all along, having a steep descent westward, overlooking Nottinghamshire, and is a rock of rag-stone quite through; the stone is white, and rises in strata, thicker as deeper: the surface is heathy. The river Witham, which rises on the west of this ridge, must have run into the Humber, had not Nature, by her propensity of drawing it eastward, as her declivities generally run, broke it off in the middle by that great valley under Lincoln, and made a passage for it into the estuary. Hence it is that the stone upon this western cliff is full of sea-shells; for, when the great and universal deluge had carried those inhabitants of the ocean into the mediterranean parts, by the weight of their shells they were unapt to retire again along with the waters, so were intercepted against this cliff, and received into the nascent stone.[81] A remarkable antediluvian curiosity I procured for the repository of the Royal Society, from these parts; being the real skeleton of a crocodile, or some such animal, inclosed in a broad flat stone. But now it is time to proceed.
The Hermen-street going northward from Lincoln is scarce diminished, because its materials are hard stone, and the heath on both sides favours it: three miles off, near a watering-place, a branch divides from it with an obtuse angle to the left, which goes towards Yorkshire. We suppose the Romans at first had an erroneous idea of the island of Britain, and thought its northern parts in a more easterly longitude than by experience they found; and thus in Ptolemy’s maps the length of Scotland is represented running out enormously that way: but when Agricola, in his conquests northward, had discovered that mistake, and that the passage over the Humber was very incommodious for the march of soldiers, he struck out this new road, as another branch of the Hermen-street, by way of Doncaster, from thence observing its natural direction northward. When we turn ourselves here, and look back to Lincoln, we see the road butts upon the western spires of the cathedral: and when from thence you survey the road, it is an agreeable prospect; your eye being in the middle line of its whole length to the horizon. I had a mind to pursue this branch through Lincolnshire as far as the first station, Agelocum: this ridge is likely to be of an eternal duration, as wholly out of all roads: it proceeds directly over the heath, then descends the cliff through the rich country at bottom, between two hedge-rows, by the name of Tilbridge lane. When you view it on the brink of the hill, it is as a visto or avenue running through a wood or garden very strait, and pleasanter in prospect than when you come to travel it; wanting a Roman legion to repair it. You pass through Stretton and Gate-Burton, so called from the road, and by a ferry cross over the Trent, which lands you at
Littleborough, Agelocum, or, as by later times corrupted, with a sibilus, into Segelocum.[82] This is a small village three miles above Ganesborough, just upon the edge of the water, and in an angle. Agel auk, frons aquæ, is a pertinent etymology: it seems only to have been environed with a ditch, and of a square form, and the water ran quite round it; for to the west, where White’s bridge is, a watery valley hems it in: so that it was a place sufficiently strong. The church stands upon the highest ground. The Trent has washed away part of the eastern side of the town. Foundations and pavements are visible in the bank. Mr. Roger Gale, passing by, once found an urn there, with a coin of Domitian’s: great numbers of coins have been taken up in ploughing and digging: they called them swine-pennies, because those creatures sometimes root them up, and the inhabitants take little care to save them. I saw a few there: the reverend Mr. Ella, vicar of Rampton hard by, has collected several, and some valuable, such as the following, of which he sent me an account.
A consecration piece of Vespasian. Cos. IIII.
IMP CAES NERVAE TRAIANO AVG GER DAC PMTRP COSVPP ℞ SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI. The mole at Ancona.
IMP CÆS NER TRAIANO OPTIMO AVG GER DAC ℞ SENATVS POPVLVSQ ROMANVS. Fortune sitting with a cornucopia in one hand, a rudder in the other, FORT RED SC.
IMP CAES. &c. as the second. ℞ SPQR. a genius sitting on trophies, with a spear in the left hand, a victoriola in its right.
IMP CAESAR TRAIANVS HADRIANVS ℞ PONT. MAX. TRP. Britannia sitting with a shield, a spear in her left hand, a laurel in her right, the right foot upon a rock BRITANNIA SC.
CONSTANTINVS AVG. ℞ SOLI INVICTO COMITI. Another, ℞ ALEMANNIA DEVICTA.
Several of those struck about Constantius’s time with a galeate head on one side, and URBS ROMA ℞ a wolf suckling Romulus and Remus: others, CONSTANTINOPOLIS: many more, of Aurelius, Faustina, Gallienus, Tetricus, Victorinus, Carausius, Constantine, Constantius, Crispus, Allectus, and the lower Empire. About forty years ago, when the inclosures between the town and bridge were ploughed up, abundance of these coins were found, many intaglias of agate, cornelian, the finest coral-coloured urns and patera’s, some wrought in basso relievo, the workman’s name generally impressed on the inside of the bottom: a discus with an emperor’s head embossed. In 1718, they dug up two altars, handsomely moulded, which are set as piers in a wall on the side of the steps that lead from the water-side to the inn: on one is the remnant of an inscription, LIS ARAM DD. these are of the course grit-stone. Many very little coins are found here, like flatted pease; they call them mites. Mr. Hardy has a large urn with the face of a woman on the out-side. In this same field near White’s bridge are great foundations of building: coins are often found too at the lowest edge of the water, when the tide is gone off, and in dry seasons. On the east side of the river has been a camp. Returning by Tilbridge lane, upon the top of the heath is a spring, which they say flows and abates with the tide in the Trent, though five miles off: the like is reported of divers others hereabouts.
From the place where the roads branch out, before spoken of, I proceeded on the Hermen-street, northward, to Spittle on the street. There are milliary stones set upon the road all the way: it is very delightful riding, being wholly champaign, or heath. Of these stones I believe some are Roman, others later crosses, perhaps to supply their place: some tumuli scattered here and there. This place no doubt was a mansion, because a little beck runs through it, arising hard by: and it is ten miles from Lincoln; a convenient distance. I took the bearing of the road just north and south. Here is an hospital, said to be founded 1308, and great foundations all around, some of which are probably Roman. At present the village consists of two farm-houses, a chapel, an inn, and a sessions-house: three or four tumuli near the town. Upon the chapel is a silly Latin inscription:
| fui anno domini | 1398 | dom. dei & pauperum | |
| non fui | 1594 | ||
| sum | 1616 | ||
Qui hanc Deus hunc destruet. |
|||
Upon the sessions-house,
Underneath, a coat palè of six, on a bend three annulets, with the arms of Ulster: over the door, Fiat justitia 1619. All this whole country is a quarry just beneath the surface. Beyond Spittle woodland begins: by Broughton, a vein of deep sand well planted with coneys. At all these towns upon the Roman road, coins and antiquities are found; Hibberstow, Gainsthorp, Broughton, Roxby, &c. at Sandton has been a Roman pottery: between Scalby and Manton is a Roman camp: in Appleby is a place called Julian’s Bower: at Kirton, John of Gaunt had a seat: twenty-nine towns round about held of him in socage. I take Broughton to be another station, because of its name, and that a brook runs through it; so that the interval between Lincoln and Wintringham is conveniently divided into three parts, ten miles each, by Spittle and Broughton, the whole being thirty Roman miles. Thornholm, a mitred priory: there is but another in England, Spalding. Risby and Gokewell, two nunneries; some small remains of both. To the left is Normanby, where the late duke of Buckingham was born, and whence his title.
We kept the road all the way, though sometimes it passes over little bogs, and at last about Winterton is inclosed: it terminates in some arable, where it is well nigh lost a mile south of Wintringham Ro. town.Wintringham. Upon a rising ground at the end of the Roman road, a little to the right, and half a mile east of the present Wintringham, stood the old Roman town, of which they have a perfect knowledge, and ploughed up great foundations within memory: TAB. [i XVI]. 2d Vol.it is now a common, skirted by the marshes upon the Humber: the soil hereabouts is clay. This site of Old Wintringham, as called, was almost inclosed with water in its first condition, having only a slip of land towards the Roman road as an entrance: the valley westward between it and the town is now called the Old Haven, where three elm-trees stand: the east is bounded by the mouth of the Ankham, which I suppose is ang in British, broad, avon, river, from its broad marshes. The city was ploughed up six years ago, and great numbers of antiquities found, now lost; great pavements, chimney-stones, &c. often breaking their ploughs: in several places they found streets made of sea-sand and gravel. It is a peninsula between the Humber and Ankham, and had most opportunely a fine spring on the east side, which no doubt was embraced by the Romans: it is likewise a great rarity in nature, arising so near the sea in a clayey marsh: there is stone-work left round it, and an iron ladle to drink at, which is done frequently by travellers, as with a religious necessity. Several intakes have been made beyond this city in memory of man, which drives the Humber farther off, and increases the marsh: it is half a mile between it and old town. The old haven-mouth is called Flashmire. This place is over-against Brough, the Roman town on the Yorkshire shore; but it is rather more eastward: so that with the tide coming in they ferried over very commodiously thither, and even now they are forced to take the tide. Buck-bean trefoil grows upon all the bogs hereabouts. The bearing of the end of the Roman way is precisely north and south, as at Lincoln; so that it is a true meridian line from the west end of the cathedral. The present Wintringham is a dirty poor place, but still a corporation; and the mayor is chosen only out of one street, next the old town, where was a chapel: the bell of it now hangs in a wooden frame by the pillory, and makes a most ridiculous appearance. Here is still a ferry from a small creek kept open by some freshes; it was ill judged of travellers to desert the old Roman way and ferry, and turn the road to Barton, (where the Humber is much broader and very dangerous) for no other reason but because it is somewhat nearer and over-against Hull: but the saving three miles riding does not compensate for the time or hazard of so uncouth a passage. I am persuaded the old name of this station was Abontrus, the same as the name of the river, whence they have formed the mimic Wintringham. Here is a vast jaw-bone or rib of a whale, that has lain time out of mind, like that at St. James’s. Wintringham church stands on the end of the Lincolnshire Alpes. Well may the Humber take its name from the noise it makes: my landlord, who is a sailor, says in a high wind it is incredibly great and terrible, like the crash and dashing together of ships. The Roman way beyond the Humber at Brough is continued in Yorkshire; but of its progress that way I can say nothing at present, this being the northern boundary of my expeditions.
From the termination of the Hermen-street, just by the knoll of old Wintringham, and the hedge on the side of a common, a lesser vicinal branch of a Roman road goes directly west to Aukborough, passing over Whitton brook. All the ground hereabouts terminates at the Humber in longitudinal ridges going north and south, and all steep like a cliff to the west, plain and level eastward. Aukborough I visited, because I suspected it the Aquis.Aquis of the Romans, in Ravennas, and I was not deceived; for I presently descried the Roman castrum.[83] TAB. XVII. 2d Vol.There are two little tumuli upon the end of the road entering the town. The Roman castle is square, three hundred foot each side, the entrance north: the west side is objected to the steep cliff hanging over the Trent, which here falls into the Humber; for this castle is very conveniently placed in the north-west angle of Lincolnshire, as a watch-tower over all Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, which it surveys. Hence you see the Ouse coming from York, and downward the Humber mouth, and all over the isle of Axholm. Much salt-marsh is gained from all these rivers, though now and then they reclaim and alter their course. Then they discover the subterraneous trees lodged here at the Deluge in great abundance, along the banks of all the three rivers: the wood is hard and black, and sinks like a stone. Here are likewise other plentiful reliques of the Deluge in the stones, viz. sea-shells of all sorts, where a virtuoso might furnish his cabinet: sometimes a stone is full of one sort of shell, sometimes of another; sometimes, of little globules like the spawn of fishes: I viewed them with great pleasure. I am told the camp is now called Countess Close, and they say a countess of Warwick lived there; perhaps owned the estate;[84] but there are no marks of building, nor I believe ever were. The vallum and ditch are very perfect: before the north entrance is a square plot called the Green, where I suppose the Roman soldiers lay pro castris: in it is a round work, formed into a labyrinth, which they call Julian’s Bower. The church is of good stone, has a square tower, but the choir ruinous, excluded by a wooden partition: between it and the way to the marshes, a good spring rising out of the cliff. I dare say no antiquary ever visited this place since the Romans left it; for the people were perfectly ignorant of any matters we could inquire about; and as to finding coins, &c. they would make us no other answer than laughing at us: but I heard since, from other good hands, that they have been found here in great numbers.
Because I have frequently found these places called Julian’s Bower, both at Roman towns and others, but especially very common in Lincolnshire, I considered what should be the meaning of them, and shall here give my thoughts about it. They are generally upon open green places, by the side of roads or rivers, upon meadows and the like near a town: the name often remains, though the place be altered and cultivated; and the lovers of antiquity, especially of the inferior class, always speak of them with great pleasure, and as if there were something extraordinary in the thing, though they cannot tell what: very often they are called Troy town. What generally appears at present is no more than a circular work, made of banks of earth, in the fashion of a maze or labyrinth; and the boys to this day divert themselves with running in it one after another, which leads them by many windings quite through and back again.
Upon a little reflection I concluded that this is the ancient Roman game; and it is admirable that both name and thing should have continued through such a diversity of people; though now it is well nigh perished, since the last age has discouraged the innocent and useful sports of the common people, by an injudicious and unnecessary zeal for religion, which has drove them into worse methods of amusement. I imagine too this was a practice of the ancient Britons, many of which were of Phrygian extract, coming from the borders of Thrace; therefore derived it from the same fountain as the Romans: this was upon their maii campi; but I shall not speak of them here: and the Turks, I apprehend, learnt it hence; for it is their diversion too. As to the name bower, it signifies not an arbor, or pleasant shady retirement, in this place; but borough, or any work made with ramparts of earth, as camps and the like: and it is my thoughts, many works, which have been taken for camps, were only made for this purpose; whereof two I met with in this journey, that at Ashwel, and Maiden Bower near Dunstable. The name of Julian undoubtedly refers to Julus the son of Æneas, who first brought it into Italy, as is admirably described by Virgil in his V. Æneid. and kept up by the Romans with great pomp and annual festivity: Augustus was particularly fond of it, and took it as a compliment to his family. That they call these places Troy town, proves the same. Hear the poet: