THE journey I here present your lordship is intirely Roman; for I went from London full northward to the banks of the Humber, upon the famous Hermen-street road, passing through Lincoln: then coasting about a little, at Lincoln again I took the Foss way to its intersection of the Watling-street in Warwickshire: upon that I returned back to London, and pursued it to the sea-coasts of Kent: likewise some part of the Icening-street, as it crosses the others, where it lay not too far out of my main route, was the subject of my enquiry: so that in this account is somewhat of all these four great roads of Britain, which our old monkish writers make a considerable harangue about, but are scarce able fully to distinguish them, and of the reason of their names say but little to our satisfaction: but the ways themselves, as drawn quite a-cross the island in different directions, are sufficiently manifest to a traveller of common sagacity. Though my discoveries herein are mean enough, yet I reckon this an happy æra of my life, because, the very day before I undertook it, I had the good fortune to be known to your lordship, and at the end of it enjoyed the pleasurable repose of your delightful seat at Eastwel, but what is more, your own conversation: since then your many favours, like all other felicities in life, give me uneasiness in the midst of joy, as sensible of my own little merit. I have no hope indeed of retaliating; and I know that great minds like yours imitate Providence, expecting no return from its beneficiaries: but it is consentaneous to human nature to endeavour at it, and offer tokens of gratitude, however unequal. The delight you take in rescuing the monuments of our ancestors, your indefatigable zeal in collecting them, your exquisite knowledge in the Greek, Roman, and British antiquities, and especially your great love for those of your own country, which you continually commit to writing in your private commentaries, add a reputation to these studies, and make the Muses hope for a sunshine, when men of your lordship’s noble birth entertain them with that familiarity and condescension which was one great glory of the Augustan age.
For arts military and civil, that became a most wise government, the Romans beyond compare exceeded all nations; but in their roads they have exceeded themselves: nothing but the highest pitch of good sense and public spirit could prompt them to so immense a labour: it is altogether astonishing to consider how they begirt the whole globe,[50] as it were, with new meridians and great circles all manner of ways; as one says,
As well as use, they studied eternity in all their works, just opposite to our present narrow souls, who say, It will serve our time well enough. For this reason they made few bridges, as liable to decay; but fords were laid with great skill and labour, many of which remain firm to this day without any reparation. No doubt but the Romans gave names to these roads from the commanders under whose government and direction they were laid out, as was their custom elsewhere: but because they generally held their posts here but for a short time, and perhaps scarce any finished one road intirely; therefore, whilst each endeavoured to stamp his own name upon them, so it fell out that they were all forgotten. The present appellatives seem to be derived either from the British or Saxon: William the Conqueror calls them Chemini majores in confirming the laws of St. Edward about these four ways. All misdemeanours committed upon them were decided by the king himself. Though there was no need of paving or raising a bank in some places, yet it was done for a perpetual direction; and every where I suppose stones were set at a mile’s distance, many of which are still left. Of these four celebrated ways, the Foss and Icening-street traverse the kingdom from south-west to north-east, parallel to one another: the Watling-street crossed them quite the contrary way, with an equal obliquity: the Hermen-street passed directly north and south: and besides these are very many more. I purpose not to give a full history of them here, any farther than I travel upon them, reserving that till I am better able.
Somewhat on the Hermen-street is said already in my first letter about Lincolnshire, where it divides itself into two, which we may call the old and the new branch. TAB. LVI.Here I design to search it up to its fountain-head. As to its name, we have no reason to seek any farther than the Saxon language, where Here signifies an army; Hereman, a soldier or warriour:[51] the Hermen-street then is the military street, in the same propriety the Romans used it. It begins at Newhaven, at the mouth of the river Ouse in Sussex, and passes on the west side the river through Radmil, probably taking its name thence; so through Lewis by Isfield: then it seems to pass over the river at Sharnbridge, as we may guess by its name, and so proceeds to East Grinsted, but I suppose lost in passing through the great woods: then through Surrey it goes by Stane-street, Croydon, Stretham, and, by its pointing, we may suppose was designed originally to pass the Thames at the ferry called Stangate by Lambeth, where it coincides with the Watling-street. Of this I can say nothing yet, having not travelled it. There I apprehend the road went before London became very considerable; but when the majesty of the place suddenly arose to great height, this road, and all others directed this way, deflected a little from their primitive intention, to salute the Augusta of Britain, destined to be the altera Roma; and this has rendered them all obscure near the city. It is generally thought the Hermen-street goes hence through Bishopsgate, and along the northern road; but I apprehend that to be of much later standing than the original one, which goes more on the west. By the quotation I mentioned in my first letter, when upon this road, out of Mr. Gale’s Itinerary, of Lowlsworth near Bishopsgate, it seems as if it was done in Lollius Urbicus his time. The original one perhaps passes through unfrequented ways near Enfield and Hermen-street, seeming to retain the old name: on the eastern side of Enfield chace, by Bush hill, is a circular Br. camp.British camp upon an eminence declining south-west; but our ancient road appears upon a common on this side of Hertford by Ball’s park, and so passes the river below Hertford; then goes through Ware park, and falls into the present road on this side Wadesmill,[52] and so to Royston. Here must have been several stations upon it, but I see no hope of ever retrieving their names: that Hertford is one is reasonable to think, it having been ever in the royal demesne, and passing a river at a proper distance from London: but in the assignment of Durocobrovis here, I take leave to dissent from Camden and other learned men; it by no means answers the distances in the Itinerary, or the import of the name; the Red Ford, or the Ford of Harts, are fancies without foundation: either trajectus militaris is the meaning, or it is the passage of the river Ard, now the Beane: Ardley at the spring-head of it: ardh in British is altus.
At Royston the Icening-street crosses the Hermen-street, coming from Dunstable going into Suffolk: this about Baldock appears but like a fieldway, and scarce the breadth of a coach, the farmers on both sides industriously ploughing it up: between Baldock and Icleford it goes through an intrenchment, taking in the top of a hill of good compass, but of no great elevation: it consists of a vallum only, and such a thing as I take to be properly the remains of a British oppidum: it is called Wilbury. Br.Wilbury hill, and is said to have been woody not intirely beyond memory: this street, quite to the Thames in Oxfordshire, goes at the bottom of a continued ridge of hills called the Chiltern, being chalk, the natural as well as civil boundaries between the counties of Hertford and Bedford, very steep northward. Ickleford retains the name of the street, which at this place passes a rivulet with a stoney ford wanting reparation. Near Periton church has been a castle of Saxon or Norman times, with a keep. These high chalk hills, having a fine prospect northward, are covered with a beautiful turf like the Wiltshire downs, and have such like barrows here and there, and indeed are but a continuation of them quite a-cross the kingdom. Near Hexton is a square Ro. camp.Roman camp upon a lingula, or promontory, just big enough for the purpose: it is very steep quite round, except at a narrow slip where the entrance is; double ditched, and very strong, but land-locked with hills every way, except to the north-east, and that way has a good prospect: under it is a fine spring: it seems made by the Romans when they were masters of all the country on this side, and extending their arms northward. On High downs is a pleasant house by a wood, where is a place called Chapel close: in this wood are barrows and dikes, perhaps of British original. Liliho is a fine plot of ground upon a hill steep to the north-west, where a horse-race is kept: from under it goes the Icening-street by Stretley to Dunstable. North of Baldoc we visited the camp by Ashwel, taken notice of in Camden, called Harbury Banks. Br.Harbury banks: it is of a theatrical form, consisting wholly of an agger: though Roman coins have been found in it, I am inclinable to think it is earlier than their times. Between Calcot and Henxworth, two miles off, several Roman antiquities have been dug up this year; many in the custody of my friend Simon Degg, esq; he gave me this account of it: some workmen, digging gravel for the repair of the great northern road, struck upon some earthen vessels, or large urns, full of burnt bones and ashes, but rotten: near them a human skeleton, with the head towards the south-east, the feet north-west: several bodies were found in this manner not above a foot under the surface of the earth, and with urns great or small near them, and pateras of fine red earth, some with the impression of the maker on the bottom: there were likewise glass lachrymatories, ampullas, a fibula of brass, six small glass rings, two long glass beads of a green colour, and other fragments.
Northward still upon a high sandy hill, by the bank of the river Ivel, is a Roman camp called Chesterton: under it lies the town called Sandy, or Salndy, the Salinæ of the Romans in Ptolemy, where great quantities of Roman and British antiquities have been found, and immense numbers of coins, once a brass Otho, vases, urns, lachrymatories, lamps. Mr. Degg has a cornelian intaglia, and a British gold coin dug up here, Tascio upon it. Thomas Bromsal esq. has a fine silver Cunobelin found here, of elegant work; others of Titus, Agrippina, Trajan, Hadrian, Augustus, Antoninus Pius, Faustina, Constantius Chlorus, Constantinus Magnus, Carausius, Alectus, Tetricus, and many more.[53] His great grandfather, high-sheriff of this county, preserved the invaluable Cottonian library from plunder in the time of the commonwealth, whilst it was at Stratton in this county, about anno 1650. The soil here is sand, perfectly like that on the sea shore. I imagine a Roman road passed by this place westward from Grantchester by Cambridge.
Return we to Royston again. Going upon the Icening-street the other way, just upon the edge of Cambridgeshire, we come to Chesterford upon the river going to Cambridge, near Icleton and Strethal. Camboritum.In July, 1719, I discovered the vestigia of a Roman city here: the foundation of the walls is very apparent quite round, though level with the ground, including a space of about fifty acres: TAB. LIX.great part of it serves for a causeway to the public Cambridge road from London: the Crown inn is built upon it:[54] the rest is made use of by the countrymen for their carriages to and fro in the fields: the earth is still high on both sides of it: in one part they have been long digging this wall up for materials in building and mending the roads: there I measured its breadth twelve foot, and remarked its composition of rag stone, flints and Roman brick: in a little cottage hard by, the parlour is paved with bricks; they are fourteen inches and an half long, and nine broad. In the north-west end of the city,[55] the people promised to show me a wonderful thing in the corn, which they observed every year with some sort of superstition. I found it to be the foundation of a Roman temple very apparent, it being almost harvest time: here the poverty of the corn growing where the walls stood, defines it to such a nicety, that I was able to measure it with exactness enough: the dimensions of the cell, or naos, were fifteen foot in breadth, forty in length; the pronaos, where the steps were, appeared at both ends, and the wall of the portico around, whereon stood the pillars. I remarked that the city was just a thousand Roman feet in breadth, and that the breadth to the length was as three to five, of the same proportion as they make their bricks: it is posited obliquely to the cardinal points, its length from north-west to south-east; whereby wholesomeness is so well provided for, according to the direction of Vitruvius. The river Cam runs under the wall, whence its name; for I have no scruple to think this was the Camboritum of Antoninus, meaning the ford over this river, or the crooked ford: in Lincolnshire we called a crooked stick, the butchers use, a cambril.[56] They have found many Roman coins in the city or Borough field, as they call it: I saw divers of them. In this parish, they say, has been a royal manor: not far off, by Audlenhouse, upon an eminence is a great Roman camp.Roman camp called Ringhill; a hunting tower of brick now stands upon it. Beyond this the Icening-street goes toward Icleworth in Suffolk, TAB. XLV.parting the counties of Cambridge and Essex all the way; and almost parallel to it runs a great ditch, viz. from Royston to Balsham, called Brentditch, where it turns and goes to the river below Cambridge, there called Flightditch. I imagine these to be ancient boundaries of the Britons, and before the Roman road was made, which naturally enough would have served for a distinction by the Saxons, as at other places, had their limits lain hereabouts. Two miles both ways of Royston is chalky soil:[57] about Puckeridge it is gravelly. On Bartlow hills there is a camp too, castle camps, and Roman antiquities found: I am told of three remarkable barrows thereabouts, where bones have been dug out. At Hadstok they talk of the skin of a Danish king nailed upon the church-doors.
Now we shall take along with us the Itinerary of Antoninus in his fifth journey; for after he has gone from London toward Colchester, and part of Suffolk, he turns into this Icening-street at Icianis, which seems to be Icesworth beyond St. Edmundsbury; from whence to this Camboritum is thirty-five miles: from thence to Huntingdon is just twenty-five, as they are noted; but it is to be supposed that the Itinerary went along the Icening-street to Royston, then took the Hermen-street; for so the miles exactly quadrate.
Royston, as being seated upon the intersection of these two roads, no doubt was a Roman town[58] before Roisia[59] built her religious house here, and perpetuated her own name upon the Roman, which is now lost; and this very year they found Roman coins near there: but there seems to be the stump of her cross still remaining at the corner of the inn just where the two roads meet. The Hermen-street now coincides all the way with the common northern road. At Arminton, denominated from it, passes another branch of the river going to Cambridge in Armingford hundred; so by Caxton, which was probably a baiting-place: there are some old works without the town. A red clay begins now. Anno 1721, near this road my lord Oxford, digging canals at Wimpole, found many bodies, and pieces of iron rusty, the remains of some battle. Wimpole is now improved and honoured with his residence, and the noble Harleian library.
At Godmanchester, or Gormanchester, on this side Huntingdon river, the name chester ascertains the Roman castrum to have been; nor is there any dispute of it, however critics vary about its name, whether Durosiponte or Durocinonte; whether there was a bridge, a ferry, or a ford, in most ancient times: no doubt but the Romans inhabited both sides of the river, and probably rather at Huntingdon, being a much better situation; therefore, as to antiquities here found, I hold myself more excusable if at present I have nothing to say. Mr. Camden tells us Roman coins have been frequently ploughed up at Gormanchester, and Henry of Huntingdon says it has been a noble city: but I took notice of a wooden bridge over a rivulet between the two towns, which ought not to be forgot, as a grateful and public charity, having this inscription.
In Huntingdon is the house where Oliver Cromwell was born: though it is new-built, yet they preserved that room in its first state.[60]
From hence the Hermen-street goes in a strait line through Great and Little Stukeley, so called from the soil, and most anciently written Styvecle, signifying a stiff clay.[61] I should be ungrateful to my ancestors, not to mention that hence they had their name and large possessions in both towns, and many others hereabouts. I have the genealogy of them from Herebert be Styvecle, mentioned in Madox Hist. Scaccar. cap. xiv. fol. 382. mag. rot. 12. H. II. rot. 6. Cant. & Hunt. which shows that they had lands here before. His descendants of this place have been high sheriffs of the counties of Huntingdon and Cambridge more than thirty times, and knights of the shire in parliament more than forty times: but I remember Lucan says,
In Great Stukeley church is a font of a very ancient make, and in the north aile a monumental brass of Sir Nicholas Styvecle: the legend round the verge of the stone was kept for some time in the town chest, when it was taken off being loose, but now lost: the effigies being in the same condition, we carried it to be hung up in the hall now belonging to James Torkington esq; whose ancestors married the heiress of the family, and now enjoys the estate.
The Hermen-street hence becomes notorious by the name of Stangate; whence we may conjecture that it was originally paved with stone: a mile beyond Little Stukeley it turns somewhat to the right, and then proceeds full north and south: near Stilton some parts appear still paved with stone: it passes through great woods between the two Saltrys, where was a religious foundation of Simon Silvanect II. earl of Huntingdon and Northampton; among whose ruins lie buried Robert Brus, lord of Anandale in Scotland, and of Cleveland in England, with Isabel his wife, from whom the Scottish branch of our royal family is descended. Near the road-side Roman urns have been dug up. I thought it piety to turn half a mile out of the road, to visitConington. Conington, the seat of the noble Sir Robert Cotton, where he and the great Camden have often sat in council upon the antiquities of Britain, and where he had a choice collection of Roman inscriptions, picked up from all parts of the kingdom. I was concerned to see a stately old house of hewn stone large and handsome lie in dismal ruin, the deserted lares and the genius of the place fled: by it a most beautiful church and tower; in the windows is fine painted glass, but of what sort I know not: a poor cottage or two seem to be the whole town, once the possession of the kings of Scotland.[62] From those woods aforementioned, standing on high ground, you see all over the level of the fens, particularly that huge reservoir of water called Whitlesey-mere, full of fish, and a very pleasant place in summer time, where the gentry have little vessels to sail in for diversion: upon this hill Sir Robert Cotton, digging the foundation of a house, found the skeleton of a fish twelve foot long. A little to the right lies Ramsey.Ramsey, famous for a rich abbey, where every monk lived like a gentleman: there is little of it left now, but a part of the old gate-house. TAB. XVII.In the yard I saw the neglected statue of the famous Alwyn the founder, called alderman of all England, cousin to king Edgar: I take this to be one of the most ancient pieces of English sculpture which we knew of: the insignia he has in his hand, the keys and ragged staff, relate to his office. Anno 1721 many pecks of Roman coins were found there. Probably from the name we may conjecture it was a Roman town. Near it is Audrey causeway: at the south end of it, in the parish of Willingham, a camp of a circular form, large, called Belsar’s hills, thought that of William the Conqueror, or his general Belasis, when busied in the reduction of the isle of Ely, or Odo Balistarius. A Roman pavement found at Ramsey.
Stilton, or Stickleton, analogous to Stivecle, is famous for cheese, which they sell at 12d. per pound, and would be thought equal to Parmesan, were it not too near us. Beyond here the road is perfect, with a ridge upon the open fields, for a long way together: it goes pretty near north and south about Stangate; but now it takes a turn to the left a little, to avoid the vast fens full before our view. I cannot but take notice of the great stones, set at every mile from Grantham hither by Mr. Boulter, which he designed to have carried on to London. Any thing that assists or amuses travellers is most highly commendable: hence the good understanding of the ancients prompted them to set their funeral monuments by the road side, not crouded round their temples: they knew the absurdity of filling the mind with ideas of melancholy, at such times as they approached the sacred altars: there nought but what is beautiful and great ought to appear, as most besuiting the place where we seek the Deity. With them Mercury was the god of ways, and the custos manium. I have often wondered that the cheap and easy method of setting up posts with directions at every cross road is so little practised; which methinks deserves to be enforced by a law: it would teach the carpenters that make them, and the country people, to read, with much more emolument to the public than some other methods now in vogue: of other uses I need say nothing. All the country between Huntingdon river and Peterborough river is clay, sand, and gravel; but beyond that to the Humber is stone. At Gunwath ferry over Peterborough river is a new bridge, where boats too pay a toll; such is the modern way of encouraging trade and navigation. The people of Peterborough are ato having their river made navigable, out of an absurd notion that it will spoil their trade.
The imperial Itinerary makes 35 miles between the last station, Durocinonte, and Durobrivis;[63] but a decimal too much is put into the number, for 25 is full enough: it is indeed 25 measured miles from Huntingdon river to the Nen at Caster: there is no dispute but Chesterton by Caster is the place. Dornford retains somewhat of the old name, where the road traversed the river by a bridge (of brass, the common people say.) At Chesterton on this side is a large tract of ground, called the Castle field, with a ditch and rampart around it:[64] the Roman road runs directly through it, and still retains its high ridge. I observe every where near the fenny country great precaution and strength employed; which seems owing to the incursions of the Britons from that part, who, no doubt, retired into these fastnesses as their last refuge, when the Roman arms shined all around them: and that reason must induce the Romans very early to think of draining the country, and rendering it provincial, which was the only means of preventing that inconvenience. The Hermen-street beyond the river runs for some space along the side of it upon the meadow, then turns up with an angle, and proceeds full north. Caster[65] is above half a mile from it, upon the hill. I espied a bit of the foundation of the wall of the Roman castrum in the street to the north-west corner of the church, under the wall of the house where the minister lives: it is easily known by the vast strength of the mortar, built of the white slab-stone of the country: this castrum then went round the church-yard, and took in the whole top of the hill, facing the mid day sun. Underneath it lay the city; for below the church-yard the ground is full of foundations and Mosaics: I saw a bit of a pavement in the cellar of the ale-house (the Boot.)
They know of many such: particularly at Mr. Wright’s, and in the landlord’s garden, is an intire one untouched. Roman coins are found in great abundance: I have before me a long and particular catalogue of many I have seen of all times, from the consular to the later emperors, in brass and silver, but think it a nauseous formality to print them: a few I will repeat of the silver.
| M. poblic | ℞ | — nus imp. |
| Ant. III. vir | leg. VI. | |
| Sabin | l. titur. the rape of the Sabins. | |
| Augustus divi fil. | imp x act. | |
| Cæsar Augustus pater patriæ. | Augusti f. cos. design. princ. juvent. [exergue] Cl. Cæsaris | |
| Augustus Cæsar | a comet. idus jun. | |
| Cæsar | l. juli l. f. a chariot drawn by cupids. | |
| Hadrian Cos. III. | Ægyptos, a recumbent figure with the sistrum. | |
| Theodosius | virtus romanorum tr. p. s. | |
| Silanus | l. f. roma. | |
These among more are in the possession of Monsieur Baillardeau.[66] In the ploughed fields between the town and the river, toward Ford-green, they are often found, with earthen pipes, bricks, and all sorts of antiquities: in that field is a tract running quite through, whereon corn grows very poorly, which is nothing but a street or road laid with a deep bed of gravel: the vulgar have a foolish story about it, as at other places, and say that lady Kyneburg cursed it; by whom they mean the abbess that built a religious house here, which stood eastward of the church: some part of it is still left. This meadow is called Norman-gate field, or more properly Dorman-gate, some corrupted memorial of the ancient name of the town, which extended itself hither; and foundations are found all about here, and innumerable coins, which they call Dorman pence: part of this is Berrysted, where antiquities are dug up every day. Higher up toward Peterborough is Mill-field: Mosaic pavements are there dug up, and other things; and seems to have been a little citadel belonging to the town. Part of the church is of an ancient fabric, but new modelled: there is a curious inscription upon a stone over the choir door thus: (the letters are raised.)
it is wrong transcribed in Camden. The steeple stands in the middle of the church: the tower is a fine piece of ancient architecture with semi-circular arches; I judge the spire of later date. The square well by the porch no doubt is Roman; it is curbed with hewn stone: though it stands on a hill, yet the water is very high: at the east end of the church is a very old cross. Mr. Morton is very copious upon this station, in his curious history of Northamptonshire; the inquisitive reader will consult him: I only recite such things as I saw, and fear being tedious upon such places as admit of no doubt among antiquaries. A little higher up the river, near Wansford bridge,[67] a gold British coin was found, in the possession of Mr. Maurice Johnson, J. C. Anno 1720, at Thorp, the seat of Sir Francis St. John, by Peterborough, a Mosaic pavement was found: this was undoubtedly a villa of some great Roman. In the garden here are some fine antique statues of marble, but suffering more from the weather, in this moist situation, than from age: in the middle is a Livia of coloss proportion, the wife of Augustus: in the four quarters are Diana, Amphion, an orator, a gladiator: upon the terrace, an admirable Hercules killing Hydra: in the court are two equestrian figures in copper, Henry IV. of France, and Don John of Austria: within the house over most of the doors are placed busts, Bassianus, Caracalla, &c. these antiquities were of the Arundel collection.
Hence I travelled upon the Roman road all the way to Stanford. As it rises from the water-side of Peterborough river, and passes over the corn-fields, it appears in a lofty ridge called Norman-gate, i. e. Dorman-gate; only here and there they have dug great holes in it for its materials: it goes forwards to Lolham bridges, by the name of Long-ditch, which we treated of before, being its oldest and directest road, full north and south. In the reign of Nero all the southern part of the island was conquered, and the Brigantes were fast friends; so that in his time we may conclude the Hermen-street was made as far as Sleford by Catus Decianus the procurator, as we suggested in the first letter. But now our journey is by the left-hand new branch, and which goes out of the other with an angle in the parish of Upton, called the Forty-foot way: almost at Southorp, it is inclosed in a pasture; but beyond that you find it again, going by Walcot inclosures, then through Bernack fields, winding a little to the left hand till it enters Burleigh park: its true line from Walcot corner would pass through Tolethorp wood, but the river below Stanford was too broad; so it passes through Burleigh park, where its gravel is transferred to make walks in the gardens: at Wothorp park-wall it appears again with a very high ridge and agreeable sight, descending the valley to Stanford river, which it passes a little above the town between it and Tynwell; then rises again upon the opposite hill, entering Lincolnshire, with its broad and elated crest, till it goes to Brigcasterton: it is composed all the way of stone, gravel, and hard materials, got near at hand: the common road leaves it intirely from Peterborough river to Brigcasterton, crossing it at Wothrop park-wall.[68]
Brigcasterton happened most convenient for a station, being ten miles from the last, or Durobrivis; but the Itinerary mentions not its name; for the distances between them, and likewise to Lincoln, impugn Mr. Camden and such as place Causennis here: however, it was fenced about with a deep mote on two sides, the river supplying its use on the other two; for it stands in an angle, and the Romans made a little curve in the road here on purpose to take it in, as it offered itself so conveniently, then rectified the obliquity on the other side of the town: it consists of one street running through its length upon the road: this great ditch and banks are called the Dikes. I saw many coins that are found here; and one pasture is called Castle-close at the corner: they say the foundation of a wall was dug up there.[69]
Hence the road goes by Stretton, then leaves a little on the left hand Colsterworth, highly memorable for being the birth-place of that vast genius Sir Isaac Newton, the darling of Nature, who with a sagacity truly wonderful has penetrated into the secret methods of all her great operations; of whom Lincolnshire may justly boast: and we may say of him, with Lucretius, I.
On the north wall of the chancel is this monument. Heic jacent Gulielmi Walkeri particulæ obiit 1 aug. anno domini 1684. ætat. 61.
Thirty lesser miles from Durobrivis you come to Paunton,[71] which must needs be Causennis: it is indeed twenty seven measured miles, the Hermen-street accompanying. This village is at present under the hill where the road goes near the spring of the Witham, to which I suppose its name alludes, as the present to pant avon: both signify the valley of the river in British: perhaps the most ancient name of the river was Cavata; whence that part of the country that is watered by it assumed the name of Kestevon,[72] importing the river Cavata, Cavaut avon; as Lindsey from Lindum: the present name Witham, or Guithavon, signifying the separating river, as it principally divides these two. Many Roman coins are found here, and all the neighbourhood round, and Mosaic pavements, Roman bricks, urns and the like, of a curious composition. Mr. Burton speaks of a musive pavement.
The Hermen-street, now called High-dike road, goes along the heath, which preserves it from being worn away; and it is a sight highly entertaining. The next town it comes to is Ancaster:[73] what was its Roman name I know not; but it has been a very strong city, intrenched and walled about; as may be seen very plainly for the most part, and perceived by those that are the least versed in these searches. The bowling-green behind the Red-lion inn is made in the ditch: when they were levelling it, they came to the old foundation. At this end of the town, where a dove-cote stands, is Castle close, full of foundations appearing every where above ground: the ditch and rampire encompass it. Here are prodigious quantities of Roman coins found; many people in the town have traded in the sale of them these thirty years: they are found too in great plenty upon all the hills round the town, especially southward, and toward Castle-pits; so that one may well persuade one’s self, that glorious people sowed them in the earth like corn, as a certain harvest of their fame, and indubitable evidence of their presence at this place. After a shower of rain the school-boys and shepherds look for them on the declivities, and never return empty. I saw an Antoninus Pius, of base silver, found that morning I was there: likewise I saw many of Faustina, Verus, Commodus, Gallienus, Salonina, Julia Mæsa, Constantius Chlorus, Helena, Maximiana Theodora, Constantine the Great, Magnentius, Constans, Tetricus, Victorinus, &c.[74] The town consists of one street running north and south along the road: there is a spring at both ends of the town, and which, no doubt, was the reason of their pitching it at this place; for no more water is met with from hence to Lincoln. There is a road on the west side of the town, which was for the convenience of those that travelled when the gates were shut. On a stone laid upon the church wall I read this inscription, in large letters of lead melted into the cavities.