_How the Roman Occupation of Britain affected the Forest and Vale of
Pickering_
B.C. 55 to A.D. 418
The landings of Julius Caesar, in 55 and 54 B.C., and the conflicts
between his legions and the southern tribes of Britain, were little more,
in the results obtained, than a reconnaissance in force, and Yorkshire did
not feel the effect of the Roman invasion until nearly a century after the
first historic landing.
The real invasion of Britain began in A.D. 43, when the Emperor Claudius
sent Aulus Plautius across the Channel with four legions; and after seven
years of fighting the Romans, taking advantage of the inter-tribal feuds
of the Britons, had reduced the southern half of England to submission.
Plautius was succeeded by Ostorius Scapula in A.D. 50, and from Tacitus[1]
we learn that he "found affairs in a troubled state, the enemy making
irruptions into the territories of our allies, with so much the more
insolence as they supposed that a new general, with an army unknown to
him, and now that the winter had set in, would not dare to make head
against them." Scapula, however, vigorously proceeded with the work of
subjugation, and having overcome the Iceni of East Anglia and the Fen
Country, he was forcing his way westwards into Wales when he heard of
trouble brewing in the North. "He had approached near the sea which washes
the coast of Ireland," says Tacitus, "when commotions, begun amongst the
Brigantes, obliged the general to return thither." The Brigantes were the
powerful and extremely fierce tribe occupying Yorkshire, Durham,
Cumberland, and Westmorland, and among them were the people whose remains
are so much in evidence near Pickering. They had probably been under
tribute to the Romans, and their struggle against the invaders in this
instance does not appear to have been well organised, for we are told that
when the Romans arrived in their country, they "soon returned to their
homes, a few who raised the revolt having been slain, and the rest
pardoned." We also know that in A.D. 71 Petilius Cerealis attacked the
Brigantes and subdued a great part of their country; and as the Romans
gradually brought the tribe completely under their control, they
established the camps and constructed the roads of which we find so many
evidences to-day. The inhabitants of the hills surrounding the Vale of
Pickering were overawed by a great military station at Cawthorne on a road
running north and south from that spot. It may have been the Delgovicia
mentioned in the first Antonine Iter., and in that case Malton would have
been Derventione, and Whitby, or some spot in Dunsley Bay, would have been
Prætorio, but at the present time there is not sufficient data for fixing
these names with any certainty. It has also been supposed by General
Roy[2] that Cawthorne was occupied by the famous 9th legion after they had
left Scotland, owing to the similarity of construction between the most
westerly camp at Cawthorne and the one at Dealgin Ross in Strathern, where
the 9th legion were supposed to have had their narrow escape from defeat
by the Caledonians during Agricola's sixth campaign. But this also is
somewhat a matter of speculation.
[Footnote 1: Tacitus, the Oxford Translation, revised 1854, vol. 1, book
xii. pp. 288-90.]
[Footnote 2: Roy, Major Gen. William: "The Military Antiquities of the
Romans in Britain," 1793, Plate xi.]
[Illustration: A Sketch Map of the Roman Road from Malton to the Coast,
and a Plan of the Camps on the Road at Cawthorne. (_From the Ordnance
Survey_.)]
Coming to the firmer ground of the actual remains of the Roman roads and
camps, we find that traces of a well-constructed road, locally known as
Wade's Causeway, have been discovered at various points on a line drawn
from Malton to Cawthorne and Whitby. Some of these sections of the road
have disappeared since Francis Drake described them in 1736,[2] and at the
present time the work of destruction continues at intervals when a farmer,
converting a few more acres of heather into potatoes, has the ill-luck to
strike the roadway.
[Footnote 2: Drake, Francis: "Eboracum," p. 36.]
In the month of January this year (1905), I examined a piece of ground
newly taken under cultivation at Stape. It was about half a mile north of
the little inn and just to the west of Mauley Cross. The stones were all
thrown out of their original positions and a pile of them had been taken
outside the turf wall for road-mending and to finish the walls against the
gate posts, but the broad track of the roadway, composed of large
odd-shaped stones, averaging about a foot in width, was still strikingly
in evidence--a mottled band passing straight through the
chocolate-coloured soil.
All who have described the road state that on each side of the causeway
where it remains undisturbed there is a line of stones placed on their
edges in order to keep the stones in place, but in this instance the
stones were too much disturbed to observe their original formation. Among
the furrows I discovered quantities of flint-flakes, indicating the
manufacture of stone implements on this site, no flints being naturally
found in the neighbourhood.
The road went through the most perfectly constructed of the three square
camps at Cawthorne from west to east, cutting through one corner of the
adjacent oval camp. It then seems to have passed down the slack a little
to the north-east, and crossing the stream below (probably in Roman times
by a wooden bridge) it takes a fairly straight course for the little
hamlet of Stape just mentioned. The slope from the camps is extremely
steep, and in 1817, when Dr Young wrote his "History of Whitby," he tells
us that there were no traces of the road at that point. Going back to
1736, however, we find that Drake, in his "History of York" published in
that year, says, "At the foot of the hill began the road or causeway, very
plain"; he also tells us that he first heard of the road, with the camp
upon it, from Mr Thomas Robinson of Pickering--"a gentleman well versed in
this kind of learning." Drake, enthusiastically describing his examination
of the road, says, "I had not gone a hundred paces on it, but I met with a
_mile stone_ of the _grit kind_, a sort not known in this country. It was
placed in the midst of the causeway, but so miserably worn, either by
sheep or cattle rubbing against it, or the weather, that I missed of the
inscription, which, I own, I ran with great eagerness to find. The
causeway is just twelve foot broad, paved with a flint pebble [probably
very hard limestone], some of them very large, and in many places it is as
firm as it was the first day, a thing the more strange in that not only
the distance of time may be considered, but the total neglect of repairs
and the boggy rotten moors it goes over. In some places the _agger_ is
above three foot raised from the surface. The country people curse it
often for being almost wholly hid in the ling, it frequently overturns
their carts laden with turf as they happen to drive across it. It was a
great pleasure to me to trace this wonderful road, especially when I soon
found out that it pointed to the bay aforesaid. I lost it sometimes by the
interposition of valleys, rivulets, or the exceeding great quantity of
ling growing on these moors. I had then nothing to do but observe the
line, and riding crossways, my horse's feet, through the ling, informed me
when I was upon it. In short, I traced it several miles, and could have
been pleased to have gone on with it to the seaside, but my time would not
allow me. However, I prevailed upon Mr Robinson to send his servant, and a
very intelligent person of _Pickering_ along with him, and they not only
made it fairly out to _Dunsley_, but brought me a sketch of the country it
went through with them. From which I have pricked it out in the map, as
the reader will find at the end of this account."
I have examined Drake's map but find that he has simply ruled two
perfectly straight parallel lines between Cawthorne and Dunsley, so that
except for the fact that Mr Robinson's servant and the intelligent
Pickeronian found that the road did go to Dunsley we have no information
as to its exact position. Young, however, describes its course past Stape
and Mauley Cross over Wheeldale and Grain Becks to July or Julian Park. In
the foundation of a wall round an enclosure at that point he mentions the
discovery of an inscribed Roman stone of which a somewhat crude woodcut is
given in his "History of Whitby." The inscription appears to be ILVIVILVX,
and Young read it as LE. VI. VI. L. VEX, or in full LEGIONIS SEXTÆ
VICTRICIS QUINQUAGINTA VEXILLARII, meaning, "Fifty vexillary soldiers of
the sixth legion, the Victorious." This rendering of the abbreviations may
be inaccurate, and some of the letters before and after those visible when
the stone was discovered may have been obliterated, but Dr Young thought
that the inscription was probably complete. On Lease Rigg beyond July Park
the road cuts through another Roman camp of similar dimensions to the
western one at Cawthorne. In the map reproduced here a much clearer idea
of the course of the road can be had than by any description. I have
marked the position of the road to the south of Cawthorne as passing
through Barugh, where Drake discovered it in 1736. "From the camp"
(Cawthorne), he writes, "the road disappears towards York, the _agger_
being either sunk or removed by the country people for their buildings.
But taking the line, as exactly as I could, for the city, I went down the
hill to _Thornton-Risebrow_, and had some information from a clergyman of
a kind of a camp at a village called vulgarly BARF; but corruptly, no
doubt, from BURGH. Going to this place, I was agreeably surprised to fall
upon my long lost road again; and here plainly appeared also a small
intrenchment on it; from whence, as I have elsewhere hinted, the _Saxon_
name _Burgh_ might come. The road is discernible enough, in places, to
_Newsam-Bridge_ over the river _Rye_; not far from which is a _mile-stone_
of _grit_ yet standing. On the other side of the river the _Stratum_, or
part of it, appears very plain, being composed of large blue pebble, some
of a tun weight; and directs us to a village called _Aimanderby_. _Barton
on the Street_, and _Appleton on the Street_, lye a little on the side of
the road." Drake then proceeds to speculate as to the likelihood of the
road still making a bee-line for York, or whether it diverged towards
Malton, then no doubt a Roman station; but as his ideas are unimportant in
comparison with his discoveries, we will leave him to return to the camps
at Cawthorne. The hill they occupy forms part of a bold escarpment running
east and west between Newton upon Rawcliff and Cropton, having somewhat
the appearance of an inland coast-line. On the north side of the camps the
hill is precipitous, and there can be little doubt that the position must,
in Roman times, have been one of the strongest in the neighbourhood. This
is not so apparent to-day as it would be owing to the dense growth of
larch and fir planted by Mr James Mitchelson's father about forty years
ago. There are, however, peeps among the trees which reveal a view of the
great purple undulations of the heathery plateau to the north, and the
square camp marked A on the plan is entirely free from trees although
completely shut in by the surrounding plantation. In the summer it is an
exceedingly difficult matter to follow the ditches and mounds forming the
outline of the camps, for besides the closely planted trees the bracken
grows waist high. The _vallum_ surrounding each enclosure is still of
formidable height, and in camp A is double with a double fosse of
considerable depth. Camps C and D are both rectangular, but C, the largest
of the four, is stronger and more regular in shape than D, and it may have
been that D was the camp of the auxiliaries attached to the legion or part
of a legion quartered there. The five outer gates of C and D are protected
by overlapping earthworks, the opening being diagonal to the face of the
camp, but the opening between these two enclosures is undefended. Camp B
may have been for cattle or it may have been another camp of auxiliaries,
for unlike the other three it is oval and might even have been a British
encampment used by the Romans when they selected this commanding site as
their headquarters for the district.
To fix the origin of a camp by its formation is very uncertain work and no
reliance can be placed on statements based on such evidence; but Camp A
bears the stamp of Roman work unmistakably, and the fact that the Roman
road cuts right through its east and west gates seems a sufficiently
conclusive proof. It is also an interesting fact that between forty and
fifty years ago Mr T. Kendall of Pickering discovered the remains of a
chariot in a barrow on the west side of Camp A. Fragments of a wooden pole
11 feet long, and of four spokes, could be traced as well as the complete
iron tyres of both wheels, and portions of a hub. These remains, together
with small pieces of bronze harness fittings, are now carefully arranged
in a glass case in Mr. Mitchelson's museum at Pickering.
There is a mill just to the south of Pickering known as Vivers Mill, and
near Cawthorne there is a farm where Roman foundations have been
discovered, known as Bibo House. Both these names have a curiously Roman
flavour, but as to their origin I can say nothing.
The three or four plans of these camps that have been published are all
inaccurate; the first, in Drake's "Eboracum," being the greatest offender.
General Roy has shown camps B and C in the wrong positions in regard to A,
and even Dr. Young, who himself notices these mistakes, is obliged to
point out that the woodcut that is jammed sideways on one of his pages is
not quite correct in regard to camp C (marked A on his plan), although
otherwise it is fairly accurate.
A small square camp is just visible in a field to the east of Cawthorne;
there is an oval one on Levisham Moor, and others square and oval dotted
over the moors in different directions, but they are of uncertain origin.
There can be little doubt that subsidiary camps and entrenchments would
have been established by the Romans in a country where the inhabitants
were as fierce and warlike as these Brigantes, but whether the dominant
power utilised British fortresses or whether they always built square
camps is a matter on which it is impossible to dogmatise.
A number of Roman articles were dug up when the cutting for the railway to
Sinnington was being made, and the discoveries at this point are
particularly interesting as the site is in an almost direct line between
Cawthorne and Barugh.
We are possessed, however, of sufficient evidence to gain a considerable
idea of Pickering during the four hundred years of the Roman occupation.
We have seen that the invaders constructed a great road on their usual
plan, going as straight as the nature of the country allowed from their
station at Malton to the sea near or at Whitby; that on this road they
built large camps where some hundreds, possibly thousands of troops were
permanently stationed, although the icy-cold blasts from the north-east
may have induced them to occupy more protected spots in winter. Roman
chariots, squads of foot soldiers, and mounted men would have been a
common sight on the road, and to the sullen natives the bronze eagle would
gradually have become as familiar as their own totem-posts. Gradually we
know that the British chiefs and their sons and daughters became
demoralised by the sensual pleasures of the new civilisation and thus the
invaders secured themselves in their new possessions in a far more
efficacious manner than by force of arms.
The Britons remained under the yoke of Rome until A.D. 418, when the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that "This year the Romans collected all
the hoards of gold that were in Britain; and some they hid in the earth,
so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with
them into Gaul," and in A.D. 435 we find the record that "This year the
Goths sacked the city of Rome and never since have the Romans reigned in
Britain." The Brigantes were thus once more free to work out their own
destiny, but the decay of their military prowess which had taken place
during the Roman occupation made them an easy prey to the daring Saxon
pirates who, even before the Romans finally left England, are believed to
have established themselves in scattered bodies on some parts of the
coast. The incursions of these warlike peoples belong to the Saxon era
described in the next chapter.