a map of this county; and we visited this station. South a little of
the bridge, under which the Anker passes the Watling-street, I found
the old city: it lies on both sides the road, and is of a square
form: the road passes exactly through the middle of its length, which
is 600 foot, its breadth 200, on each side the road. The field in
Leicestershire is called Old-field banks; that in Warwickshire, Castle
banks. The ditch is very perfect quite round, and the bank whereon
stood the wall. The people know of great stones, and mortar work
exceeding strong, being dug up; much Roman brick, iron, and great
numbers of coins brass and silver, and some gold: in sinking wells the
like things found. Several vaults go quite through, and cattle have
sometimes dropt into them. A spring at the north-east gate. Oldbury
is a great camp upon a high hill, west of the place; whence a most
delightful prospect. The hill whereon stands the church of Mancester,
which is a field or two off the bridge, seems to have been a camp too:
it is intrenched very deeply, but I cannot say with so much regularity,
as to its present appearance, that will ascertain it to the Romans:
it is in the way to Oldbury. The houses reached from the castle to
the bridge; for in the ploughed piece between, called the Furlong,
foundations have been discovered, and many bridges. A great family has
lived at Mancester, and of that name, who probably made, or altered,
the ditches there. Geo. Astley esq. of Wolvey, near High-cross, has a
great collection of coins found at High-cross, and all the neighbouring
places; as Monks Kirby, where urns and ashes have been often found. The
prospect from Oldbury is exceeding extensive all over the country; the
camps of Shugbury, Arbury, and Borough, all in view, and the country
that way, where the Watling-street runs, as far as Watford gap; so all
into Nottinghamshire, and westward to a great distance. Withersley, and
several villages round, parish to Mancester as their mother-church.
The church there is a pretty large building with a tower-steeple. The
country there is all a rock, and abounds with springs: the rock is
of very hard stone, and dips westward, as the adjacent coal-mines.
Mancester stands on much higher ground than the road and old city. More
coal-mines about Dudley, Wolverhampton in Staffordshire. Sometimes the
ends of the coal at those breaches bend the contrary way: this shows
the breaches were made before the coal was perfectly hardened. When the
damps exanimate a man at these coal-pits, they draw him up instantly,
and make a round hole in the earth, put his head in, and cover it with
fresh mold, which infallibly restores him. Between Wormleighton and
Stanton they found, in a pit, a trunk of a tree hewn into a coffin,
with bones in it; and many coins, particularly of Constantine. At
Wolfencote, upon the Leam, in sinking a well they came to a vault with
urns and coins: in digging at the priory at Coventry they found the
old cloysters, with many grave-stones of monks; and in the old walls,
which were very thick, bones and skulls with teeth, &c. were laid in,
as fillings-up, from ruins of the older monastery.
BIRMINGHAM.
A large rich town, the very shop of Vulcan. The vicinity of the
coal-mines has made it the chief place in England for all sorts of
iron work, sent hence throughout the whole world, in great abundance:
it is a pleasant, woody, plentiful country hereabouts: they have
repaired an old church, and built a new one: the streets are large and
good buildings: there is a pretty square, inclosed and planted like
Soho: the town lies on a declivity. In the old church are tombs, in
alabaster, of a Jerusalem knight, two other knights, and some others.
Deritend chapel built of timber, 5 R. II. by the river side. Here is a
large school-house founded by Edward VI. not long since rebuilt: they
have marked out large tracts of ground on the hill round the new church
for buildings.
I find the Rigning-street way comes from Alcester, directly north
and south, by Moseley, over a heath where the road appears now very
broad, on the east side of the rivulet Rea: it descends Camp hill, and
passes the river by the present bridge, and the valley where the low
and old part of the town stood: it makes an angle in order to pass
this broad meadow, directly as the Icening-street does at Newbury,
or _ad Spinas_. No doubt but here was a station in the time of the
Romans, because a convenient distance, ten miles from _Etocetum_: but
of its name I know no footsteps. I imagine the present name derived
from the great quantity of broom growing all round. _Ingham_ signifies
the dwelling upon the meadows; for the town has advanced itself but
by degrees up the hill. When the Roman road has passed the valley, it
turns up the first street on the right hand (Park street) to take the
most convenient rise up hill, and at the end of the town falls into
the present road, with its former direction to _Etocetum_. Probably
upon Camp hill has been a camp, being by the road side, and having a
fine prospect: what with the deep roads to Coventry and Warwick, here
meeting the Ricning; and the inclosures, and digging for brick and
tile, I could discern no signs of it. At this town is a considerable
manufacture for thread. Beyond Birmingham, the Rigning-way runs upon
the division between the counties of Stafford and Warwick, by Aldston.
In the forges here, three men beat together with successive strokes;
which brought into my mind Virgil’s
_Brontesque, Steropesque, ac nudus membra Pyracmon._
ETOCETVM.
A little to the west of where the Rigning crosses the Watling-street,
south-west of Litchfield stands a little village, called Wall; south
of that a quarter of a mile is Chesterfield. This is said to be the
oldest city in England, by the inhabitants; and the Watling-street the
oldest road. The Itinerary of Antoninus sufficiently evinces the place
to be _Etocetum_. Part of the Rigning-way, northward hence, is very
fair, with a high strait bank; part very mirey and bad. The country is
sandy, clay, and full of round coggles, of which the road was composed.
The Watling-street eastward hence about half a mile is inclosed in
fields; but westward it appears very strait and broad. They call the
Rigning the Hickling street at this place; and likewise Port-lane: it
goes to Burton upon Trent. Many Roman coins found here, both great
and small. Mr. Quintin, living here, has many: he owns the field
called the Butts, where I saw great ruins of walls equidistant twelve
foot, and twelve high, like square cellars. I saw bits of pavement
there, Irish slate, Roman bricks, some pieces thus marked [ornate
cross]. The walls are a yard thick, of strong mortar, rubble stone,
&c. The Watling-street parts the two villages, Chesterfield south,
and Wall north. By the side of a road going northward thence to Pipe
hill, I immediately espied the Roman walls, notorious by the manner
of their structure; of rag-stone, a course laid sloping this way, a
course that way, with very strong and white mortar: this lies under
a hedge, and the roots of old oak-trees for the length of a hundred
yards, till intercepted by a dwelling-house. They say the building in
Butt’s close was a temple; and probably they are not mistaken. The
Watling-street at this old city goes precisely east and west: some
mile-stones found by the brook running west of the city: a pretty
spring there; ruins upon digging all the fields round: the brook has a
broad marsh along it westward. A little below the temple, we saw the
crown of a subterraneous arch in the hedge. They showed me where the
Rigning-way went through a corn-field south of the castle, and passed
the river west of Shenston: it is a field way still southward, and an
open road north. The castle stood in the north-west angle, between the
Watling and another road, going to Litchfield, upon a gentle southern
declivity: the old walls are founded upon the solid rock, and much
more of them was left within memory: now they pull them down to build
withal. There is a gate crosses the Watling-street at the castle end,
by the side of the other road. That called the Temple is upon the
western declivity, much lower in elevation than the castle, which is
upon the highest ground in the neighbourhood, and somewhat raised
above the common level, by heaps of rubbish, and foundations, which
I could discern above ground in the orchard. The place of this old
city is an elevation, and has a good prospect, especially southward:
Oldbury castle and Mancester are in view. Wm. Milner, at the Swan,
is an antiquary, and knows the old name of the place: he showed me a
Roman wall in his cellar, and says it goes far backward by the garden.
No doubt there were houses all the way, on both sides the road, from
the castle to the brook, which is a sweet descent westward. There was
a Roman coin of gold found near Hales-Owen. Many floors, pots, and
other antiquities, found on the south side the Watling-street, in
the ploughed fields called Chesterfield Crofts; and a very fine red
earthen ware, with figures of bucks upon them. The circumference of the
castle is hardly to be found; the ground has not been dug in the yards
hereabouts. The Rigning-way goes by Lyn-lane, and so passes the river
west of Shenston, at Shenston nether town. This country lies upon a
rock here and there interspersed, but not a good stone; but there is
a quarry of good free-stone, of a brown colour, by Swinfield. I saw a
Nero of Corinthian brass, and some square Roman pavements found there.
The Rigning runs on the east side of an eminence called Mawcop hill,
as it passes northward hence. The building in Butts close is level
at top with the pasture, except toward the declivity, where they have
dug away the earth, and the great wall that ran along it. Two miles
beyond _Etocetum_, on the top of a hill is Knave’s castle, on the
south side the Watling-street: it is a large _tumulus_ inclosed within
three ditches; an entrance on the south side: it has been hollowed at
top. This is in a vast moor, or common full of heath, as the nature of
the soil is all the way. The Watling is very fair and strait, and in
many places the ridge is perfect for a great length. A little west of
the bridge, under which the river Penk crosses the Watling, are a few
houses belonging to Stretton, upon an eminence. This is thought to be
the
PENNOCRVCIVM.
And, no doubt, it was hereabouts, to answer the miles in the Itinerary.
The village of Stretton lies a little to the north of the road; and
a mile south is Brewood, another village, which they say has been an
old city: it lies upon the Penk. Upon ploughing the fields they find
Roman coins frequently, and much other antiquities. In that great old
city, king John kept his court. A little brook runs a pasture or two
below the road, and parallel to it, into the Penk, called Horse brook:
it is a very full river, and the bridge is broad it runs through.
The Watling-street is here east and west. Three large stone bridges
cross the river in two miles. The old Roman city, no doubt, was by the
road-side somewhere near here, and perhaps by Horse brook. Brewood
may have been a Roman town, but it is too far out of the road for
the convenience of travellers; and Penkridge is two miles and a half
off, so that it can put in no claim. This town must have borrowed its
name from the river, as that from the Roman city. Penkridge stands by
the side of a large marsh made by the river: the church is built of
good stone; a remarkable stone cross in the street. The healthiness
of this country favours Mr. Baxter’s conjecture of the derivation of
_Pennocrucium_.
The prospect hence southward is noble, and very comprehensive. Dudley
castle, and many of the steep summits of the hills in Worcestershire,
are in view; together with the mighty height of the Wrekin, which, from
a plain, rises like a sugar-loaf to a narrow tip, and of very difficult
ascent. The Watling-street runs under it. It is good land here, warm
and woody, being just beyond the moor.
STAFFORD.
The castle here to the north west, a mile and half off, stands on a
tip of rising ground very steep to the north-west; on which they have
raised a keep, or high mount of earth: on that stood a square tower of
stone, part of which remains. Here is the most magnificent prospect
quite round, that one can imagine; the Malvern, the Wrekin, and many
Welsh mountains, lift up their narrow heads beyond the utmost horizon,
and above the clouds, as it seems. To the eastward is room for the
castle, fenced too with a deep ditch. This was the work of Edward the
elder, in the Saxon times; or rather his sister, the virago Elfleda,
A. D. 913. A little church stands near the castle, called the Castle
church, with a house or two near it. The situation of Stafford is low,
in a broad marshy vale, where several rivers meet; and it has been
fortified quite round, the waters of the rivers favouring that purpose.
Two miles directly eastward is Beacon hill, a large parcel of rocks
laid upon a level eminence, and covered with grass, having a steep
ascent on every side, like a camp: it has a very pleasant prospect.
The town-house here is a handsome large building. Upon St. Amor heath,
under Beacon hill, a battle was fought in the civil wars.
We passed through Uttoxeter, where I could find nothing Roman,
notwithstanding its name, _cester_; only heard of three gold coins
found by the river side, not far off, some time since: it stands in
a very fine country, watered by the Dove, a fruitful river, running
through large meadows. Thence, in our way to Derby, we saw several
large, flat Celtic barrows, upon a common at Sidbury. We rode over
the meadows under Tutbury castle, famous for the bull-running on Aug.
10. where the people of two counties meet according to ancient usage,
and contend for the honour of their counties, sometimes to bloodshed.
The castle, once the seat of the dukes of Lancaster, stands on a very
high precipice, looking north and west, strong by nature and art;
very probably a Roman camp originally, as its name, _bury_, imports:
it is not far from the Rigning-way. _Tot_ signifies an eminence.
Underneath it we went through Hilton. The lord of the manor there held
of the dukes, by a ridiculous appearance before him, on the day after
Christmas, whilst Jack of Hilton blowed the fire. Of this, of the
king of the fidlers, of the bull-running, &c. see a large account in
Dr. Plot. Mr. Gale says, this Jack of Hilton was a Saxon idol, called
_Pouster_: it was made of brass, hollow, with a little hole, which when
filled with water, and set before the fire, as an æolipile, vented
its contents in vapor, rarified with great force. This was a good
philosophical trick to delude the vulgar, and would appear like magic
to them, ignorant of the cause.
Mr. Prescot of Chester showed us the impression of an _intaglia_ found
at Uttoxeter.
A mile and half off Derby we fell into the Rigning-street coming
from Burton; which, leaving Derby a little on the east, passes over
Nun-green to _Derventio_: there it crossed the river on a bridge, and
thence went to Chesterfield.
DERVENTIO.
I find the Rigning proceeds over the common, by the mill and brook at
the west end of Derby, and falls into a valley, which gives a gentle
descent to the river side, every where else steep, over-against the
old city: this, no doubt, is the reason why the Romans placed it
in that very spot. The river is very broad and deep, equal to the
Medway at Maidstone; the sides steep, so that a ford was not at all
practicable: it is six or seven foot deep here at least. Darley slade
is the name of the valley where the descent of the road is: they call
the road the Foss hereabouts; which shows that no more is meant by
the name, than that it is an artificial work: the Foss and Rigning
therefore are but synonymous terms. A little up the river, beyond the
city, was the bridge: in time of a frost, when there is clear ice,
they can see the foundation of the piers very plainly, and a piece of
one is still left. Thence the road proceeds over the pasture, where,
after a fortnight’s dry weather in summer, they can distinguish it by
the parched grass: it goes up the valley north of Bradsal, by Priory
Hall, so to Chesterfield. Another such way, they say, went up the hill
directly from the street of the city by Chadsden: part of it has been
dug up near the town by the Crown ale-house, and its ridge is still
visible. In the pasture over-against the house two square Roman wells
were opened by a violent flood in Sir Simon Degg’s time: they were
made of very broad flat stones, let into one another, and were paved
at bottom with bricks set edge-wise, as they tell me. Roman coins are
found in every road, foot-path, and ditch, about the town: they never
dig in the gardens, or pastures, but they find them, together with
rings and other antiquities. A man who kept the Duke’s-head ale-house
found seven score at a time in digging a hole to set a post in but they
are all dispersed. The city of _Derventio_ is in possession of the
deanery of Lincoln: the city walls were dug up in great quantities to
mend the ways with but they were so strong, they were forced to blow
them up with gunpowder. There is much painted glass in Morley church,
a mile beyond Bradsal, and tombs of the Sacheverels. A piece of the
wall of _Derventio_ is left under Mr. Hodgkinson’s garden-house. I saw
a piece of a vase of coral-coloured earth found there, also several
pieces of pillars; and they meet with foundations wherever they dig.
Mrs. Hodgkinson showed us a gold Anastasius, _victoria aug. g. g._ said
to be found near Leicester and a silver Arcadius. I saw a large brass
coin, found at Derventio, _Diva Faustina_. I find this city is exactly
of the same dimensions as _Manduessedum_, 120 paces long, 80 broad.
I rode to the hill south of Littleover, upon the Rigning-way, which
lies in a strait line under the eye as far as _Etocetum_, and the hills
beyond it. Litchfield cathedral appears a little to the west of it.
The valley of the Trent, by Burton, is bounded on each hand by great
heights. Repton, the burial-place of Ethelbald and other Mercian kings,
is in view. From the other side of the hill, north of Littleover, the
road butts upon the valley of Bradsal, by Priory hall, directly over
_Derventio_. The Rigning is the common road from Burton to Derby, till
a little north of Littleover it descends the hill to the left of the
common road, which there is drawn to the right on account of Derby. I
saw a great number of coins found here; Trajan, Carausius, _pax aug._
Victorinus, Magnentius, Dioclesian, Valens, &c. Mr. Hodgkinson gave
me a Constantine, _soli invicto comiti_, struck at London. I measured
the _castrum_ with exactness: it is 600 foot long, 500 broad. We
saw the wall on the outside Mr. Lord’s house: the mortar is full of
pebbles as big as nuts, but excessively hard. Darley Slade is a fine
descent for the road. We saw the admirable silk-looms again: there
is a large additional building to them. The five churches here have
all tower-steeples: the new one, a spacious and neat pile; the tower
belonging to it, of old work, is stately. There is an old chapel on the
bridge. A weak chalybeat water was found out lately, two miles off. The
market-place is a pretty square.
Entering the Peak country, where the rocks begin, we saw two _tumuli_
on the edges of two opposite hills. We came by the great rock called
Radcliff, where the hermitage is: these and the neighbouring rocks
have a frightful appearance: on the back of them are some stones set
upright, two and two, as if the remains of a Celtic avenue. All around,
the hills are big with lead ore. The cattle drinking the water here are
liable to a distemper called the _belon_: it is owing to the mercury
that falls in the smoak of the smelting-mills: they become asthmatic,
and frequently run mad. Cats, dogs, and poultry, are seized with it.
BAKEWELL.
This town seems to be Roman, and possibly its name was _Braciaca_,
because of the inscription found near here in Camden, DEO MARTI
BRACIACAE. There is a large tall stone in the church-yard, raised on a
pedestal, as a cross, with engravings, very ancient, of George and the
dragon, a crucifix and other things, with flower-work: it is eight foot
high, besides the pedestal. The church is a large handsome building,
but in very bad repair; a spire-steeple upon an octagonal tower, and
that set on a square one; the whole in the middle of the church; the
choir large: an alabaster tomb before the altar, of one of the family
of Vernon: the south transept has, in a large chapel, many tombs of
the Vernons, and Manners’s, ancestors of the duke of Rutland, but in a
ruinous condition: many other old tombs; a knightly one of Colepepper,
one of Foljamb, &c. a very ancient font with images, as rudely cut as
those on the cross. The church stands much higher than the town. The
Wye is a very rapid river; it never overflows, so great is the descent
from it. The castle is a square plot of high ground, with a large
_tumulus_ hollow at top. I cannot affirm there is any thing Roman. This
town stands in a flat valley, where the river passes in meanders; and
the prospect every way is very romantic. A cold bath at the Angel inn,
arched over, and made very convenient. Derbyshire marble wrought here,
very beautiful, bears a good polish, full of _belemnites_ and other
curious shells petrified together.
CHATSWORTH.
We reviewed this noble seat of the duke of Devonshire’s. The front of
the house is a fine design; the colour of the stone agreeably overcast
with a faint redness. Several antique marbles: upon the pedestal of a
busto this inscription, _P. Ælius Aug. libertus. Lycus fecit Solusæ
libertæ suæ._ a sepulchral urn.
Another, _Dis manibus Ti. Claudi thalliani Vix. Ann._ XX. _dieb._ XX.
_Claudia felicula Mater filio piissimo._
The canal hewn out of the rock is made where a great hill was: now
it opens a beautiful prospect towards Winster: it is 325 yards long,
25 broad: the hill was 44 foot high: the cascade is 212 yards long,
with 23 breaks. There is an admirable antique Plato in the duke’s
library, like that at Wilton; and a cast of Hobbes from the life: also
an antique ram’s head. The painting about the house is by Verrio, la
Guerre, Thornhill: the gallery is a curious room, painted by Cheron.
Vast quantities of Derbyshire marble, of all colours, and beautiful.
BUXTON.
Just before we come to this place, on the right hand is a square
_vallum_, ditch inward; both small, about fifty feet each side:
eastward adjoins a roundish space, marked out in the same manner.
There are barrows upon the tips of the hills hereabouts. We found
infinite quantities of shells among the stone: but the _belemnites_
are most frequent; they are dropped as it were into the superficies
of the stone, while soft, with the points downwards. The soil of this
country is sandy and rock: the whole superficies of it is a rock, whose
_strata_ lie every where parallel to the declivity of the ground: it is
lime-stone, like that at Bath; but the layers of it are much thicker.
One may guess hence, that this sort of stone by some means procures the
warmth of the waters.
We saw Mam Torr from hence seven miles; a steep huge rock elevated
above the hills. There is a great yawning between two rocks split as it
were from top to bottom: on the precipice of one jaw is an old castle,
whence the adjacent town Castleton. Between it is the great cavern
called the Devil’s Arse. A few little houses under the very rock. This
country is fruitful in what we may call the _magnalia naturæ_. By these
wonders of the Peak, and the warm waters, people are tempted to visit
these wild wastes. At a place called Hope I learnt there are some
stones, called Marvel-stones, which cannot be numbered: I guess them to
be a Celtic temple. I could not hear of those at Chelmerton, though I
fancy there must be such, because of some barrows on the hills looking
that way: it requires some time, labour, and hazard, to hunt them out,
by reason of the rockiness of the country. The sides of the hills,
where the villages are, are divided into closes by stone walls, as in
other places by hedges.
We went into Pool’s Hole again. This cavern rises, as we go farther in,
with the hill: the stones within are covered over with petrifaction,
from the water distilling down: some of the icicles are three or four
yards long, hanging from the roof; the slow accretion of ages: the
springs dribble down every where, as draining through the _strata_
into this cavity. I fancy there are such in most rocky hills, and they
cause springs: for we may conceive that after the harder shell of a
hill was condensed, and first, as being outermost and more exposed to
the external heat, in the infant globe; the internal parts, when they
came to harden afterwards, by attraction of so much solidity, cracked
and shrunk (as we see clay does in the open air) and so left casual
fissures every where: the water then by degrees found or made an outlet
from many meeting together; and this created fountains, most commonly
toward the bottom of hills. This reasoning is strengthened by springs
running in less quantity in summer than winter, because the sun exhales
the dew and moisture, not suffering it so freely to sink down into the
earth.