so towards Runway hill, the highest in all these parts. This was famous
for a battle in the late civil wars; and they oft find the bullets,
when digging for the pebbles as afore mentioned; and below the hill
they plough up the bones of the slain: but much more is Runway eminent
for two mighty works of antiquity, this Roman way, and Wansdike. The
most lovely prospect here will tempt even a hasty traveller to cast
his eyes about him, and see all the country far beyond the Bath,
and so proportionably quite around. I am not doubtful that it takes
its name from the Roman way, which here has an unusual and the most
curious appearance of any I have seen. I took pleasure in examining
the particularity of it more than once; and it is a masterstroke of
skill to conduct it down the north side of this long and steep hill
(as I have so often remarked to be the condition of northern heights)
to render it easy, or even practicable. When from the top of this hill
you look towards Marlborough, which is full east, you may discern that
the road curves a little northward, not discernible but in the whole:
the reason is to be attributed to the river Kennet, thrusting it out
somewhat that way; otherwise the true line should have lain a little
more to the south of Silbury. To the right you see Wansdike, creeping
all along from south of Marlborough (about two mile) upon the northern
edge of the great ridge of hills, parting North and South Wiltshire,
till it descends St. Ann’s hill; and makes several right angles to
humour the edges of the other hills: the _vallum_ is always on the
south side, and the higher ground behind it: then it mounts up to the
highest _apex_ of Runway hill. But the method of the Roman road is
this: it goes along the northern side of this hill, preserving itself
upon the level, being cut like a terrace-walk, with a parapet before
it next the precipice; and that winding in and out, as the curvatures
of the hill require: it passes just by Calston lime-kiln, and is
defaced by it; for the workmen make no scruple to dig through it for
their materials, and this practice has been so old as to denominate
the town lying beneath. Soon after, it meets with the Wansdike,
descending the hill just by the gibbet: here it enters full into it,
and very dexterously makes use of it, all along to the bottom, on a
very convenient shelf, or spurn of the hill: at the place of union is
a flexure of the Wansdike, so that the Roman road coincides with it
directly; and in order to raise it from a ditch into a road, the Roman
workmen have thrown in most part of the rampire, still preserving it as
a terrace to prevent the danger, and the terror of the descent on one
side.
I shall mention, upon another occasion, some other observations I
have made long since, that overthrow the notion of those that imagine
Wansdike was cast up by the Saxons, as a limit of the West Saxon and
Mercian kingdoms, or that its name is derived from their god _Woden_:
but here we have a most incontestable proof that it was in being
before the Roman times; and its very name shows it, signifying, in
the old British language, the division dike, _guaban_, _distinctio_,
_separatio_: it is indeed the work of the _Belgæ_, their fourth and
last boundary. These two, the Roman road and Wansdike, go together
after this manner, till they enter the inclosures a little north of
Hedington town below Runway hill. At Calston is a most famous spring,
or cataract of water, coming out of the chalk-hill, and much talked of.
Wansdike was made by the people of the south, to cover their country,
as the mode of it sufficiently testifies, and, as we said before, was
the most northern bounds of the Belgic kingdom. When from the top of
these hills you view the Roman road, towards the west you see it butts
full upon the Bath, or that great chink between Lansdown and the banks
of the river Avon going to Bristol.
[Sidenote: +Verlucio.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXVIII.]
I had no sooner traced out this road, but I found a fair opportunity
presented of setting the antiquaries right, as to part of the XIVth
journey of Antoninus his Itinerary, in which they have hitherto been
much perplexed. I found no manner of difficulty in settling _Verlucio_
at Hedington; _Hedda’s_ town, _Heddan_ genitivo. This town is but
small at present, lying at the bottom of this great hill in a rich
marly country. The inhabitants are not surprised when you inquire for
antiquities; they assert it to have been a very old and great city:
infinite quantities of antiquities are found here: handfuls of coins
brought home every time they plough, (madam Whitlock has many) and
the streets and foundations of houses found for a great length,
sufficiently evince it.[129] Reuben Horsal, clerk of Abury, told me,
he had seen a gallon of Roman coin taken up at a time in Hedington
field, in an urn covered with a stone. I suppose its original name
was _Verolucio_, as _Verolanium_, &c. and then it signifies, in
the old Celtic, the white habitation, _vrô llug_; _llug_ denoting
splendid, as _Lugdunum_, a white hill; the same as the Greek Λευκος
_albus_: if _lug_ imports pure water, then it must relate to Calston
spring, breaking forth like a cascade: if we take the word _gloyii_,
_limpidus_, it is all one. It must be noted, that both the XIIIth and
XIVth journeys of Antoninus his Itinerary are abominably corrupted,
and want a healing hand as much as any throughout: and being both one
journey by a different route, I shall undertake thus to restore them.
[Illustration: 68 +Verlvcio+
_Prospect of Hedington. 18 July 1723._
_Stukeley delin._]
ITER XIII.
_Ab Isca Callevam_ _M. P._ CXXXIX. _sic_
_Isca leg._ II. _Aug._ Caerleon
_Burrium_ Usk IX
_Blescium_ Old town XI
_Ariconium_ Kenchester XI
_Glevum colonia_ Glocester XXXV
_Durocorinium_ Cirencester XIV
Cunetio _Marlborough_ XIX
_Spinas_ Newberry XV
Vindoma _Silchester_ X
_Caleva Atrebatum_ Farnham XV. _toto_ CXXXIX.
In the copies the sum total is set down CIX. miles; when, if you cast
up the particulars, it amounts to no more than XC. so that no less than
nineteen in the original is lost: this shows plainly that some station
is dropped out, and geography itself indispensably demonstrates it.
Mr. Fulk was sensible of some deficiency, by his adding _Gobannium_,
though thereby he hit not the white: in truth, both stations and
numbers are wanting; for it is notorious that the distance between
_Ariconium_ and _Glevum_, places sufficiently known, and about which
we have no contest, is much too little, when set down only XV. mile;
and XX. must unavoidably be added. Though I am as cautious as any man
living in laying hand upon these venerable remains, and altering them;
yet, where nature and reason absolutely require it, I have not the
least fear in adding two stations, which are quite slipped out from
the original: between Cirencester and Newberry it is evident _Cunetio_
must be interposed, or the distance heightened to twice as much: the
truth is, one station is intermitted, _Cunetio_: and the like between
_Spinas_ and _Calleva_; for _Vindoma_, or Silchester, must be added,
beyond which is our _Calleva_, or Farnham; all in a strait line, and
upon a Roman road from _Aricomum_. Cast up the whole account, it comes
to CXXXIX. instead of CIX. then all the difficulties that have hitherto
obscured this journey, vanish: they that compare William Harrison’s
first copy with the others of this journey, will not be surprised at
the effects of negligent transcribers, when, out of seven names in
other books, he has missed two; and so frequently in other journeys.
In the next place I offer this as the true reading of the fourteenth
journey of Antoninus.
ITER XIIII.
_Alio itinere ab Isca Callevam_ _M. P._ CIII. _sic_
_Isca leg._ II. _Aug._ Caerleon
_Venta silurum_ Caerguent IX
_Trajectus_ Old-bury IX
_Abone_ Henbury IX
_Aquæ solis_ Bath VI
_Verlucio_ Hedington XX
_Cunetio_ Malboro X
_Spinas_ Newberry XV
Vindoma _Silchester_ X.
_Calleva Atrebatum_ Farnham XV _toto_ CIII.
This journey leads us to _Calleva_ another way. Mr. Gale has observed
_Trajectus_ and _Abone_ transposed. The sum total here likewise is
invariably in all copies CIII. when the particulars amount but to
ninety-eight; whence we likewise infer a station is dropped out, as
before, viz. Silchester, with the number X. annexed. Now it happens
that number was not lost, though the station was; but was erroneously
placed to Marlborough, being XX. instead of X. seeing the distance
between the Bath and Marlborough is notoriously too much. Setting then
X. mile to _Cunetio_, its real distance from our _Verlucio_, Hedington;
it remains further to correct the number annexed to _Verlucio_, XX.
for XV. the letter X being easily corrupted into an V. then we answer
the distances on all hands, having a Roman road accompanying us, and
complete the sum total set at top precisely CIII. and restore the whole
to its ancient purity. When we reflect a little, that, take the matter
how we will any other way, the difficulties are unsurmountable, I am
thoroughly satisfied in these corrections.
Much rusty old iron is dug up at the quarries by Brunham, probably of
the Romans: it is a mile off Hedington.
Upon the hedge of the hill which overlooks Hedington, as it bends a
little southward, is another pretty little Roman camp, in an angle of
the hill, of a square form, and as if not finished, or made for but a
small time of abode upon an expedition; for neither _vallum_ nor ditch
of any great strength: it is situate on a very convenient promontory,
or rather _peninsula_ of high ground, the steepness whereof is a guard
to three sides of it; the other has the slender _vallum_ made chiefly
of the surface of the earth thrown up a little. From the edge of these
hills is an indefinite prospect over the country of the _Dobuni_, the
_Belgæ_, and _Durotriges_: the descent to it, as being on the west side
of the hill, is very steep. I think this place is called Bagdon hill.
[Sidenote: +Punctuobice.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXIX.]
Under it, to the left, is the Devises: this I take to be the
_Punctuobice_ of Ravennas, which he mentions by parcels thus:
_Leucomagus_, Bedwin, (_Cimetzone_ for) _Cunetione_ in the ablative
case, Marlborough; _Punctuobice_, the Devises: then he begins a new
period of cities in Wales, _Venta Silurum_, &c. I suppose here is a
remnant of the former part of the word _Punctuobice_ in Poulsholt, a
little village hard by; Potern another, Potern-wood, and the name of
the hundred Potern, taken, in the first times of their division, from
such a corrupt appellation of this place: the last syllable _bice_
subsists in the present name Devises, vulgarly _vies_. This town is
excellently situated, about two miles from the bottom of the hills,
which keep off the eastern winds, and in a rich soil.[130] Under
the hill at Runway is an excellent spring, which the inhabitants have
not yet found means to convey thither, though it runs but a little
way off the town, where they want water. It is a very large old town,
consisting chiefly of two long parallel streets; the houses for the
most part of timber, but of a very good model: they value themselves
for one of the best weekly markets in England, and for being tenants
to the king. It was inclosed by the Romans with a _vallum_ and ditch,
which I presently found out: they have made a road of the ditch in
most parts round the town; but in several places both that and the
_vallum_ are visible enough, and it took in the castle: this castle
was Roman originally, finely chosen upon a natural fortification,
but in after-times made in a manner impregnable by Roger a bishop of
Salisbury; though now it is ignobly mangled, and every day destroyed by
people that care not to leave a wall standing, though for a fence to
their garden. Here are two churches; the choir of St. Mary’s, of a very
old model; the steeple, choir, and both wings of St. John’s, the same,
to which parcels have since been tacked all round, and new wide windows
put in with pointed arches, instead of the ancient narrow semi-circular
ones. Just out of town is a pretty plain, called the Green, with
another handsome church and steeple, suburbs to the old town. Here
William Cadby, a gardener, dug up his collection of gods, which he
carried about for a show: they were found in a garden, in a cavity
inclosed with Roman brick: the _Venus_ is of an excellent design; and
the Vestal Virgin, as they call it, a fragment of Corinthian brass;
it is of very curious drapery: _Vulcan_ is as lame as if made at a
forge: the rest equal in designing with the _lares_ of the _Ostiaques_,
and not at all mended in the plate published by Dr. Musgrave: he had
several coins found thereabouts, and a brass Roman key which my lord
Winchelsea bought. Roman antiquities are found here every day. My lord
Winchelsea has one brass _Probus_; on the reverse, +Victoria Germ.+
with a trophy: and a great fund of such antiquities is to be met with
all around the country. At Calne incredible numbers of Roman coin dug
up; so at Studley, in the way to Bath, once a seat of the Saxon kings:
I have seen and bought some of these: my lord Winchelsea has many found
there.
[Illustration: 69 +Pvnctvobice.+
_July 17. 1723._]
From hence towards Trubridge is Steeple-Aston, upon the bottom of the
downs of Salisbury plain: it is a most excellent church and tower of
stone, and had a famous spire of lead upon it, but twice thrown down by
thunder and tempest, which absolutely discouraged the inhabitants from
setting it up again.
Return we to the Roman Bath road, which we left at Hedington; whence
it goes much as the common road to Bath, and all along upon the south
division of Chipenham hundred: I could discern its bank now and then
upon the road, though much worn away and defaced in defect of necessary
repairs: it passes the Avon at Lacock, where has been a great religious
house, so by a chapel south of Haselbury: then it descends a hill for
two miles together, till it meets, over-against Bathford, the Foss-way,
which comes in a strait line hither through Cirencester, from _Benonis_
or High-cross in Warwickshire, where I left it last year: then our
road goes round the crook of the river by Walcot to the Bath. This
turn it is that swells the distance between Bath and _Verlucio_ to XX.
Roman miles, as we before corrected it. The Wansdike runs still not
far off this road, but a little north of it through Spy park; so by
Ditchbridge, which has its name from it; then to the Shire stones, at
the division between Gloucestershire, Wilts, and Somerset. As to the
nature of the soil, when we have left the chalky downs at Hedington,
it is intirely sand to the river Avon, whence the name of Sandy lanes:
from thence to the Bath it is rocky. There is a vast descent from the
Downs quite to Bath, and every great ridge is very steep westward.
[Sidenote: +Aquæ Solis.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXX. LXXI.]
The Bath is a place so celebrated, and so well known, that I need say
but little upon it; nor can much be expected from the small time I
rested here: its history and antiquities have been copiously handled
by several gentlemen of our own faculty. It is indeed a spot of ground
which we Britons may esteem as a particular boon of Nature: it lies
in a great valley surrounded with an amphitheatrical view of hills;
and its situation on the west side of the island does not a little
contribute to its pleasures; for such is ever less subject to violent
and enormous alterations of the air by winds and tempest, heat and
cold: but the Romans were prudently induced to make a station here, by
the admirable hot springs, so wonderful in themselves, and so justly
regarded. The walls round the city are for the most part intire, and
perhaps the old Roman work, except the upper part, which seems repaired
with the ruins of Roman buildings; for the lewis holes are still left
in many of the stones, and, to the shame of the repairers, many Roman
inscriptions: some sawn across, to fit the size of the place, are
still to be seen, some with the letters towards the city, others on
the outside: most of those mentioned in Mr. Camden and other authors
are still left; but the legend more obscure. The level of the city
is risen to the top of the first walls, through the negligence of
the magistracy, in this and all other great towns, who suffer idle
servants to throw all manner of dirt and ashes into the streets: these
walls inclose but a small compass, of a pentagonal form: four gates
on four sides, and a postern on the other: from the south-west angle
has been an additional wall and ditch carried out to the river; by
which short work the approach of an enemy on two sides is cut off,
unless they pass the river. The small compass of the city has made
the inhabitants croud up the streets to an unseemly and inconvenient
narrowness: it is handsomely built, mostly of new stone, which is very
white and good; a disgrace to the architects they have there. The
cathedral is a beautiful pile, though small; the roof of stone well
wrought; much imagery in front, but of a sorry taste. Here they suppose
(with probability) stood the Roman temple of Minerva, patroness of the
Baths.[131] Before it was a handsome square _area_, but lately deformed
with houses encroaching: on the south side are the justly-renowned hot
springs, collected into a square _area_ called the King’s Bath. The
corporation has lately erected a pretty handsome building before it,
called the Drinking-room, for the company to meet in that drink the
waters drawn hither by a marble pump from the bottom of the springs,
where it is near boiling hot. This water is admirably grateful to the
stomach, striking the roof of the mouth with a fine sulphureous and
steely _gas_, like that of the German Spa or Pyrmont: though you drink
off a large pint glass, yet it is so far from creating a heaviness, or
_nausea_, that you find yourself brisker immediately, by its agreeable
sensation on the membranes of the stomach: at first it operates
by stool, and especially urine: it is of most sovereign virtue to
strengthen the bowels, to restore their lost tone through intemperance
or inactivity, and renews the vital fire by its adventitious heat and
congenial principles. Hither let the hypochondriac student repair, and
drink at the Muses’ spring: no doubt the advantages obtained here in
abdominal obstructions must be very great. The King’s Bath is an oblong
square; the walls full of niches, perhaps the Roman work: there are
twelve on the north side, eight on the east and west; about four larger
arches on the south: at every corner are the steps to descend into
it, and a parapet or balustrade with a walk round it: in the middle
is set an aukward timber-work, like a cross, adorned with crutches,
the trophies of its wonderful cures: around that emerge the boiling
springs very plentifully: upon the south wall is the fanciful image of
king Bladud, with a silly account of his finding out these springs,
more reasonably attributed to the Romans: they no doubt separated them
first from common springs, and fenced them in with an eternal wall.
The people have a notion, and probable enough, of subterraneal canals
of their making, to carry off the other waters, lest they should mix
and spoil the heat of these. It is remarkable that at the cleansing of
the springs, when they set down a new pump, they constantly find great
quantities of hazle-nuts, as in many other places among subterraneous
timber. These I doubt not to be the remains of the famous and universal
deluge, which the Hebrew historian tells us was in autumn, Providence
by that means securing the revival of the vegetable world. In this bath
the people stand up to the chin, men and women, and stew, as we may
properly call it; for the most part, in the way of gallantry, and as
at a collation. I should judge the method used at Buxton preferable,
where the sexes go in separately and privately, where they have liberty
to swim about and stir the limbs, and exercise the lungs; whence the
whole body will better receive the full force and benefit of the
warmth: and this will more effectually put the humours in motion,
that should be exterminated at the opened pores: this exercise of the
solids sets the glands to work, and every secretion is promoted. Many
are the diseases and calamities which here find a happy period, when
judiciously applied, which, as a traveller, I need not discourse upon.
This brings innumerable people to the salutiferous streams; especially
in the summer time, which likewise seems an error owing to custom and
fashion; for I doubt not they are equally, if not more beneficial, both
internally and externally, in winter than summer. The carrying the
water to distant places to drink, seems only a splendid fallacy.
[Illustration: 70 +Aqvæ Solis+
_Iuly 1723_
A _The Kings Bath_
B _The Queens Bath_
C _The Cross Bath_
D _The Hot Bath_
E _Gascoins Tower_
F _Sᵗ. Catherines Hospital_
G _Sᵗ. Iohns Hospital_
H _Bridewell_
I _The Play House_
K _Sᵗ. Marys_
L _The Market House_
M _Sᵗ. Peters Cathedral_
N _Sᵗ. Iames’s_
O _The Abby Gate_
P _Sᵗ. Michaels_
Q _Sᵗ. Michaels broadstr._
_Insignia Urbis_ _Insignia ecclesiæ_
_Stukeley delin._ _Parker Sculpᵗ._]
[Illustration: 71 Aquæ Solis Iuly 21. 1723. _From the top of the
Southern hill._
Cl. Richardo Mead M.D. _tab. d.d. Wˢ. Stukeley_. _Stukeley del._]
I observe the whole country hereabouts is a rock of good lime-stone,
which is the _minera_ of the water’s heat and virtue: but how that
comes to be calcined; by what refined chymistry of Nature sulphur and
steel are mixed with it; by what means it acquires and conserves with
so much constancy this equable and mighty _focus_, together with the
reason of fountains in general; I profess, in my sentiments, is one of
the great _arcana_ in philosophy hitherto inscrutable.
Behind the southern wall of the King’s Bath is a lesser square, called
the Queen’s Bath, with a tabernacle of four pillars in the midst: this
is of more temperate warmth, as deriving its water at second-hand from
the other. There are likewise pumps and pumping-rooms, for pouring hot
streams on any part of the body; which in many cases is very useful, to
dissolve sizy concretions about the joints and the like, and recovers
the natural elasticity in the relaxed fibres of the solids. The _area_
before this bath and front of the cathedral, is in the centre of the
_pentagon_, upon which the city is formed. Why the Romans made it of
this unusual figure, I cannot tell: nothing appears from the manner
of the ground and situation; but I observe the same of Aix in France.
One would be apt to suspect they had a regard to the sacred symbol and
mystical character of medicine, which in ancient times was thought of
no inconsiderable virtue: this is a pentagonal figure, formed from a
triple triangle, called by the name of _Hygeia_, because to be resolved
into the Greek letters that compose the word. The Pythagoreans used it
among their disciples as a mystical symbol, denoting health; and the
cabalistic Jews and Arabians had the same fancy: it is the _pentalpha_,
or _pentagrammon_, among the Egyptians; the mark of prosperity.
Antiochus Soter, going to fight against the Galatians, was advised
in a dream to bear this sign upon his banner; whence he obtained a
signal victory. This would make one believe a physician had a hand
in projecting this city. Dr. Musgrave thinks it was Scribonius, who
accompanied Claudius hither.
In the south-west part of the town are two other baths, not to be
disregarded: for in any other place who would not purchase them at
the greatest price? The Hot bath is a small parallelogram, not much
inferior in heat to the King’s bath: it has a stone tabernacle of four
pillars in the middle. The Cross bath, near it, is triangular, and had
a cross in the middle; which now is a very handsome work, in marble,
of three Corinthian pillars, erected by the lord Milford, in memory
of king James the Second’s queen conceiving, as it is said, after the
use thereof. Hard by is an hospital built and endowed by a bishop of
this see. The water in these two places rises near to the level of the
streets, because I suppose in this part of the town the earth is not
so much heightened. On the south side of the cathedral are some parts
of the abbey left, and the gate-house belonging to it. Not long ago,
by money contributed, they made a cold bath, at a spring beyond the
bridge, that nothing of this sort might be wanting for the benefit of
the infirm.
[Sidenote: TAB. XLIX.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XLI. 2d Vol.]
Since Mr. Camden’s time two inscriptions have been set in the eastern
wall of the cathedral, fronting the walks: but this is as imprudently
done as those in the city-walls; for, besides the rain and weather,
they are exposed to the boys, who throw stones at them: one is that of
Julius Vitalis, published by Dr. Musgrave; the other, which he calls a
basso relievo of Geta, seems to have been the top of a monumental stone
over some common horseman. Harrison’s house, they say, is built against
some basso’s and inscriptions. In the 49th plate I have given the whole
stone and inscription, now in the wall near the north gate.
At Walcot has been a camp, and many Roman antiquities are frequently
found. Lord Winchelsea has an urn, a _patera_, and other things, found
in a stone coffin, wherein was a child’s body, half a mile off the Bath.