or tranquillity of this part of Britain, must have been the condition
of the Fen district along the lower reaches of the Witham, and beyond
it to the south. If the Coritani had to be subdued by force of arms,
as we have supposed, their subjugation must have been a long business.
Moreover, the Romans were experienced agriculturists, and must have
guessed the value of the rich fenland east and south-east of their
colony. On that side there was doubtless an even larger mere than on
the west—caused partly by the flood-water which had overflowed the Gap,
partly by streams from the high land of Kesteven; and this sheet of
water must have risen considerably in height during the spring-tides.
In this mere for many miles the stream of the Witham must have been
barely discernible. Below it the district of Holland was a vast morass,
liable to inundation both by the sea and by the rivers—then of much
larger volume than now—which fell into the Wash. It is not likely that
this district was largely settled by the natives before the Romans came,
and the British antiquities found are few; but it was a natural refuge
for the disaffected—as was shown later during the Danish and Norman
invasions. Herodian says[19] of the campaign in Scotland in 209 that the
Emperor Severus made passage for his troops over the fens, where, “from
the frequent overflowing of the ocean, the inhabitants will swim and
walk, though up to their middle in water.”
The engineering skill needed to cope with this situation was very great;
and if proof be required that the Romans exercised it, the answer is
sufficient that neither before nor for a thousand years after this
period was there a central organisation strong enough to carry out such
operations. The work had to be of two kinds—draining, to carry off
the flood-water and void the rainfall coming from the high land, and
embanking, to shut out the sea. In the former the Romans acted upon
sound principles, which were often neglected in after times. They used
the natural rivers as arterial drains, and led the subsidiary drains
into them. History records that they executed similar works in other
parts of the Empire. The Pontine marshes and the Lombard valley of the
Po were drained under the Republic. The Emperors Claudius and Hadrian
began and completed a canal between the Fucine Lake and the Liris. In
the Low Countries, Drusus, in 12 B.C., drew a channel connecting Lake
Flevo (Zuyder Zee) and the Rhine; and in A.D. 47 Corbulo made a canal,
twenty-three miles in length, between the Rhine and the Meuse. Eleven
years later a project for uniting the Saone and the Moselle, and thus
completing a waterway from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, was only
not attempted from fear of the jealousy of Nero. If a full account was
ever written of the Roman settlement of Britain, the operations now to be
described must have filled a large place in it.
The present channel of the Witham from Lincoln to Boston is much too
straight to have ever been the course of a natural stream. From Chapel
Hill just below Dogdyke, where there was a tidal creek, the river was
canalised to Boston as late as 1761; but there is no record in historical
times of such an operation in the twenty miles from Lincoln to Dogdyke.
In order to drain the lower mere described above, a channel was cut
along the high land for that distance, and the upper waters of the river
directed into it. In very early (perhaps in Roman) times there was
another branch of the Witham due east from Dogdyke through the upper fen
to Wainfleet, where it received the Steeping, and thence into the sea
near Gibraltar Point. Very probably it was the draining of the district
near Lincoln which hastened the silting up of this ancient channel. But
at no time can it have been, as some have fancied,[20] the principal
outfall of the river, for it is much farther from the sea, and could not
have been tidal, like the other, for the whole distance.
The most remarkable monument of Roman engineering in the Fens is the
catchwater drain called the Cardyke (_Brit._ “fen-dyke”), which leaves
the Witham at Washingborough about three miles from Lincoln, and then
for eighteen miles takes a southerly course parallel to that river at
distances varying from two to five miles from it. The primary object may
have been to intercept the water of the numerous streams coming from the
Kesteven uplands; but it was doubtless intended to be navigable, as its
width at the water-level was 50 feet, and at its bottom 30 feet. On both
sides was a raised bank, flattened at the top to serve the purpose of a
road, and still in some places crowned with a modern road. In the parish
of Heckington, nine miles due west of Boston, it makes a sharp turn to
the south-west, and then skirts the western border of the Fen for over
thirty miles, till, after a course of fifty-six miles, it joins the river
Nene, half a mile south-east of Peterborough, and about five miles below
the Roman town of Durobrivæ (Castor). In some parts the Cardyke has been
obliterated, and in many it is now a mere ditch; but its whole course
can be exactly traced, and for a few miles it is still used as a drain.
The last eight miles are beyond the borders of our county; but within
those borders Roman remains have been found in at least ten parishes
through which it passes. No vestiges can be found of the seven forts
alleged by Stukeley to have been raised along its course, but there is a
camp at North Kyme, within a short distance. Even with the aid of forced
labour—partly, perhaps, imported from the Continent—such a work must have
taken many years to construct; and it may have been in progress during a
great part of the century between Trajan and Severus (A.D. 100-210). Its
long course, parallel to the canalised channel of the Witham, suggests
that its northern portion was first undertaken to assist in draining the
mere south-east of Lincoln. But when this object was accomplished, and
the immense work was taken in hand of embanking the shores of the Wash,
the canal would gradually be extended southward in order to provide an
inland waterway past Lincoln, by the Fossdyke, the Trent, and the Ouse,
to the northern capital at York. This measure could hardly have been
contemplated until the Holland Fen was sufficiently dry to admit of
causeways being made across it into Lindsey on the north and Norfolk on
the east.
The seabanks in Holland and East Lindsey, which are now called the “Roman
Banks,” extend by a most circuitous route for about a hundred and fifty
miles from Wisbech nearly to Grimsby. Tradition ascribes them to the
Romans; and as their bases are deeply buried in silt, they are evidently
of pre-Norman origin. Mr. Skertchly has estimated that at least eleven
million tons of material must have been used in their construction. His
collaborator, Mr. Miller,[21] suggests that this stupendous work may
have been partly executed before the Roman invasion. But as this idea
rests upon two very uncertain conjectures—(1) that the Coritani were
Germans from the Low Countries with a knowledge of embanking, and (2)
that they may have learnt engineering from the Greek colonies in Gaul,
it may be dismissed as improbable. The tribal natives, whatever their
state of civilisation, could hardly do more than provide a core of clay,
upon which the banks of blown sand could gradually form. It has been
well pointed out that the Roman Banks are not works of such a kind as
could be carried out in portions, and spread over a number of years.[22]
“The enclosure of a large tract covered by the spring-tides is a work
that requires great vigour, and must be carried on continuously, or the
earth put into the bank during one set of tides will be washed away
again.” That is to say, it is a work which would require a strong, and
even despotic, central authority. In the fen south of Boston there is
a succession of about twenty tumuli, called the Fen Mounds, which are
all within about three miles of the ancient banks, and some of which
are called “toot” (or “look-out”) hills. They have been supposed to
be British,[23] but only one of this southern series is crowned with
a circular entrenchment, and it seems much more likely that they were
raised to protect the bankmakers from a surprise attack.
The Romans do not seem to have reaped much fruit from their labours,
except perhaps in the complete pacification of the district. Holland
affords but few traces of their settlement, except in pottery and coins
found along the line of the banks, as at Holbeach, Fleet, Heckington,
and Swineshead. There was an important oblong camp on the Witham at
Redstone Gowt, about a furlong south of Boston, where remains have been
found. Its importance was due to the two circumstances that here was a
ferry in connection with the road called the Saltway into the Midlands,
and that at this point a canal, now called the Old Hammond Beck, took
over some of the Witham water due west round the end of Bicker Haven to
Swineshead, and thence, taking a sharp curve, after a southerly course
of thirteen miles, fell into the river Glen at Pinchbeck. This canal was
here parallel to the Cardyke at distances of from four to six miles.
It could not have been made until the seabank had been thrown up all
round Bicker Haven to keep out the tides. The course of these banks show
the enormous amount of land near the Wash—about 64,000 acres—that has
since been gained by accretion. The Wash, called by Ptolemy “Metaris
Æstuarium,” was a bay with an entrance some two miles narrower than at
present, into which fell the waters of four tidal rivers—the Ouse, the
Nene, the Welland, and the Witham. The Seabank, starting from Wisbech on
the Nene estuary, proceeds north for about ten miles, and then curves
round west to the Welland estuary below Spalding. But about eight miles
farther south is another westerly bank, parallel to the first, from
Cowbit to Tydd St. Mary. This bank, called “Ravenbank,” was probably used
as a road from Ermine Street into Norfolk, and south of it, between the
Welland and the Nene, are three entrenchments, a few miles apart, where
Roman remains have been found. About Spalding, where the Westlode—an
ancient drain now filled up—fell into the Welland, the Seabank turns
north to Surfleet, and then, running west, north, and east to encircle
Bicker Haven, reaches the Witham at Redstone Gowt. From this point it
can be traced north to Wainfleet, and thence, with intervals, to beyond
the entrance to the Humber opposite Spurn Point. Its character varies
considerably in different places. Between Boston and Skegness it often
appears too broad to be artificial; but in general it is only a few yards
wide, at an elevation of from 10 to 20 feet, and is frequently used as a
modern road.
Some of these banks were doubtless used also by the Romans as roads, not
for wheeled vehicles, but for pack horses in connection with the salt
industry. The Romans were well acquainted with the manufacture of salt by
evaporating sea water in pans or reservoirs prepared for the purpose. The
flat coasts of Lincolnshire are especially favourable to this industry.
Remains of such pans can still be detected on Bicker Haven, which is many
miles from the present sea-shore; but the principal saltworks appear
to have been at Wainfleet St. Mary, just outside the Roman Bank. If
Ptolemy’s “Salinæ” is to be placed in Lincolnshire, as some suppose, no
spot is so likely as Wainfleet. There was an ancient road into the Fen
called the Saltway, or Bridge End Causeway, which crossed the Cardyke
between Swaton and Bridge End. It is found on both sides of Bicker Haven,
which must have been crossed by a ferry, and thence it points north-east
through Frampton and Wyberton to Redstone Gowt and the Seabank beyond
the Witham. If this be a Roman way—and remains found along its course in
Kesteven seem to prove the fact—it probably belonged to the late Roman
period, after the seabanks round the Wash had been completed. But the
Wainfleet saltworks may have been developed much earlier, and the salt
conveyed by road through Lindsey to Horncastle and Lincoln. Oysters were
another commodity that could be procured from the Boston Deeps, though
they were not of so fine a quality as those from the Richborough beds,
which delighted the epicures of Rome.
One immediate result of the draining and embanking of the Fens would be
the more complete occupation of the forest or heath district of Kesteven.
That district was intersected by two branches of Ermine Street, which
both start from Castor, and may have united at Lincoln. The eastern
branch, which enters the county at West Deeping and runs along the high
land parallel to the Cardyke for over twenty miles, is the shorter in
actual distance; but it was not the main route, and the branch-ways from
it across the Fen indicate that it was the later in date. South of Bourn,
where was a camp close to the Cardyke, it is known in parts as Langdyke,
High Street, and King Street; between Bourn and Sleaford it is generally
called Mareham Lane. There was a by-way from it at Morton, which has been
traced to the western branch at Great Ponton; and at Threckingham it is
crossed from the east by the Saltway just mentioned. On each side of the
latter way, about four miles west of Threckingham, tessellated pavements
have been found at Haceby and Aisby; and after crossing the western
branch at Cold Harbour,[24] near Grantham, the Saltway passes south-west
into Leicestershire. At a ford near Sleaford, where coins and much
pottery indicate that there was some kind of station, the eastern branch
is within six miles of the western at Ancaster; and there was doubtless
a cross-road between them, as interments have been found at Rauceby and
coins at Bully Wells.
Ancaster, on the western branch of the Ermine Street, is one of those
sites which, from a military camp on a main southern route, rose to be
a small town, with a population probably engaged in agriculture. It is
now generally identified with Causennæ, the station next to Lincoln in
the fifth Iter of the _Itinerary_; but its distance from the colony is
only fourteen miles instead of the twenty-six there given. No traces of
walls are now visible above-ground, and even Leland, nearly four hundred
years ago, spoke doubtfully as to their existence; but since his time
their foundations have been met with on the north and west sides. The
boundaries of the station, which was nearly square, and was surrounded by
a fosse 50 feet wide and 10 feet deep, can still be distinctly seen; and
it was defended at the corners by circular towers, the outlines of which
on the north-west and south-east are well defined. The area enclosed is
about six acres; and the course of Ermine Street, which intersects it,
is near the western boundary. This suggests that the town was extended,
before the erection of its walls, up the slope towards the east. Its
position, on much lower ground than the heights around, was probably
chosen partly to provide shelter from the bleak winds of the heath,
partly for the sake of two springs which are close to its northern and
southern limits. From a description of the place in 1579, it appears that
pavements and “arches” had then been discovered within it; but a large
part of the area, called the “Castle Close,” has long been under grass.
It needs no practised eye to detect that there are foundations beneath
the uneven turf, and systematic excavation might yield discoveries of
much interest. An immense quantity of coins were found in Stukeley’s
time not only within the area but about the surrounding hills. But the
most remarkable object—unearthed in the churchyard in 1831—was a small
sculptured group of the three _Deæ Matres_, seated in a _sella_ carved
upon a plinth, with a column and a little incense altar on the base in
front of them. Statues of these “Protecting Mothers”—who were provincial
rather than Roman deities—have been found at the Wall stations of Chester
and Birdoswald; there, however, the figures are separate, and not ranged
in a single _sella_. The cemetery of Causennæ seems to have been just
outside the southern gate, while north of the village has been found a
potter’s kiln and a small milliary with an inscription to Constantine
the Great. The latter was not on its original site, and its base had been
broken off.[25] On a high hill in Honington, about two miles south-west
of Ancaster, is a small British camp, with a triple vallum almost
circular, enclosing about an acre and a quarter. This was doubtless
occupied by the Romans, for two urns full of coins have been found within
it. There was probably a cross-road west of Ancaster, communicating with
the Foss Way at East Bridgford (Margidunum) in Nottinghamshire. Coins and
pottery have been found at Foston and Allington along the direct line;
and the Sewstern grass lane, locally supposed to be Roman, joins it from
the south-east.
The eastern branch of Ermine Street can be traced for about four miles
north of Sleaford, but its subsequent course is unknown. At or near
Sleaford it threw off a branch-way, which passes through Ewerby and North
Kyme (where it crosses the Cardyke), and points towards Tattershall and
Horncastle. At North Kyme, where two bronze leaf-shaped swords have been
found, is a small camp with a double vallum, and two more are on record
in Tattershall Park. These entrenchments are in a position to protect
the draining operations in the upper fen. Nine miles to the north is
Horncastle (in mediæval documents always written Horncastre), which was
a _castellum_, or walled fort, built in the angle (Saxon “Hyrn”) formed
by two streams, the Bane and the Waring. The Celtic name of the chief
stream is responsible for its identification with the “Banovallum” of
the anonymous Ravennas. A few detached portions of the wall can still be
seen, showing its area to have been about four and a half acres, with
its longer sides (about 200 yards in length) on the north and south. The
masonry is rude, but probably only the core remains, the facing-stones
having been removed for building purposes in later ages. The only remains
known to have been found are coins, pottery, and some leaden coffins
outside the walls. This fort may have been built in the first century if
coins are any indication of date, for among a large number, covering the
whole Roman period, about ten belong to that century. If so, it may have
been purely military in origin—built in order to overawe the natives of
the Southern Wolds, and so serving the same object as Caistor among those
of the north.
But towards the end of the third century, when the Pax Romana had long
been established, there arose a new enemy—the Saxon sea-rovers—against
whom new measures had to be taken. The first British fleet, which was
formed under the leadership of Carausius, had such success against them
that its commander seized the supreme power, and for a time maintained
the independence of the island. But after the continental Empire resumed
its sway in _A.D._ 296, this fleet was allowed to melt away; and a new
land organisation was established, described in the _Notitia Imperii_,
which split up the military command into three divisions, and placed
them under the Prætorian Præfect of Gaul. By this arrangement, which
may have originated in Constantine’s jealousy of his subordinates, the
military force was chiefly massed in the two districts most exposed to
invasion—the northern province, under the Duke of the Britains, whose
headquarters were at York, and the south-eastern littoral, under the
Count of the Saxon Shore. The central and western parts of the island,
being much less exposed to danger, were defended only by a few squadrons
of cavalry under the Count of the Britains, who had no legion under his
command. It has generally been assumed that the northern province was
bounded on the south by the Humber.[26] But if the “Saxon Shore” ended,
as seems likely, at the eastern side of the Wash, such a division would
result in leaving a long stretch of Lincolnshire Marsh, the flat shores
of which were peculiarly exposed to invasion, outside the control of
both the commanders, who had to defend the east coast. This district
would thus be the “Achilles’ heel” of the whole system. Personally I
am convinced that the northern province extended to the Wash, and that
its southern boundary, which perhaps was ill-defined, was, roughly,
the river Nene and Watling Street from High Cross (Venonæ) to Chester.
It was essential for security that both banks of the Humber should be
under one command; and it is hardly conceivable that Lincoln and York,
whose connection by road and water was so intimate, were in different
provinces. But though there was apparently no walled fortress on the
hilly shore between the Tyne and the Humber, the exposed coast of Lindsey
would naturally need some defence of the kind; and direct communication
would, of course, be established between the northern province and the
forces on the Saxon Shore.
Such communication, I believe, already existed before the _Notitia_
system was set up. The Peddar’s Way, “one of the best preserved Roman
roads in East Anglia,”[27] can be traced to-day for 45 miles from the
borders of Suffolk (starting no doubt from Colchester) to Holme-on-Sea,
at the eastern headland of the Wash. This spot is four miles west of
Brancaster, the northernmost fort on the Saxon Shore, and the presumption
therefore is that it was laid down before that fort was built. Pointing
from the opposite promontory of the Wash (which would have to be crossed
by a boat journey of perhaps ten miles) an undoubted Roman road passes by
Burgh into the Wolds, and communicates directly through Caistor with the
Humber, and by branch-ways with Lincoln and York. The town of Wainfleet
(All Saints), some six miles west of this promontory, is often said to
have been the Roman haven for the Lindsey coast; but it is singularly
poor in Roman remains, and its supposed name of “Vainona” is an invention
of the eighteenth century. The road just mentioned is difficult to
follow in the Marsh east of Burgh, but there are signs of it outside
the Roman Bank west and south of Skegness. Here, according to tradition
related by Leland, stood a walled haven town “with a castle,” which was
destroyed by the sea not long before his time; and the shifting sandbanks
of “The Knock” now covering it must have been the promontory which gave
to Skegness its name. Mediæval documents mention _the site_ of this
“castle,” but are silent as to its owner; we may therefore infer that
it was the ruins of a Roman _castellum_, which in other instances, both
in our county and elsewhere, is called a “castle.” Such a conjecture is
incapable of absolute proof; but as Peddar’s Way ends in no walled fort,
there would naturally be one on the opposite coast. The coincidence is
at least curious that the two _Notitia_ forts of Branodunum (Brancaster)
and Præsidium (which has been placed in our county) were both garrisoned
by a body of Dalmatian cavalry, whose native shores were marshy tracts
indented by deep bays.
Just beyond Burgh—where coins are found, though the station must have
been small—the Lindsey road takes to the Wolds, and traverses the high
ridge overlooking the Marsh, its straight course for five miles (two only
on a modern road) being unmistakable. Coins and pottery have been found
in the adjacent parishes of Welton, Willoughby, Well, and Claxby, in the
last-named parish chiefly in a well-marked camp overhanging a stream,
which here issues from the chalk. At the highest point in the district,
where this “way” separates the parishes of Ulceby and Dexthorpe, there
was some kind of station or “mansio,” roofed with flanged tiles, in a
field where the plough annually turns up many coins and other remains.
From South Ormsby the road follows the Blue Stone Heath Road (probably
British in origin) along a winding ridge and through a camp, now
scarcely traceable, below which, in Worlaby, have been found the walls
of a building containing Samian pottery and a quantity of charred corn.
Either here or at Ulceby a branch-way may have left this road direct for
Horncastle and Tillbridge Lane; its course is not certain, but cinerary
urns have been found at Ashby Puerorum, about half-way. At Ludford the
main “via” crosses Salters’ Lane from Lincoln, and becomes merged in the
“High Street” from Horncastle for nine miles to Caistor, and beyond it
for fifteen miles, by Yarborough Camp, to Barton or South Ferriby.[28]
Near this road have been found tessellated pavements at Walesby, Claxby,
and Bigby. At Barton there are remains of an earthwork called the “Castle
Dike,” but much of it has been washed away by the Humber. Another road,
long known as Barton “Street,” leaves the first about a mile south of
this camp, and passes through or near to Louth; its subsequent course is
uncertain, but there are various camps in the Marsh district which may
have been connected by it.