Part 11

We entered the pleasanter country of Cheshire at Lyme, the seat of Mr. Leigh: here are curious gardens, lakes, cascades, fountains, summer-houses. This is a fine level, woody, and rich county, abounding with lakes of water called meres: the towns stand but thin, and it being mostly inclosure, there are paved causeways for horses along the clayey roads: many ancient seats and parks, but most ruinous and decayed. We were entertained by the worthy Sir Francis Leycester at his seat, Nether Tabley, by Knutsford, upon the Roman way from Mancunium to Deva: this house stands in the midst of a mere: here is a good library completed by the curious possessor, with a vast addition to his ancestors’ store, of all the English history especially. In cleansing this mote some time since they found an old British axe, or some such thing, made of large flint, neatly ground into an edge, with a hole in the middle to fasten into a handle: it would serve for a battle-axe. Rotherston church stands upon a hill, and commands a lovely prospect across a mere, a mile and half in length and a mile over, where amongst great variety of fish are smelts found, properly inhabitants of the sea. There is a floating island, formed from turf, sustained by implication of the roots of _alnus nigra baccifera_ growing on it, which the wind wafts over from one side to the other. On the south side of the steeple is this inscription:

*Orate pro anima domini willmi hardwicke vicarii istius ecclesiae et pro animabus omnium parochianorum qui hoc sculpt.*

Out of the church-yard you see to the Yorkshire hills beyond Manchester. By the church-porch were lately dug up three large stone coffins. In the church are abundance of coats of arms. Among other curious plants grow hereabouts _calamus aromaticus_ and _ros solis_. The Roman road from Manchester to Chester passes the Mersey river at Stretford, through Altringham, to the north of Rotherston mere; then by Chapel in the street, by Winingham, to Northwich; then by Sandy way, the Chamber or Edesbury, it passes the river at Stanford, so called from the stony ford, to Chester.

[Sidenote: +Condate.+]

We were at Northwich, which I take to be Condate, as all distances persuade me. It is still, among others hereabouts, famous for brine-springs, whence they make great quantities of finest salt, by boiling the water in large iron pans of small depth: as fast as the salt crystallises, they rake it out and dry it in conic wicker baskets: the duty paid by it amounts to a great sum of money. About thirty years ago on the south side of the town they discovered immense mines of rock salt, which they continually dig up, and send in great lumps to the maritime parts, where it is dissolved and made into eating-salt. We were let down by a bucket a hundred and fifty foot deep to the bottom of the salt quarry, a most pleasant subterraneous prospect: it looks like a large cathedral, supported by rows of pillars and roof of crystal, all of the same rock, transparent and glittering from the numerous candles of the workmen, labouring with their steel pick-axes in digging it away: this rock-work of salt extends to several acres of ground. There is a very good church in the town: the end of the choir is semicircular: the roof of the church is very fine, whereon are carved several of the wicker baskets before mentioned; whence they report it was built out of the profits of the salt works. At Lawton Yates they bore for the salt spring to sixty yards deep; lower down, at Hassal, it is forty seven; at Wheeloc, eighteen; about Middlewich it is less; at Northwich it arises to open day; which seems to intimate that the salt spring runs between layers of the earth in an horizontal line: upon boring, it rises with great impetuosity, so that the workmen have scarce time to get out of the wells. This is all along the side of a brook that comes from a remarkable hill called Mawcop, upon the edge of Staffordshire, so that the ground rises above the true level in the mentioned proportion.

[Sidenote: +Mancunium.+]

Manchester, in Lancashire, is the _Mancunium_ of the Romans, the largest, most rich, populous, and busy village in England. There are about two thousand four hundred families. The site of the Roman _castrum_, between Sir John Bland’s and Manchester, is now called Knock Castle. They have a fabulous report of Turquin a giant living there, killed by Sir Lancelot de Lake, a knight of king Arthur’s: in it was found a Saxon ring, mentioned in Hickes’s _Thesaurus_, now in possession of Sir Hans Sloan. A Roman altar dug up here, described by Dr. Lister, Philos. Trans. N. 155. p. 457. and a large gold Roman ring. The Castle field, as sometime called, is about as big as Lincoln’s-Inn square, the foundation of the wall and ditch remaining. Some call it Man-castle: its name comes from the British _maen_, _lapis_, meaning its rocky soil. The old church, though very large, having three rows of neat pillars, was not capable of containing the people at divine service; whence they raised, by voluntary subscriptions, a new edifice after the London models, finished last year: the choir is alcove-fashion, and the pilasters painted of _lapis-lazuli_ colour. There is a fine new street built to the north. Their trade, which is incredibly large, consists much in fustians, girth-web, tickings, tapes, &c. which is dispersed all over the kingdom, and to foreign parts: they have looms that work twenty-four laces at a time, which was stolen from the Dutch. The college has a good library for public use, endowed with 116l. per ann. to buy more books, and a salary for the librarian. There is a free-school maintained by a mill upon the river, which raises 300l. per annum. On the same river, for the space of three miles upwards, there are no less than sixty water-mills. The town stands chiefly on a rock; and across the river is another large town, called Salthorp. Dr. Yarburgh, son to him late of Newark, showed me a great collection of old Greek, Persian, Tartarian, and Punic coins brought from Asia. About a mile off, at the seat of Sir John Bland, is a Roman altar, lately dug up thereabouts: in the mosses, as they call them in this country, they often find reliques of antiquity, such as arrow-heads, celts, pick-axes, kettles, &c. of brass; many are in the repository of the library: likewise subterraneous fir-trees, as in most other countries in the like sort of ground. French wheat grows commonly hereabouts, much used among the poor people, of very different species from ours: they have likewise wheat with long beards like barley, and barley with four rows of grain on an ear, and great plenty of potatoes.

[Sidenote: +Deva.+]

We passed through Delamere forest, upon the Roman road, in our way to Chester. They say here was formerly an old city, now called the Chamber on the Forest; I suppose, some fort or camp to secure the road. From hence you have a fine prospect to the Welsh mountains, such a noble scene of nature as I never beheld before. Beeston castle is on our left, built upon a rocky precipice. Chester is a fine old city, and colony of the Romans, the residence some time of the _legio vicesima victrix_: a hypocaust was lately found, lined with bricks made by that legion. I need not repeat what other authors say of the antiquities at this place. The rows or piazzas are singular, through the whole town giving shelter to foot people. I fancied it a remain of the Roman porticos. Four churches beside the cathedral, which is a pile venerable indeed for age and almost ruin: there are shadows of many pictures on the walls, _madonnas_, saints, bishops, &c. but defaced. At the west end are some images of the earls Palatine of Chester in niches. The adjoining abbey is quite ruined. The walls round the city are kept in very good repair at the charge of the corporation, and serve for a pleasant airy walk. The Exchange is a neat building, supported by columns, thirteen foot high, of one stone each: over it is the city-hall, a well-contrived court of judicature. The castle was formerly the palace, and where the earls assembled their parliaments, and enacted laws independent of the kings of England, and determined all judicial trials themselves. Abundance of Roman and British antiquities are found hereabouts. At Stretton, Roman coins, and a camp-kettle of copper dug up at Codington: near it divers other antiquities. The old Watling-street way from Dover came originally hither through Stretton and Aldford; though I suppose in after-times of the Romans they turned it off more southward into Wales, for sake of the many towns seated on the Severn.

[Sidenote: +Wales.+]

[Sidenote: +Bonium.+]

Next we entered Wales, and came to Wrexham in Flintshire. Here is a good church, and the finest tower-steeple I ever saw, except Boston: it is adorned with abundance of images. There is a new town-house built like that at Chester. The common people speak the Welsh. The gentry are well-bred, hospitable, generous and open-hearted: the females are generally handsome. I took a great deal of pleasure in hearing the natives talk in their own language, and remarked a great many words among them still retained in our country of Lincolnshire Holland: it is probable enough that our fens and morasses might be a long security to us against the Saxons, as it had been to them against the Romans. I shall give instances of a few words. When we put oatmeal into water-gruel or milk, we call it _lithing_ the pot: the same is signified by the Welsh word _llith_. Davis thinks the English _slide_ comes from the British _llithro_, _labi_: we call it _slither_. A _bull-beggar_, or _boggleboe_, is manifestly the British _bwbach_, with all its synonymes. A top we call a _whirligig_, purely British. We say a _whisking_ fellow, dexterous, ready: British _gwisgi_, To _whyne_; British _gwynio_. Very many such like occur in Dr. Skinner’s _Etymologicum_, which he would fain persuade us the Welsh learnt from the Saxons, but without reason. We passed by the valley upon the river Dee, where was the famous British monastery in early times, whereof Pelagius was abbot, whose British name was Morgan; but no remains discernible. What some talk concerning it, probably the vestiges of the Roman city; for many foundations, coins, and antiquities have been dug up; and not long since two gates of the city were left. We entered Shropshire, passing by Ellsmere and Wem to Newport, where is a noble foundation for a school well endowed by William Adams esq; to the value of 7000l. over the door is this distich, _in fundatorem_:

_Scripsisti heredem patriam tibi quæ dedit ortum, Scriberis ergo tuæ, jure, pater patriæ._

he gave 550l. towards building the town-house.

[Sidenote: +Royal Oak.+]

Presently entering Staffordshire, we came into the Watling-street, laid very broad and deep with gravel not yet worn out, where it goes over commons and moors. It is raised a good height above the soil, and so strait, that upon an eminence you may see it ten or twenty miles before you, and as much behind, over many hill-tops answering one the other as a visto of trees. Here and there, between one Roman town and another, you meet with the remains of an old fort or guard-place. We lodged at an inn called Ivesey bank, on the borders between Staffordshire and Shropshire. About a mile off, in a large wood, stands Boscobel house, where the Pendrils lived, who preserved king Charles II. after Worcester fight, and famous for the Royal Oak. The grand-daughter of that William Pendril still lives in the house. The floor of the garret (which is a popish chapel) being matted, prevents any suspicion of a little cavity with a trap-door over the stair-case, where the king was hid: his bed was artfully placed behind some wainscot that shut up very close. A bow-shot from the house, just by a horse-track passing through the wood, stood the Royal Oak into which the king, and his companion colonel Carlos, climbed by means of the hen-roost ladder, when they judged it no longer safe to stay in the house; the family reaching them victuals with the nut-hook. It happened (as they related it to us) that whilst these two were in the tree, a party of the enemy’s horse, sent to search the house, came whistling and talking along this road: when they were just under the tree, an owl flew out of a neighbouring tree, and hovered along the ground as if her wings were broke, which the soldiers merrily pursued without any circumspection. The tree is now inclosed within a brick wall, the inside whereof is covered with laurel; of which we may say, as Ovid did of that before the Augustan palace, _mediamque tuebere quercum_. The oak is, in the middle, almost cut away by travellers whose curiosity leads them to see it: close by the side grows a young thriving plant from one of its acorns. The king, after the restoration, reviewing the place, carried some of the acorns, and set them in St. James’s park, or garden, and used to water them himself: he gave this Pendril an estate of about 200l. per annum, which still remains among them. Over the door of the inclosure I took this inscription cut in marble.

_Felicissimam arborem quam in asylum potentissimi regis Caroli II. Deus O. M. per quem reges regnant hic crescere voluit, tam in perpetuam rei tantæ memoriam, quam specimen firmæ in reges fidei, muro cinctam posteris commendant Basilius & Jana Fitzherbert. Quercus amica Jovi._

[Sidenote: +Pennocrucium.+]

Entering Staffordshire, we went along the Watling-street by Stretton and Water-Eaton: where a brook crosses the road was the _Pennocrucium_ of the Romans, as mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus. A little way off is Penkridge, which no doubt retains somewhat of the ancient name.

[Sidenote: +Litchfield.+]

[Sidenote: +Etocetum.+]

Litchfield is a city neat enough. The cathedral is a very handsome pile, with numerous statues in niches at the front, which appears very majestic half a mile off, there being two high spires, and another higher in the middle of the cross. The rebels intirely ruined all the ornament of the inside, with the brass inscriptions, tombs, &c. and were going to pull down the whole fabric for sale. It is built in the middle of a bog for security, and held out some fierce attacks for king Charles I. This was made a metropolitical see by the potent king Offa. St. Ceadda lived an eremitical life here by the spring near Stow church. This town arose from the ruin of the Roman _Etocetum_, a mile off, where the Rickning and Watling streets cross, now called Chesterfield wall, from some reliques of its fortifications: it stands high: the Rickning street is very visible southward, passing within a mile of Fotherby, and so to a park in Sutton Colfield, Warwickshire; thence to Bromicham. Castle hill, two miles hence above Stone hall, is a camp, the port eastward. A mile and half from Wall is West-wall, a camp; and Knaves-castle, near the Watling-street, probably a guard upon the road: it is a circle of twenty yards diameter, with a square in the middle, three or four yards broad, with a breast-work about it: the whole is inclosed with three ditches: it stands in a large common. This Rickning is all along called by Dr. Plot _Icknilway_, but injuriously, and tends only to the confusion of things; I suppose, to favour his _Iceni_ in this country; which notion is but chimerical. We passed through Tamworth, pleasantly situated in a plain watered by the river Tame, which divides it into two counties: it was the residence of the Mercian kings, and has been secured by a _vallum_ and ditch quite round. Here died the noble lady Elfleda, daughter of king Alfred, queen of the Mercian kingdom, anno 919. This town, by William the Conqueror, was given to the Marmyons, who built the castle here, hereditary champions to the kings of England; from whom that office descended to the Dymokes of Lincolnshire. We went through Bosworth over the field where Henry VII. won the kingdom by a bold and well-timed battle.

Boston, Dec. 1713.

ITER SABRINIUM. IV.

_O mitte mirari beatæ Fumum, & opes, strepitumque Romæ._ +Hor.+

_To_ TANCRED ROBINSON, _M. D._ &c.

To you, Sir, that have visited the boasted remains of Italy, and other transmarine parts, it would seem presumptuous to offer the trifle of the following letter, were I not sufficiently apprized of your great humanity and candour, which prompts you to encourage even the blossoms of commendable studies. You, that have made an intimate search, and happily obtained a thorough insight into Nature, consider that she proceeds regularly by successive gradations from little things to greater. The acquisition of any part of science is owing to a conversation with its elements and first principles, whose very simplicity renders them not disagreeable.

These pages were memoradums I took in a summer’s journey with our friend Mr. Roger Gale. This being my first expedition since I came to live at London, I design as early as possible to commemorate the felicity I enjoyed thereby of your acquaintance, and the opportunity of observing the noble character you sustain, of possessing all the wisdom that ancient or modern learning can give us without vanity, and that the physician, the scholar, and the gentleman, meet in you.

[Sidenote: +Bibroci.+]

I observe, in Berkshire, a river called Ock, running in the north side of the county by Abingdon into the Thames, which in the Celtic language signifies sharp or swift, or perhaps water in general: this is in Oke hundred. In the south side of the county is the town of Okeingham. These seem plainly remnants of the old name of the inhabitants of this country, _Bibroci_, not yet observed. Near Reading is Laurence-Waltham, which has been Roman: there is a field called Castle-field, and vast numbers of coins found. By it is Sunning, once an episcopal see. From London to Maidenhead it is a gravelly soil; then a marly chalk begins.

[Sidenote: +Reading.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XXVI.]

[Sidenote: TAB. XXIII.]

Reading is a large and populous town upon the fall of the Kennet into the Thames; in the angle of which it stands upon a rising ground, overlooking the meadows, which have a fine appearance all along the rivers. There are three churches, built of flint and square stone in the _quincunx_ fashion, with tall towers of the same. Arch-bishop Laud was born here. The abbey stood in a charming situation: large ruins of it still visible, built of flint; the walls about eight foot thick at present, though the stone that faced them be pillaged away: the remainder is so hard cemented, that it is not worth while to separate them: many remnants of arched vaults a good height above ground, whereon stood, as I suppose, the hall, lodgings, &c. there is one large room about sixteen yards broad, and twenty-eight long, semi-circular towards the east end, with five narrow windows, three doors towards the west, and three windows over them: it was arched over, and seems to have supported a chapel, in which we fancy king Henry I. was buried with his queen: he founded this abbey upon an old one, that had been formerly erected by a Saxon lady. There are the remains of bastions, part of the fortifications, when garrisoned by the parliament army in the civil wars: the abbey gate-house is yet pretty intire. Here was a famous old castle, but long since demolished, perhaps originally Roman. Near the trench the Danes made between the river Kennet and the Thames, is Catsgrove hill, a mile off Reading: in digging there they find first a red gravel, clay, chalk, flints, and then a bed of huge petrified oysters five yards thick, twenty foot below the surface: these shells are full of sea sand.[45] Dr. Plot, in _Oxfordshire_, p. 119. who supposes these appearances only the sports of Nature, solves this matter after a way that will induce one to think his cause reduced to extremity. On the right hand, just beyond Theal, is Inglefield, where king Ethelwolf routed the Danes.

[Sidenote: +Ad Spinam.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LX.]

[Sidenote: TAB. X. 2d Vol.]

A little west of Newberry is a village called Speen; which has given antiquarians a reasonable hint of looking for the town, in Antoninus called _ad Spinas_, hereabouts; and doubtless it was where now stands the north part of the town of Newberry, still called Spinham. At this place the great Icening-street road, coming from the Thames at Goring, and another Roman road running hence through Speen to Hungerford, and so to Marlborough, crosses the Kennet river. Newberry has derived itself and name from the ruins of the old one; and the grounds thereabouts are called Spinham lands. Dunington castle was once in the possession of Geffrey Chaucer. A remarkable large oak, venerable through many ages, because it bore his name, was felled in the civil wars. The Kennet, still called by the country people Cunnet, near Hungerford, parts the soil, that on the north side being a red clay gravel, that on the south a chalk. I have often wished that a map of soils was accurately made, promising to myself that such a curiosity would furnish us with some new notions of geography, and of the theory of the earth, which has only hitherto been made from hypotheses. This brings into my mind a remarkable passage in Sir Robert Atkins’s _Glocestershire_: “Lay a line (says he) from the mouth of the Severn to Newcastle, and so quite round the terrestrial globe, and coal is to be found every where near that line, and scarce any where else.”[46]

[Sidenote: +Cunetio.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LXII. LXIII.]

[Sidenote: TAB. XI. 2d vol.]

[Sidenote: TAB. I.]