places, and haste up hill to Lincoln,[77] a great and most famous city
of theirs, graced with the title and privilege of a colony; therefore
called _Lindum colonia_; a bold and noble situation upon a high hill,
which we may think no less than five cities united into one; of all
which I shall give a short account in their order, as to what I
observed, without transcribing such matters as the reader will find
better delivered in authors. My business is to illustrate the 88th
Plate, which I made by pacing as I walked about the city, intended to
give the idea of the place as formed originally by the Romans, and
of their roads leading to and from it. Below the hill, and westward
of the city, the river throws itself into a great pool, called Swan
pool from the multitude of swans upon it. All around this place the
ground is moory, and full of bogs and islets, called now Carham, which
means a dwelling upon the _car_, that is, the fen. Now here, without
question, was the British city in the most early times, where they
drove their cattle backwards and forwards, and retired themselves into
its inaccessible securities; and from thence I apprehend the name of
_caer_, signifying a fortification or inclosure in all the most ancient
languages, came in this country to be retained in these morasses: this
was its name as a dwelling, or a collection of native inhabitants; but
the pool in their language was called _lhyn_, and that denominated the
Roman city _Lindum_, being the hill hanging over this pool. From this
Carham you have a pleasant view of the west front of the cathedral. The
shape of the pool is thought very much to resemble a map of England,
when you survey it from the top of the cathedral. The Romans, pleased
with this notable eminence, placed their city upon it, which they first
built in the form of a large square, the southern wall standing upon
the precipice or edge of the hill, and wanted no other external fence:
quite round the other three sides they carried a deep trench too, which
still remains, except on the south-east angle. This city was divided
into four equal parts, by two cross streets that cut it quite through
upon the cardinal points: the two southern quarters were taken
up, one by the castle, the other by the church which Remigius built;
but, when Alexander the bishop projected a structure of much larger
dimensions, they carried the sacred inclosure beyond the eastern bounds
of the city, and so built a new wall farther that way, as it is now,
with battlements and towers. The north and south Roman gates of this
part of the city remain; the one intire, the other pulled down about
fifteen years ago by Mr. Houghton: the northern, called Newport gate,
is the noblest remnant of this sort in Britain, as far as I know.
Upon the first sight of it I was struck with admiration, as well of
its noble simplicity, as that hitherto it should not have been taken
notice of: it is a vast semicircle of stones of very large dimensions,
and, by what I could perceive, laid without mortar, connected only by
their cuniform shape. This magnificent arch is sixteen foot diameter,
the stones four foot thick at bottom: from the injuries of time, but
worse of hands, it is somewhat luxated, yet seems to have a joint in
the middle, not a key-stone: on both sides, towards the upper part,
are laid horizontal stones of great dimensions, some ten or twelve
foot long, to take off the side pressure, very judiciously adapted.
This arch rises from an impost of large mouldings, some part of which,
especially on the left-hand side, are still discoverable: below on
both sides was a postern, or foot passage, made of like stones; but
against that on the left side is a house built, and when I went down
into the cellar I found a chimney set before it. The ground here in
the street has been very much raised, and the top of the wall is of a
later workmanship: it is indeed a most venerable piece of antiquity,
and what a lover of architecture would be hugely delighted withall.
They that look upon a gate among the vestiges of the _forum_ of Nerva
at Rome, will think they see the counterpart of this; but, of the two,
this has the most grandeur in aspect: the drawing supplies any further
harangue about it. From this gate eastward, some part of the old Roman
wall is to be seen by a pasture, made of stone and very strong mortar:
thereabout too are some arches under ground. The west gate toward the
gallows was pulled down, not beyond memory: that on the south side,
which I spoke of, still shows one jamb from between the houses, and
two or three stones of the same make as the former, just above the
springing of the arch: if you go up stairs in the adjoining house
within the city, you may see the postern on the east side, which is big
enough for a bed to stand in. I doubt not but there is, or was, another
answerable on the other side; but this street is much contracted from
its original breadth by the subsequent populousness of the place; and
the ground here, being upon the edge of the hill, is much worn down,
as the first is heaped up, from the condition of former ages. But by
Newport gate before described, is another large and curious remnant of
Roman workmanship: this is called the Mint wall, and stands in a garden
in the north-west quarter of the city: it is still sixteen foot high,
above forty foot long, and turned again with an angle: on the left-hand
side behind it are houses built and marks of arches. What it was
originally cannot now be affirmed; the composition of it is thus: upon
squared stone of the common sort, but a little decayed through age, is
laid a triple course of Roman brick, which rises one foot in height;
the bricks seem to be a Roman foot long, and our seven inches broad:
above this three courses of stone, which rise about a foot more; then
three layers of brick, as before; upon that twelve courses of stone,
then brick and stone to the top: the scaffold-holes are left all the
way: the mortar is very hard, and full of little pebbles.
[Illustration: 28 RELIGIOVS.
Remains _of the Church at_ Kirsted Abbey _Linc. 1716_.
_The Gate house of_ Tupholm Abbey _Linc._
The Ichnography of the Monastery of _Kirsted_ Linc.
_Stukeley delin._]
[Illustration: 88 LINDVM Colonia.
_4 Sep. 1722._
Josepho Banks Jun. Ar. _Tabulam_ D.D. Wˢ. Stukeley.
_Stukeley del._.]
[Illustration: 54 Worth Gate (_a Roman Work_) Canterbury
_6. Oct. 1722._]
[Illustration: +Newport Gate+ at +Lincoln+
Sept. 3. 1722.
_The Arch of Roman Work_
_Stukᵉley delin. & Amicissimo Conterraneo Mauritio Johnson Ar.
Interioris Templi J.C. offert._]
[Sidenote: TAB. LIV]
[Sidenote: 3.]
But this city being happily seated for navigation of the river, and the
chief thoroughfare to the north, soon increased to that degree, that
the Romans were obliged to add another to it as big as the former: this
they did southward upon the declivity of the hill, and so tallied it to
the other, that the new side-walls answered in a parallel to the old,
and the most southern lay upon the river. Eastward the ditch without
is turned into a broad street called the Beast-market, and there below
Claskgate a great part of the old Roman wall is left, made of stones
piled sideways, first with one direction, then with another, as was
a common method with them: one piece of it is now eighty foot long,
eighteen high; a little bit of it lower down is twelve foot long, as
much high: between that gate upwards and the old city-wall, by the
Greestone stairs, is the old ditch to be seen, much talked of, but not
understood: it is called Weredyke. The people have a notion that the
river came up here, and that these stairs were a landing-place from
the water-side, and denominated from I know not what Grecian traders:
but this is utterly impossible in nature. To the west the ditch and
foundation of the wall is still left, though many times repaired and
demolished in the frequent sieges this town has sustained, especially
in the wars of Maud the empress: at the bottom of it, towards the
water, is a round tower called Lucy tower, and famous in her history.
This then was the state of this place in Roman times: the Foss and
Hermen-street entered the city at Stanbow, or the stoney arch; there
they parted: the Hermen-street went directly up the hill, and so full
north through Newport; the Foss, according to its natural direction,
ascended it obliquely on the eastern side without the ancient city, and
so proceeded to the sea coast north-east.
[Sidenote: 4.]
But still here were two more great additions to the length of this
city, and which stretched it out to an enormous bulk; the first
northwards above the hill: it is called Newport, or the new city,
500 paces long. This I apprehend to have been done in the reign of
the Saxon kings: it lies on both sides the Hermen-street, and was
fenced with a wall and ditch hewn out of the rock: at the two farther
corners were round towers and a gate, the foundations of which remain:
there were several churches and religious houses in this place; and
I suppose it was chiefly inhabited by Jews, who had settled here in
great numbers, and grown rich by trade: there is a well still called
Grantham’s well, from a child they ludicrously crucified and threw into
that well.
[Sidenote: 5.]
[78] After the Norman conquest, when a great part of the first city was
turned into a castle, I apprehend they added the last intake southward
in the angle of the Witham, and made a new cut, called Sinsil dike, on
the south and east side, for its security. The city then being of this
huge compass, gave occasion for that prophecy, as they call it, and
fancy to have been fulfilled in the year 1666:
Lincoln _was_, London _is, and_ York _shall be
The fairest city of the three_.
It is observable that the Normans could not well pronounce _Lincoln_,
but called it _Nichol_, as we find it in some old writers; and to this
day a part of _swan_ pool is called _nichol_ pool: in some places of
Lincolnshire the vulgar pronounce _little_, _nickle_, and some other
words of that sort. Though this place is much declined since those
times, yet of late it begins to flourish again very considerably.
The meaning of _grecian_ stairs I suppose borrowed from the Normans,
importing only stone steps (_grees_) as they appear at this day, a
commodious descent from the minster yard. Within this two years, two
new churches, large and fair, have been built at the charge of the
inhabitants, and a great many handsome dwelling-houses: trades and
manufactures too reflourish.
[Illustration: 64·2ᵈ. +Roman Inscriptions+
I II
D ~ M D·M·S
G ~ VALERIVS ~ G ~ F ~ CADIOI
GALERIA ~ VICTOR ~ NIAE~FOR
LVGDVNI~SIG~LEG~II~AVG~ TVNA
STP~XVII~ANNOR~XI.V.~ CV PIA~V~A XV
RA~AGENT~AMNIO~PERPITVO~B
_At Adel_
_at Caerlion_
III IV
MARIE VIBIA
OFEIS◌̅CE IVCVN
NERIS IEIO DA
+ VIPIO S C δ I I R AN XXX
+ ER IIGMEIETRIPE HIC SEPVL
TA EST
DIS MANIBVS
NOMINE SACR _at Bathe_
BRVSCI FILI CVIS
SENONI ET CARSS
VNAE CONIVGIS
EIVS ET QVINTIP
_Upon Sᵗ Marys Steeple Lincoln_
V VI
D ~ M ~ C·GAVIO·L·F·STEL·SILVANO
IVLIAE CASTÆ TRIB·COH·II·VIGILVM·TRIB·
CONIVGI~VIX~ COH·XIII·VRB·TRIB·COH·XII·
ANN~XXXIII PRAETOR·DONIS.DONATO·A·
DIVO·CLAVDIO·BELLO·BRI
_at Cirencester~GlocestʳSh_ TANNICO
_at Tours_
_Stukeley delin_ _I Harris Sculp_]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXIX.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XVI.]
[79] In this last part of the city, on both sides the Roman road, were
many funeral monuments of the old Romans; some of which they now dig
up, and doubtless much more when they first built upon this ground. I
saw a pit where they found a stone with an inscription, this summer:
through age and the workmen’s tools it was defaced, only small remains
of D. M. & VIX. ANN. XXX. such letters as showed its intent, with
carvings of palm-trees, and other things: this is behind the house
where the lord Hussey was beheaded for rebellion in the time of Henry
VIII. the great bow window through which he came upon the scaffold was
taken down this year: it stands over-against another stone building,
of an ancient model, said to be the palace of John of Gaunt, duke of
Lancaster, who lived here in royal state, and had the privilege of
coining: his arms are here carved in stone. Upon the steeple of St.
Mary’s church they have placed in the wall an ancient monumental stone,
with this imperfect inscription:
DIS MANIBVS
NOMINI SACRI
BRVSCI FILI CIVIS
SENONI ET CARIS
UNAE CONIVGIS
EIUS ET QVINTIE.
There is another obscure inscription upon the upper part of the stone,
but has been added since, and is christian. Upon the church-wall lies
an old stone by the conduit, which Leland takes notice of, and says is
Ranulf de Kyme. Immense are the Roman antiquities dug up about this
famous colony: nor has the perpetual turning up the ground exhausted
them. The late Dr. Primrose had a great collection: I remember to have
seen a fine glass urn in his possession, now with Martin Folkes, esq;
found near Newport gate; also a very large silver seal of one of the
Quincys earls of Lincoln, now with Nevil King, esq. Wm. Pownal, esq;
has many coins very well preserved, particularly a Carausus with his
wife on the same coin, which is a great rarity. I am in hopes he will
some time favour the learned with an accurate account of this place, as
it highly deserves. Upon the Roman road eastward are some barrows: many
urns, and the like, have been dug up about them, especially near the
stone pits, with earthen aqueducts, and all kinds of antiquities. Mr.
Pownal showed me a brass _armilla_, found with a corpse which possibly
was British.[80] Upon the road going to Staynton, is an hospital of St.
Giles, built by Remigius; and behind it are great cavities in the rock
under ground, which people fancied to be Roman catacombs, and affirmed
they had seen earthen and brazen pots, inscriptions and the like,
with many other strange stories: to search this matter thoroughly,
provided with torches, we traced them to the utmost corners, but found
them only quarries. Let us now survey the cathedral. It is far more
magnificent than any I have yet seen: there are two great gate-houses
or entrances to it from the west: the lower part of the front, and of
the two towers, are of Remigius his building, as is easily discoverable
by the colour of the stones, and by the manner of architecture: but
Alexander built the additions upon it, the body of the cathedral, the
choir and St. Mary’s tower, which once had a very lofty spire upon
it; a prodigious work for a single man, and that not the only one,
as appears by what we have mentioned of him. St. Hugh the Burgundian
built the east end, or St. Mary’s chapel, where he had a shrine; and
the chapter-house cieled with a beautiful stone roof, one pillar in the
middle. The cloysters and the library are fine: here are many books
and manuscripts, and an old leaden inscription of William d’Agincourt,
cousin to Remigius, already printed. Here are many bells, particularly
one remarkably large, called _Tom of Lincoln_, which takes up a whole
steeple to itself; probably consecrated to that great champion of the
church, St. Thomas of Canterbury, the first cathedral mentioned in
Bede; I suppose an humble building, and contained within the ancient
walls. Two Catharine-wheel windows, as called, at the ends of the
larger transepts, are remarkably fine for mullion-work and painted
glass. Here are great numbers of ancient brasses and monuments:
one I have engraven from a drawing procured by Browne Willys, esq;
Tab. 16. the stone only is left near the west door. To set down the
particularities of the church would require a volume. South of it, upon
the very brow of the hill, is the bishop’s palace, built by Robert
de Chesney, who gave two great bells likewise: bishop Bek and other
successors enlarged it to a magnificence equal with the cathedral: it
stands just south of the Roman wall; a very expensive work, for the
foundations of it reach, as it were, below hill: over this hung many
large bow windows of curious workmanship, looking over the tops of the
lower city into Nottinghamshire: the kitchen had seven chimneys in it:
the hall was stately: the gate-house remains intire, with coats of arms
of the founders. This palace was ruined in the time of the civil wars:
good part of it might be handsomely rebuilt without an extravagant
expence.
In Leland’s time one of the stone crosses of queen Eleanor was here
standing in the market place: it were endless to enumerate the
religious houses, gates, and old buildings, that croud up every part
of the streets. Here were originally fifty two churches. I never saw
such a fund of antique speculations in any town in England: I heard
continually of coins and urns found all the country over, as at
Cathorp, Methringham, Nocton, &c. I found this inscription on a stone
in the stable wall of the Rein-deer inn.
+*RANDOLF: DE: BORTON: GYT: ICY: DEUI: DE: SA: ALME: AYT: MERCY:
AMEN.*
This castle of William the Conqueror’s is a large place, and
exceedingly strong with walls, ditches, keep, and towers: over against
it westward is an intrenchment made by king Stephen.
Through the whole length of Lincolnshire, from north to south, in
a strait line runs a ledge of hills, that is, from Stanford to
Winteringham: the Romans, observing this, carried their road upon
it, and left the original stem of Fokingham. This high ground is
similar all along, having a steep descent westward, overlooking
Nottinghamshire, and is a rock of rag-stone quite through; the
stone is white, and rises in _strata_, thicker as deeper: the surface
is heathy. The river Witham, which rises on the west of this ridge,
must have run into the Humber, had not Nature, by her propensity of
drawing it eastward, as her declivities generally run, broke it off in
the middle by that great valley under Lincoln, and made a passage for
it into the estuary. Hence it is that the stone upon this western cliff
is full of sea-shells; for, when the great and universal deluge had
carried those inhabitants of the ocean into the mediterranean parts, by
the weight of their shells they were unapt to retire again along with
the waters, so were intercepted against this cliff, and received into
the nascent stone.[81] A remarkable antediluvian curiosity I procured
for the repository of the Royal Society, from these parts; being the
real skeleton of a crocodile, or some such animal, inclosed in a broad
flat stone. But now it is time to proceed.
[Illustration: 29 _The Shrine of Sᵗ._ Hugh _the Burgundian_ Bishop _of_
Lincoln. In the South Isle of the Cathedral there behind the Choir._
Reverendo Doctissimoqᵤₑ Laurentio Echard _dicata_.
_Stukeley delin._ _F. Kirkall sculp._]
[Illustration: 16 Sub marmore isto tenet hic tumulus ossa venerabilis
in Christo patris et dñi Witti Smith quond̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃m̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃̃ Eoventrens et Lichfeldens
ac deinde Lincolnien presulis qui obüt secundo die mentis Januarii
anno dñi millesimo quingentessimo trio decimo cñj̃ aĩe ppicietur qĩ
pius et misicors in die tribulat peccata remittit
Cestrensis presul post Lincolniensis Hmato Cleriuam multos cis
mare transqᵤₑ aluit. Qui utriusqq fuit prefectus Principis aulæ
Fundavitqᵤₑ duas perpetuando Scholas. aulasqᵤₑ sumptu hujus renovata
est Cnea Ehrste hic situs est Anime parce benigne sue.]
[Illustration: 87 AGELOCVM. _Sep. 1722._
Erudito Willo Ella A. M. vieario _de_ Rampton vicinam _Stationem.
d.d. Wˢ. Stukeley_]
The Hermen-street going northward from Lincoln is scarce diminished,
because its materials are hard stone, and the heath on both sides
favours it: three miles off, near a watering-place, a branch divides
from it with an obtuse angle to the left, which goes towards Yorkshire.
We suppose the Romans at first had an erroneous idea of the island of
Britain, and thought its northern parts in a more easterly longitude
than by experience they found; and thus in Ptolemy’s maps the length
of Scotland is represented running out enormously that way: but when
Agricola, in his conquests northward, had discovered that mistake,
and that the passage over the Humber was very incommodious for the
march of soldiers, he struck out this new road, as another branch of
the Hermen-street, by way of Doncaster, from thence observing its
natural direction northward. When we turn ourselves here, and look
back to Lincoln, we see the road butts upon the western spires of the
cathedral: and when from thence you survey the road, it is an agreeable
prospect; your eye being in the middle line of its whole length to the
horizon. I had a mind to pursue this branch through Lincolnshire as
far as the first station, _Agelocum_: this ridge is likely to be of
an eternal duration, as wholly out of all roads: it proceeds directly
over the heath, then descends the cliff through the rich country at
bottom, between two hedge-rows, by the name of Tilbridge lane. When you
view it on the brink of the hill, it is as a visto or avenue running
through a wood or garden very strait, and pleasanter in prospect than
when you come to travel it; wanting a Roman legion to repair it. You
pass through Stretton and Gate-Burton, so called from the road, and by
a ferry cross over the Trent, which lands you at
[Sidenote: +Agelocum.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXXXVII.]
Littleborough, _Agelocum_, or, as by later times corrupted, with a
_sibilus_, into _Segelocum_.[82] This is a small village three miles
above Ganesborough, just upon the edge of the water, and in an angle.
_Agel auk_, _frons aquæ_, is a pertinent etymology: it seems only to
have been environed with a ditch, and of a square form, and the water
ran quite round it; for to the west, where White’s bridge is, a watery
valley hems it in: so that it was a place sufficiently strong. The
church stands upon the highest ground. The Trent has washed away part
of the eastern side of the town. Foundations and pavements are visible
in the bank. Mr. Roger Gale, passing by, once found an urn there, with
a coin of Domitian’s: great numbers of coins have been taken up in
ploughing and digging: they called them swine-pennies, because those
creatures sometimes root them up, and the inhabitants take little
care to save them. I saw a few there: the reverend Mr. Ella, vicar of
Rampton hard by, has collected several, and some valuable, such as the
following, of which he sent me an account.
A consecration piece of Vespasian. Cos. IIII.
IMP CAES NERVAE TRAIANO AVG GER DAC PMTRP COSVPP ℞ SPQR OPTIMO
PRINCIPI. The mole at Ancona.
IMP CÆS NER TRAIANO OPTIMO AVG GER DAC ℞ SENATVS POPVLVSQ ROMANVS.
Fortune sitting with a _cornucopia_ in one hand, a rudder in the other,
FORT RED SC.
IMP CAES. &c. as the second. ℞ SPQR. a genius sitting on trophies, with
a spear in the left hand, a _victoriola_ in its right.
IMP CAESAR TRAIANVS HADRIANVS ℞ PONT. MAX. TRP. Britannia sitting with
a shield, a spear in her left hand, a laurel in her right, the right
foot upon a rock BRITANNIA SC.
CONSTANTINVS AVG. ℞ SOLI INVICTO COMITI. Another, ℞ ALEMANNIA DEVICTA.
Several of those struck about Constantius’s time with a galeate head
on one side, and URBS ROMA ℞ a wolf suckling Romulus and Remus:
others, CONSTANTINOPOLIS: many more, of Aurelius, Faustina, Gallienus,
Tetricus, Victorinus, Carausius, Constantine, Constantius, Crispus,
Allectus, and the lower Empire. About forty years ago, when the
inclosures between the town and bridge were ploughed up, abundance of
these coins were found, many intaglias of agate, cornelian, the finest
coral-coloured urns and patera’s, some wrought in _basso relievo_,
the workman’s name generally impressed on the inside of the bottom:
a _discus_ with an emperor’s head embossed. In 1718, they dug up two
altars, handsomely moulded, which are set as piers in a wall on the
side of the steps that lead from the water-side to the inn: on one is
the remnant of an inscription, LIS ARAM DD. these are of the course
grit-stone. Many very little coins are found here, like flatted pease;
they call them mites. Mr. Hardy has a large urn with the face of a
woman on the out-side. In this same field near White’s bridge are great
foundations of building: coins are often found too at the lowest edge
of the water, when the tide is gone off, and in dry seasons. On the
east side of the river has been a camp. Returning by Tilbridge lane,
upon the top of the heath is a spring, which they say flows and abates
with the tide in the Trent, though five miles off: the like is reported
of divers others hereabouts.
From the place where the roads branch out, before spoken of, I
proceeded on the Hermen-street, northward, to Spittle on the street.
There are milliary stones set upon the road all the way: it is very
delightful riding, being wholly champaign, or heath. Of these stones I
believe some are Roman, others later crosses, perhaps to supply their
place: some _tumuli_ scattered here and there. This place no doubt was
a mansion, because a little beck runs through it, arising hard by:
and it is ten miles from Lincoln; a convenient distance. I took the
bearing of the road just north and south. Here is an hospital, said to
be founded 1308, and great foundations all around, some of which are
probably Roman. At present the village consists of two farm-houses, a
chapel, an inn, and a sessions-house: three or four _tumuli_ near the
town. Upon the chapel is a silly Latin inscription:
_fui anno domini_ 1398 }
_non fui_ 1594 } _dom. dei & pauperum_
_sum_ 1616 }
_Qui hanc Deus hunc destruet._
[Illustration: 16·2ᵈ. _The Scite of the Roman town at_ Wintringham.
_24. Iuly 1724._ +Abontrvs.+
_Stukeley delin._]
Upon the sessions-house,
_Hæc domus odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat,
Equitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos._ 1620.