There seems to be no Roman way between Ratæ and Vernometum;[97] but coming from Margidunum, you turn out of the road by Sison over-against Radcliffe before mentioned. This place is Borough, or Erdborough, i. e. the earthy camp, in Gartre hundred east of Leicester. It is a very great Roman camp upon a very high hill, the north-west tip of a ridge of hills, and higher than any other part of it, of a most delightful and extensive prospect, reaching as far as Lincoln one way: the fortification takes in the whole summit of the hill; the high rampire is partly composed of vast loose stones piled up and covered with turf: it is of an irregular figure, humouring the form of the ground, nearly a square, and conformed to the quarters of the heavens: its length lies east and west, the narrowest end eastward: it is about 800 foot long, and for the most part there is a ditch besides the rampire, to render the ascent still more difficult to assailants: the entrance is south-west at a corner from a narrow ridge: here two rampires advance inwards, like the sides of a gate, for greater strength: within is a rising hill about the middle, and they say that vaults have been found thereabouts. Antiquarians talk of a temple, which possibly may have been there, and in the time of the Britons: thus the old Fanum of Apollo at Delphos was in a concavity on the top of a hill. The name of Vernometum signifies a sacred plain, as they tell us from authority. It contains about sixteen acres: several springs rise from under the hill on all sides, and I observed the rock thereof is composed intirely of sea-shells: they frequently carry away the stones that form the rampires, to mend the roads with. The town itself is now but a small village. There is another Roman castle southward near Tilton, but not so big as Borough hill: a petrifying spring near it, and a Roman road, as thought, called Long Hedges. I am not without suspicion that the true name is Verometum, and must be sought for somewhere near a river.
Leicester is the Ratæ Coritanorum of the Romans. The trace of the Roman wall quite round is discoverable without difficulty, especially in the gardens about Senvy gate: there was a ditch on the outside, very visible in the gardens thereabouts: it is 2500 Roman feet long, and as much broad towards the south-east, 2000 Roman feet broad to the north-west: this was repaired by Edelfleda, a noble Saxon lady, anno 914. but the stories in Mr. Camden, of the piles it stood on, and the indissoluble tenacity of the mortar, seem meant of the Roman work. The streets run in the manner we observed of Camboritum, the length of the city being from north-west to south-east. There is a Roman musive pavement in a cellar, in part remaining, of a person standing by a deer, Cupid drawing his bow, delineated in differently-coloured small stones as usual.[98] The old work called Jewry wall is composed of rag-stone and Roman brick:TAB. LV. several fragments and foundations are in all the houses hereabouts of this building, whatever it were, as well as in the adjacent church,TAB. XXIII. 2d Vol. which seems to be built in the very area of it, and out of its ruins. Not far off is a place called Holy Bones, where abundance of bones of oxen have been dug up, the exuvia of their sacrifices: this is however a most noble piece of Roman antiquity, and I lament it should be so much abused. Many Roman coins are found at Leicester: at the entrance into White Friers a pot full dug up about five years ago, and many great foundations. At St. Mary de Pree’s abbey they dug up a body, about three years ago, which they supposed to be cardinal Wolsey’s: in this abbey is nought worth seeing, but a pleasant terrace-walk, supported by an embattled wall, with lunettes hanging over the river and shadowed with trees. The little remains of the old building are new modelled by later hands, and scarce to be distinguished: it was made a dwelling-house since the Dissolution; and that is now spoiled of floors, roof, and windows; and the naked walls are left to daily ruin and pillage: the spot of the abbey is turned into a garden: they show us a place in it, where has been much search for the famous cardinal’s body; but it did not seem to me a likely place. The church, though wholly erased, did not probably come out so far toward the river: indeed there is thorough work made of all the religious houses at Leicester, and scarce one stone left in its original site. St. Margaret’s church was a bishop’s see in the time of the Saxon kings. Within the castle is a collegiate hospital, founded by Henry earl of Lancaster, who with his son Henry duke of Lancaster lie buried in the chapel: the church was very fine, demolished in the Suppression. Here, say some, was buried Richard III. this castle was built by Simon de Montfort. There is a very pretty arch reaching across the river, called Bowbridge, at Black Friers, under which they have a notion that king Richard III. was buried; which seems to allude to the British romance that tells of king Lear being buried here. Half a mile southward from Leicester, upon the edge of the meadows is a long ditch called Rawdikes:Rawdikes a Br. cursus. upon view of the place I found it to be a British cursus. King Charles I. when besieging Leicester, lay at the vicarage-house at Elston;TAB. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. 2d Vol. and during the storm of the town, when his men took and pillaged it, he stood, as they report, upon the banks of this Rawdikes. About February 1721–2. a tesselated pavement was found the other side the river, about Wanlip, with coins of Constantine, broken urns, a human scull, &c. a foundation by it, doubtless of the house that covered it.
Soon after you go from Leicester, taking the Foss at Bronstongate, you come to some inclosures and troublesome gates across the road: here they have fenced it out into a narrow scantling, scarce the breadth of a coach, to the shame as well as the detriment of the country, suffering so scandalous an incroachment. I travelled by Narborough on the west side of the river, and a very wet journey under foot for one that was resolved to keep upon the road: sometimes I rode half a mile up to the horse’s belly in water upon the Roman pavement. The river Soar running near its east side, it is carried over many bogs, quags, and springs, for miles together, with a visible pavement of great round coggles by Sharnford, so called from the causeway: approaching High-cross it enters inclosures again, and is crossed by some more lakes scarce passable. Just upon the edge of Leicestershire and Warwickshire, at High-cross, I met the Watling-street, my future conductor.
Benonis stands in the intersection of the two great Roman roads that trathe kingdom obliquely, and seems to be the centre of England, and highest ground; for from hence rivers run every way. The Foss went across the back-side of the inn, and so towards Bath. The ground hereabouts, the site of the ancient city, is very rich; and many antiquities, stones, Roman bricks, &c. have been dug up: Roman coins were found when they ploughed the field west of the cross.[99] Much ebulus grows here, sought for in cure of dropsies. Claybroke lane has a bit of an old quick-set hedge left across it, betokening one side of the Foss: the bearing of the Foss here is exactly north-east and south-west, as upon the moor on this side Lincoln. In the garden before the inn was a tumulus lately taken away: under it they found the body of a man upon the plain surface, as likewise under several others hereabouts upon the Watling-street. Foundations of houses have been frequently dug up along the street here, all the way to Cleycester. Here is a cross of handsome design, but of a mouldering stone, through the villainy of the architect, one Dunkley, built at the charge of the late earl of Denbigh, and the gentlemen in the neighbourhood: it consists of four Doric columns regarding the four roads, with a gilded globe and cross a-top upon a sun-dial: on two sides, between the four Tuscan pillars, that compose a sort of pedestal, are these inscriptions.
Cloudbury-hill, two thorn-bushes upon a tumulus on the Foss, supposed the sepulchre of one Claudius. The city probably was of a square form, humouring the crossing of the roads, and had consequently four streets and four quarters. Many foundations are dug up along all the roads. It commands a charming prospect to Ratæ, Vernometum, Coventry, &c. and quite round. You go through a gate by the cross to regain the Foss: at the length of a pasture it meets the true old road.
Being now got upon the Watling-street, I made this remark of it, that it is the direct road to Rome: for take a ruler, and lay it in a map of Europe from Chester through London and Dover, and it makes a strait line with Rome: so the great founders had this satisfaction when they travelled upon it, that they were ever going upon the line that led to the imperial Capitol. Our antiquarians are much at a loss, after torturing of words and languages, to find out the reason of the name of this street, which is so notorious, that many other by-roads of the Romans, in different parts of the kingdom, have taken the same, and it became almost the common appellative of such roads. My judgment of it is this: it is natural to denominate great roads from the places they tend to, as the Icening-street from the Iceni: the Akeman-street is said to come from Akemancester: in Wiltshire, and other places, the way to Exeter they call the Exeter road, though a hundred mile off: so the London road is every where inquired for as the most remarkable place: thus Watling-street, tending directly to Ireland, no doubt was called the Irish road, that is the Gathelian road, Gathelin-street; whence our present word Wales from Gauls, warden from guardian, &c. Scoti qui & Gaidelii says ogygia extera. Whether there be any thing in the story of Gathelus, as founder of the Irish, I do not concern myself at present; but their language is called Gaothela: so Mr. Camden says the true genuine Scots own not that name, but call themselves gaoithel, gaiothlac, as coming from Ireland; and that they glory in this name: and there is no dispute but this is the ancient appellative of the Irish,[100] which the learned Mr. Edward Lluyd has turned into Gwydhelians: and this name, which has superseded that which the Romans gave it, (whatever it was) seems to show there was such a road in the ancient times of the Britons, as the track of the trade between Ireland and the continent; yet it must be owned nought but Roman hands reduced it to the present form.
Hence-forward we turn our course upon the Gathelin-street directly for London along with the Itinerary. The road is now altogether between hedge-rows, very clayey and bad, full of lakes and mires, through the intolerable negligence of the inhabitants: here and there they have stupidly mended it, by making a ditch in the middle of the road to raise a bank of earth; for which they ought rather to be punished than commended.
I turned out of the road to the west, through some inclosures, to see Cester-over, induced by the name. I found a house in a little square deeply intrenched upon the side of a hill, but the earth rather thrown outward than inward as a vallum, and the level within much lower than the field around it. I perceived it was a religious house; some part of the building left; and without the ditch a fine chapel, built of brick with good stone coins and mullioned windows, converted into a barn: and a-cross a valley hard by I saw dams, or stanks, for fish-ponds. The people within could give me no manner of intelligence, having but lately come thither. I fancied it to have been a nunnery, and that it was called Sister-over, to distinguish it from other neighbouring towns; as Church-over, Browns-over, &c. but afterwards I learnt from other hands that there is a close called Old-town, where they dig up foundations, being very rich land (said to have been a city) lord Brook possessor.
Thence passing a rivulet, from Bensford bridge[101] I came to Tripontium, placed in a sweet little valley, but the sides pretty steep: the road on the opposite hill looks perfectly like a perspective scene at the play-house. This is the next Roman station, which is rightly placed at Dovebridge upon the Avon, running by Rugby to Warwick. The stream here divides into two, with a bridge over each: upon one a stone inscription, very laconic, showing the three counties that repair it. The first syllable of Tripontium has relation to the old British word tre, a town or fortification: the remainder is generally thought to signify a bridge; but it is not to be imagined the Romans would make a bridge over this rill, or one so eminently large as to denominate the town: indubitably it comes from the British word pant, a little valley as this is, and remarkably so; which the Britons pronouncing broad, created the Latin Tripontium. Here are no manner of remains of antiquity, but the distances on each hand ascertain this the place: hard by antiquities have been found both at Cathorp and Lilburn, one on the north, the other on the south of the river; so that the Roman city stood on both sides. Castle hills, a place at Lilburn, where are some old walls: Camden speaks of it. Mr. Morton has treated largely on this station, to whom I refer the reader. The neighbouring Newton probably succeeded it, and then Rugby.
With this reflection of the poet leave we the name of Tripontium, made immortal in the imperial Itinerary.
When we mount the next hill there is a lovely prospect as far as Watford-gap, four miles off, a great vale or rather level meadow lying between, a-cross which the road is drawn: and hereabouts the ridge of it is very high for miles together: the nature of the way, on both sides being stoney, has spared it. Several tumuli upon the road; bodies found under them: this shows the Romans did not travel upon them on horse-back. Watford-gap is a convenient inn for antiquaries to supply the mansion of Tripontium, which I think proper to advertise them of: it has a pleasant prospect of the road northwards: it is a high hill, and a rock of stone six foot under the surface, which is softish; then a bed of clay; under that a blue hard stone of good depth: below this rock it is springy, and at the bottom by the meadows are many quick springs. At Legers Ashby near here has been another old town, as they say, destroyed by the Danes: there are great ditches, causeways, and marks of streets. Catesby owned the town, who hatched the powder-plot. I went out of the road through Norton to see a great camp calledBurrow hill. Ro. camp. Burrow hill, upon the north end of a hill covered over with fern and goss: here is a horse-race kept; and the whole hill-top, which is of great extent, seems to have been fortified: but the principal work upon the end of it is squarish, double ditched, of about twelve acres: the inner ditch is very large, and at one corner has a spring: the vallum is but moderate: a squarish work within, upon the highest part of the camp, like a prætorium. They say this was a Danish camp; and every thing hereabouts is attributed to the Danes, because of the neighbouring Daventre, which they suppose to be built by them: the road hereabouts too being overgrown with dane-weed, they fancy it sprung from the blood of the Danes slain in battle, and that, if upon a certain day in the year you cut it, it bleeds. As to the camp, I believe it to be originally Roman; but that it has been occupied by some other people, and perhaps the Danes, who have new modelled it, and made new works to it. Consult Mr. Moreton, who has discoursed very largely about it. Much cotyledon and ros solis grow in the springs hereabouts: the stone is red and sandy, and brim-full of shells. I saw a fine cornu ammonis lie neglected in Norton town road, too big to bring away, and where they have fresh mended the Watling-street with this stone; it was an amusement for some miles to view the shells in it. Hereabouts the road is overgrown with grass and trefoil, being well nigh neglected for badness, and the trade wholly turned another way, by Coventry, for that reason. Between the head of the Leam and this Avon isArbury Hill. Ro. camp. Arbury hill in view, another Roman camp, upon a very high hill; notoriously made for a guard between the two rivers.
The next station the Watling-street leads us to is Weedon on the street; beyond dispute Benavona.Benavona, as surely it ought to be wrote, being situate on the head of the Aufona, running to Northavonton, or Northampton.TAB. XXVIII. 2d Vol. This too affords but little matter for the antiquary. The old town seems to have been in two pastures west of the road, and south of the church, called Upper Ash-close and Nether Ash-close, or the Ashes; in which are manifest vestiges of the ditch and rampart that surrounded it, and many marks of great foundations: they show you the site of king Wolfhere’s palace, the Saxon kings of this province having their seat here. The Ashes was the Roman castrum: here was a chapel of St. Werberg, daughter of king Wolfhere, abbess to the nunnery in this place: there has been dug up abundance of very fine stone, and many Roman coins. Now Weedon consists of two parishes, and has been a market-town. There is a large Roman camp a little higher toward the river-head, southward a mile, as much from Watling-street, called Castledikes.Castledikes, probably one of those made by P. Ostorius Scapula, proprætor under Claudius. Roman coin and pavements have been found there. I visited the place: it is of a very pleasant and healthful situation, being in a wood on the top of a dry hill: probably it was a Roman villa, afterwards rendered Saxon: a house stands by it. Another of these camps of Scapula I mentioned before, at Guildsborough. At Nether Hayford, on the other side the road, anno 1699, a Roman Mosaic pavement was found, of which Mr. Moreton gives us a drawing, but in too small a compass.
Towcester is a considerable town between two rivulets; but what its Roman name, time has envied us, the Itinerary passing it by. Lactorodum is the next station, being Old Stretford, on the opposite side of the Ouse to Stony Stretford: many Roman coins have been found in the fields thereabouts, and queen Eleanor’s cross stood a little north of the Horse-shoe inn, pulled down in the rebellion; which shows that the town was on this side the bridge in the time of Edward I. Mr. Baxter says, the name imports the ford over the water. My friend Browne Willys esq; who lives in the neighbourhood, has inquired into the antiquities of this place, and gives us an account of them in his curious Treatise of Burroughs, which it is to be wished he would continue. A little on this side Stretford, to the west, upon very high ground stands Whaddon hall, Mr. Willys’s seat; it has a most delicate prospect: this manor formerly belonged to the lords Grey; one, a knight of the garter, lies buried in the church. Spencer the poet lived here, and the learned duke of Bucks. Here is the original picture of Dr. Willys: I saw many of his MSS. letters, consultations, lectures, and other works unprinted.
Still higher stands Stukeley, a very large parish, on the same sort of soil as that in Huntingdonshire. This is the oldest church, and most intire, I ever saw, undoubtedly before the Conquest, in the plain ancient manner, being a parallelogram of four squares: two are allotted to the church; one covered by the steeple, which stands between it and the choir, carried across the church upon two round arches; one square to the choir, which is vaulted over with stone: the windows are small, with semi-circular arches, and few in number: at the west end are three arches, the door in the middlemost: the whole of a very good manner of symmetry.
Thus far we have gone through Northamptonshire and Bucks: now we enter Bedfordshire, and arrive at Magiovinium.Magiovinium, or Dunstable. The road hither from Fenny Stretford is deep sand (and comes from Salinæ, or sandy) till you arrive at the bottom of the chalk-hills, or chiltern, which arise very steep on this side, as being north-west, conform to my assumption, p. 4. The town stands upon this chalk; whence its Roman name, importing the white town:[102] it consists of four streets, intersecting at right angles, but oblique to the cardinal points, because such is the direction of the Icening and Watling-street, which here meet. In the centre stood one of those beautiful crosses of queen Eleanor; but fanatic zeal has robbed the town of this ornament. This being a high situation, and no running water near, they are forced to draw up their water, from very deep wells, by machinery of great wheels. Kingsbury, the royal seat over-against the church, is now a farm-house. The church is composed of many parts tacked together, some very old: it was part of the priory: arch-bishop Cranmer was the last prior here. In Dunstable church is this inscription,
Hic iacent Nicholaus Lane quondam presidens frat’nitat’
sci Johannis Baptiste De Dunstable qui obiit ii die mens’ Decembr
anno Dm Mo CCCCo lir Et Agnes ur. eio quorum animabus propicietur
Deus amen.
I visited Maiden-Bower,[103] mentioned by Mr. Camden, but cannot think its name has any relation to that of the town: though Roman coins have been found here, I am persuaded it is a British work, like that at Ashwell, at like distance from the Chiltern, and of like form, but more circular: it stands upon a plain, but not far from the edge of a lesser eminence of these hills, about a little mile from Dunstable: the rampire is pretty high, but very little sign of a ditch; nor do I think there ever was much more: it incloses about nine acres: the ground round it is ploughed: this chalk yields good wheat. Between here and the town is a long barrow called the Mill-hill, no doubt from a mill which was afterwards set upon it; the ends of it ploughed somewhat: it stands east and west: I have no scruple in supposing it Celtic. Tumuli British.A high prominence of the Chiltern overlooks all, called the Five Knolls, from that number of barrows, or Celtic tumuli, round, pretty large, and ditched about upon the very apex of the hill. Close by are two round cavities, as often observed in Wiltshire. The Icening-street runs under the bottom. These chalk hills have frequently veins of strong clay intermixed, and the like between these hills and the sand more northward. This great tract of chalk comes from the eastern sea, and traverses the kingdom much in a like direction with the Icening-street.
At Woburn is some fullers earth. There was a noble abbey, now the seat of the duke of Bedford; in it several valuable works of Inigo Jones left, particularly a curious grotto.
From Dunstable the Itinerary leads us out of the road, going strait to Verolam, and takes in another station by the way, Durocobrivis.Durocobrivis; which demonstrates it was made not so much for travellers, as for the soldiery or officers that were to visit the garrisons, therefore comprehends as many as could conveniently be taken into that route. About this station antiquaries have been much divided, when it certainly ought to be placed at Berghamsted, commonly Barkamstead, in TAB XXIX. 2d Vol.Hertfordshire, which well suits the assigned distances from Magiovinium, and the subsequent Verolanium, and has evidently been a Roman town, as its name imports; and probably the castle there stands upon a Roman foundation. It is certain Roman coins are frequently dug up there: my friend Mr. Browne Willys has a Roman coin, found there: young Mr. Whitfield, brother to the major at St. Alban’s, has many Roman coins, great and small, found in the castle at Berghamsted. The inside, within the walls where the lodgings were, is about two acres: the entrance was not at the corner, where now, but in the front of the south side: many chimneys remain in the wall, of the lodgings which extended quite round, leaving a spacious court within; and all the windows looked inward: the ground of the court is distinguishable, being good soil, and there they find the Roman coins; the rest is rubbish and foundations; so that the Saxon castle was made upon the Roman: the chapel seems to have stood against the west wall, where be signs of a stair-case: the walls are of flints gathered from the highlands, very thick, and laid with strong mortar. This town fully answers the distance in the Itinerary, and remarkably the import of the name, according to Mr. Baxter’s derivation, though he erroneously places it at Woburn, civitas paludosi profluentis; for here is a large marsh, or bog, wherein the ancient British oppidum was placed: it is most sweetly surrounded with high, hard, and pleasant ground all around, full of hedge-rows, pastures, and arable: the castle was set very judiciously in the north side, upon a piece of dry ground, incompassed with springs, by the Saxons made exceedingly strong. The town is upon the south side of the marsh, stretching itself a good length in handsome buildings, and a broad street: the church is a large handsome building, a monumental effigies of a knight and a lady; upon his coat a bend or belt, and in the sinister chief a martlet; a lion his crest under his feet: it is full of chapels and monuments old and new. This town has been an old corporation; the kings of Mercia resided here; Wightred, king of Kent and Mercia, anno 697, held a parliament here; and here king Ina’s laws were published: all which further confirm its being the place we assert.[104]
Near is Ashridge, an abbey, now the seat of the duke of Bridgewater; a park finely wooded, especially with tall beech-trees full of mast. Hereabouts I observed many great stones composed wholly of little pebbles; others, of larger pebbles or flints petrified together exceeding hard. Near Ricmeresworth, at Moor park, Mr. Styles, digging a hill away, found veins of sea-sand with mussels in them, and many other curious particulars.
We come again into the Watling-street at Verolanium. I need say little here, after Mr. Camden, Chancey, Weaver, and others. This was the famous municipium of the Romans, destroyed by Boadicia. The form of the city is depicted in plate 95. in one part the ditch is double, but irregularly formed. I imagine the outermost was the only fence of the first city, which Boadicia destroyed before the walls were built, and these reduced it into a more square form; to which the inner ditch belonged. In some measure the track of the streets is visible, when the corn first comes up, or is nearly ripe: three years ago good part of the wall was standing; but ever since, out of wretched ignorance, even of their own interest, they have been pulling it up all around, to the very foundations, to mend the highway; and I met hundreds of cart-loads of Roman bricks, &c. carrying for that purpose, as I now rode through the old city, though they may have stone cheaper, because of the prodigious strength of the mortar, so that they cannot get up one whole brick in a thousand. The composition of the Roman wall is three foot layers of flint, and one foot made up of three courses of Roman brick: there are round holes quite through the wall, at about eight yards distance, in that corner still left by St. German’s chapel: another great piece of the wall is left by the west gate, called Gorham Block; it is always twelve foot thick. I saw a little brass lar, or genius alatus; another curious antiquity, of a brass knife-handle with odd faces and figures on it, now in possession of Sir Robert Cornwall, baronet; a little urn of white earth two inches and quarter high: part of a great wine-jar, 20 inches high, two foot diameter, in St. Michael’s vestry; another such in St. Alban’s church. In St. Michael’s church sleeps the great naturalist Bacon, who first revived the experimental way of philosophy: his mansion-house or manor was at Gorhambury, hard by, where is a statue of Henry VIII. and several things worth seeing: it is now the seat of my lord Grimstone. Infinite are the antiquities of all sorts that have been, and frequently are, dug up at Verolam. When I was making an ichnography of it, I could have taken several pecks of remainders of Mosaic pavements out of a little ditch near St. German’s chapel; and there is one or two intire yet under ground. As you walk along the great road that runs north and south through the city from St. Michael’s church, you see foundations of houses and streets, gutters, floors, &c. under the hedge-rows. The ancient part of the monastic church and the steeple are intirely built of Roman brick, fetched by the abbots from the old city. March 1718–9 a Mosaic pavement was found. The Roman bricks are generally eighteen inches long, twelve broad, one and a half thick. I measured one in the south-wall of the school-house, by the east end of the abbey church, twenty-three inches long, three thick, which probably was made for hypocausts. Upon the walls of old Verulam grows the bee orchis, a very curious plant. Many are the monuments, brasses, tombs, and inscriptions, in the abbey church: the vault of Humphry duke of Glocester was lately discovered: the high altar is a curious piece of Gothic work, which I have represented in two plates. Hard by is Sopwell nunnery, TAB XXX XXXI.where they say Henry VIII. was married to Anna Bolen: part of it is standing. But to say any thing particular of religious antiquities, would be too tedious: they have lately been working hard at pulling up the old foundations of the abbey, and it is now levelled with the pasture, when three years ago one might make a tolerable guess at the ichnography of the place. In the heart of the town of the adjoining corporation stood another of queen Eleanor’s crosses, which they likewise intirely demolished, not considering that such kind of antiquities invite many curious travellers to come thither. This very year they pulled down the stone tower or gate-house on the north side of the abbey, within a month after I had taken a sketch of it. In St. Peter’s church I found this old inscription on a stone,
I shall add no more, than that my notion of the derivation of this town, and several others compounded of like words, is, a fair habitation, Vrolân, as it justly merits.
The Watling-street seems to have passed directly through the Roman city, a little southward of St. Michael’s church and St. Mary’s chapel, so by St. Stephen’s: nevertheless there is a road round about, without the south side of the city-walls, for those that had no occasion to go through the city: it goes by St. Julian’s, once an hospital; then by Colney-street and Radway; thence almost disused, and scarce known but from its straitness: it continues direct, but very narrow, the hedges having incroached upon it on both sides, till we arrive at our next station, Suellaniacis.Suellaniacis, upon Brockley hill, a little south of Elstre, and near Stanmore. From this eminence, where Mr. Philpot’s summer-house stands, is a sweet prospect across the Thames into Surrey: this is by Kendale wood, where formerly they found an old flint wall laid in terrace-mortar as they call it, meaning its strength, so hard that they could not possibly dig it up with pick-axes: they found an oven in the same place. Mr. Philpot, when digging his canal and foundations for his buildings, which are upon the site of the old city, found many coins, urns, and other antiquities. They have a proverb here,
meaning the coins found thereabouts. In the wood over-against the house, great quantity of Roman bricks, gold rings, and coins, have been found in digging; many arched vaults of brick and flints under the trees: the whole top of the hill is covered with foundations. Pennywell is a parcel of closes across the valley beyond Suellaniacis, where foundations are discernible: here likewise they say was a city: two or three years ago they dug privately, in hopes of finding treasure at this place. I am of Mr. Baxter’s opinion, that the name of this station has some reference to the famous British king Suellan, or Cassibelan, general of the Britons against Cæsar, and that his town was in this neighbourhood; which I shall consider more particularly upon another occasion. By the road side is a barrow lately dug away.
Hence the road goes through Edgworth; and so at Paddington, by Tyburn, it crosses the other Roman road, called now Oxford-street, which was originally continued to Old-street, going north of London one way; the other way it proceeds by the back side of Kensington, and through an unfrequented path, till it falls into the present great road to Brentford, Stanes, &c. and it is a Roman road all the way, going pretty nearly east and west: therefore our Watling-street must cross it with an oblique angle; and by observation I found it to be about forty-five degrees. Higden takes notice the Watling-street ran to the west of Westminster, over the Thames, so through the middle of Kent: from Tyburn I judge it goes over part of Hyde-park,[105] and by May-fair, through St. James’s park, to the street by Old Palace-yard called the Wool-staple, to the Thames. Here has been an old gate; one part of the arch is still left, but not Roman. On the opposite side of the river is Stane-gate ferry, which is the continuation of this street to Canterbury, and so to the three famous sea-ports, Rutupiæ, Dubris, and Lemanis. This Oxford road was originally carried north of London, in order to pass into Essex, because London then was not considerable; but in a little time became well nigh lost; and Holborn was struck out from it, as conducting travellers thither, directly entering the city at Newgate, originally called Chamberlain’s gate, and so to Londonstone, the lapis milliaris from which distances are reckoned: and hence the reason why the name of Watling-street is still preserved in the city, though the real Watling-street goes through no part of it, but through Southwark; or, if we please, we may call this a vicinal branch of the Watling-street.