William Stukeley

“ It is hard to say whether it was for a private use, or for judicature, or religious affairs; but in the pasture behind it is a barrow, and several more barrows in view, on the hill-tops. At Stadon I saw a large square intrenchment, now divided into pastures; and upon the top of the hoe, where the hawthorn stands, seem to have been some works. This circle of ours, by sinking the ditch within, seems well contrived for shows: five or six tire of people may stand commodiously round it, and look over one another’s heads. Both vallum and ditch are but small, much inferior to that of a camp. ”

“ So in Wales to this day they call the Kromlechea, Arthur’s Coyts.
Thus therefore we may in imagination view a solemn sacrifice of magnanimous Britons, the Druids and other priests, the kings and people assembled: we may follow them imitating the course of the Sun, and, like the ancient Greeks at their solemn games, celebrating splendidly, in honour of their Gods, upon the winding banks of the rivers. ”

“ There are many hollowed stones found hereabouts, much like the marble mortars of apothecaries, with a notch in them. I take them to be the hand-mills of the Roman soldiers, wherein they ground their corn with a stone, and sometimes perhaps became their urns; making their chief instrument in sustentation of life, their inseparable companion in death. ”

“ It must be understood, that the bridge at present, and another of wood formerly a little below it, have impaired the banks by the more southern circle. This is the most delightful place that can be imagined for recreation: the rapid river Louther runs all along the side of it; the Eimot joins it a little way off, in view: beyond is a charming view of a vast wood, and of Brougham castle; beyond that, the ancient Roman city, and the Roman road going along under the high hill whereon is the beacon. ”

“ It is a most liberal gift of Nature, a compendious way of making salt; these springs being stronger than the ocean: the rock salt stronger than they; for it is perfect salt, transparent like crystal: it lies not in veins, or strata, as other minerals, or metals; but a solid rock, of unknown dimensions, which they hew away with steeled pick-axes, leaving pillars and spaces, as big as a cathedral. Poplar-trees are plentiful in this country: they all lean eastward, as continually pressed by the west winds from the sea. ”

“ Tinmouth castle, no doubt, was the Roman castle, standing high on the northern promontory. Clifford’s fort is a small insignificant fort upon the edge of the water. The shore of the river for the most part is rocky, and in some places pleasantly covered with wood. We saw Tarrow to the southward, famous for the birth-place of the most learned monk, venerable Bede.
Some of the coal-works here dip full East: it is plain south-east is the natural dip in general; those at Whitehaven, inclining south-west, I suppose receive a counter-bias, as being on the west side of the island. ”

“ The niche or cove of the innermost planet regards the north, or a little westerly, as denoting, beyond the stars was stretched out the great inane of Nature, or infinite space, the empty north, as most distant and dissonant from the south, where was the Sun and world, the foundation of being. If one would enter into their theology, one might conjecture that they meant likewise the creation of the world; for the north, or immense void, being uppermost in their esteem, showed that the world was produced from nothing, by the Supreme Power. ”

“ This is a noble old city, the work of the victorious 20th Legion, the conquerors of these western regions. It is manifest at first sight, that they regarded, in the plan of it, the known form of their camps: it is a parallelogram set to the four quarters of the heavens; the longest side north and south: suburbs are extended eastward, and a new gate called the bars, where the Watling-street, and the road from Condate, enters: the Roman walls take in exactly the space of 10,000 foot, or two miles. The soil is sandy, upon rock of a red colour and sandy composure, with small pebbles intermixed. ”

“ Cæsar tells us the warlike nation of the Germans, the Suevi, gloried most in laying waste all the bordering countries around them, in destroying every thing that might administer sustenance to an enemy in approaching to their quarters. It was certainly equally political in the Romans to leave on the north side of the Wall that huge tract of waterless and dismal moor, a great barren solitude, where in some places you may walk sixty miles endwise without meeting with a house, or a tree: to ride it is impracticable. ”

“ Dudley castle, and many of the steep summits of the hills in Worcestershire, are in view; together with the mighty height of the Wrekin, which, from a plain, rises like a sugar-loaf to a narrow tip, and of very difficult ascent. The Watling-street runs under it. It is good land here, warm and woody, being just beyond the moor. ”

“ Thence, in our way to Derby, we saw several large, flat Celtic barrows, upon a common at Sidbury. We rode over the meadows under Tutbury castle, famous for the bull-running on Aug. 10. where the people of two counties meet according to ancient usage, and contend for the honour of their counties, sometimes to bloodshed. The castle, once the seat of the dukes of Lancaster, stands on a very high precipice, looking north and west, strong by nature and art; very probably a Roman camp originally, as its name, bury, imports: it is not far from the Rigning-way. Tot signifies an eminence. ”

“ Upon the river Gelt, a little before we came to Bramton, we went up the river to see a Roman inscription, cut upon the natural rock; a most odd and melancholy place: the river runs through a canal of rock all the way. Upon the great ridge of fells coming hither from Cross fell by Penrith, are many circles of stones, and circular banks of earth, the temples of the Druids of the patriarchal mode. There are likewise square works set round with stones, which were their places of judicature. ”

“ We came by the great rock called Radcliff, where the hermitage is: these and the neighbouring rocks have a frightful appearance: on the back of them are some stones set upright, two and two, as if the remains of a Celtic avenue. All around, the hills are big with lead ore. The cattle drinking the water here are liable to a distemper called the belon: it is owing to the mercury that falls in the smoak of the smelting-mills: they become asthmatic, and frequently run mad. Cats, dogs, and poultry, are seized with it. ”

“ I saw a brass Antoninus, found here; and a stone, somewhat like the capital of a small pillar, hexangular. Beyond the low ground which lies before the entrance of the city, is a Roman tumulus. Upon a slope of high ground, and in a pasture behind it, is another very large hill, partly natural, and partly artificial, by cutting away the roots of it, and rendering it more steep, as it appeared to me: there is an ash-tree planted on it: when it was ploughed, they discovered stones with mortar on them. ”

“ The river Ouse divides the city in two. The walls on the west side are in good repair, and may be walked round. All the walls here are low, but built upon a huge agger of earth; I suppose, the Roman manner. There are two figures of Ulphus’s horn in the cathedral. In the west end of the steeple of St. Martin’s church, Micklegate, is the remnant of a fine funeral monument, Roman; a man and his wife, with their son, a child, in their habits: near it a piece of flower-work, perhaps belonging to the frize of some magnificent building. ”

“ Many may be found by knocking with one’s heel upon the spot, whence there is a sound; others, by thrusting an iron rod into the earth. The species of the stone renders it useless to be wrought up in building, especially in this country, that abounds with more manageable stone for the purpose. From the regular figures of the stones, as well as their order of positure, the eyes of a spectator would have been charmed with the sight of this work when in perfection, and the whole plain open to the view: at present they are separated by hedge-rows, yards, orchards, and the like ”

“ Exactly such another, belonging to our Trinobantum, is that we call Long-acre, or agger; which, we may be confident, was originally two parallel banks, the whole length of that street, and breadth: it has the same gentle sweep, or curve, as those other cursus’s: it then commanded a beautiful prospect over the present Covent-garden to the Thames, and an extensive view, both upward and downward, of the river, and into Surrey. The banks were designed for the spectators, and admirably well adapted to the purpose. ”

“ The work at Persepolis too is made upon an artificial eminence, or pavement of most prodigious stones, instead of a natural one, the ascent to which is by steps; which is enough to overthrow any notion of a palace: but they that see not its intent, that it was wholly a religious building, and that there is not one symptom of its being a civil one, ought to be disregarded. ”

“ A reddish sort of slate to cover houses is dug here; they do not know of any such nearer than Scotland: such was the indefatigable labour of the Romans. There is no ditch about this castle; but the vallum is pretty high quite round. The church stands on the east side of it: in the church-yard is an ash-tree, that bends eastward fifty foot from the stem, by the force of the westerly winds continually pressing on it. ”

“ The country here, which is probably the highest in England, is a quarry of reddish stone, in small strata; the uppermost very full of shells, especially belemnites. The air must needs be exceeding good, as in the centre of England; the soil is a reddish clay. This is a neat pleasant town, well situate: two springs of the Avon run close by it. Eastward the great hill whereon is Borough-hill camp: a very pretty spring arises in the inner ditch, probably the highest in England; it is on the north-east side, which way the hill declines. ”

“ There is a spring on the top of Penigent hill, the highest in these parts. In this country vast stones like the grey weathers in Wiltshire, lie upon the surface, and by the sides of the hills, which are no part of the quarry, being of a different stone. On the other side of the town eastward, and over the river, is Kendal castle; a large stone building on a solitary apex, but not extraordinary high: it is fenced with a wall and ditch: they report that queen Catharine Parr was born here. ”

“ The city of Concangios is much better situate than Kendal in several respects; because good land for a considerable way quite round it, as far as the valley reaches: the river, which may well be called spumosus, incompasses it like a horse-shoe: it is deeper, broader, and smoother, here than any where else: it is indeed a place incomparably well chosen for a small city: the ground is sufficiently high, even in floods; but floods render it an island, for it is low ground before the entrance, but not marshy. ”

“ This is just beyond the horrid and rocky fells, where a good country begins. This avenue is seventy foot broad, composed of very large stones, set at equal intervals: it seems to be closed at this end, which is on an eminence, and near a long flattish barrow, with stone works upon it: hence it proceeds northward to the town, which intercepts the continuation of it, and was the occasion of its ruin; for many of the stones are put under the foundations of houses and walls, being pushed by machines they call a betty, or blown up with gunpowder. ”

“ Digging in the church-yard, silver coins have been frequently turned up. The river hither is open and deep; but at Salesbury, a mile higher, rocks begin: therefore it is likely this place was chosen by the Romans because at the extent of navigation. Half of one longitudinal street, and of two latitudinals, are consumed. Horses and carriages frequently fall down the steep from the street, because it is narrow, and but factitious ground.
Panstones, up the hill, by the Green-moor lane, or Roman road, is a place much talked of; but they know not for what. ”

“ It is fit we should say somewhat of the city of London, the glory of Britain. Cæsar calls the inhabitants of this country Trinobantes: it comprehends Middlesex and Essex on this side the river; Surry on the other. The name of Trinobantes is derived from Trinobantum, the most ancient name of London: it signifies the city of the Novii, or Novantes, the original name of the people called Trinobantes by Cæsar. Tri, or Tre, in the very old British dialect, imports a fortified city. ”

“ I saw a bit of the Roman wall, which they wonder at, because it strikes fire when struck upon with a pick-axe, by reason of the hardness of the mortar: it lies by the road-side going to Wigton; and there the ditch is plainly visible, though half filled up with the rubbish of the wall. The whole town, and perhaps Cockermouth castle and town, are built out of it; likewise the walls of all the pastures and corn-fields adjoining. Free-stone cut is very common, which they say must have been fetched a good way off, because there is none such in the neighbourhood ”