Part 20

Still higher stands Stukeley, a very large parish, on the same sort of soil as that in Huntingdonshire. This is the oldest church, and most intire, I ever saw, undoubtedly before the Conquest, in the plain ancient manner, being a parallelogram of four squares: two are allotted to the church; one covered by the steeple, which stands between it and the choir, carried across the church upon two round arches; one square to the choir, which is vaulted over with stone: the windows are small, with semi-circular arches, and few in number: at the west end are three arches, the door in the middlemost: the whole of a very good manner of symmetry.

[Sidenote: +Magiovinium.+]

Thus far we have gone through Northamptonshire and Bucks: now we enter Bedfordshire, and arrive at _Magiovinium_, or Dunstable. The road hither from Fenny Stretford is deep sand (and comes from _Salinæ_, or _sandy_) till you arrive at the bottom of the chalk-hills, or _chiltern_, which arise very steep on this side, as being north-west, conform to my assumption, p. 4. The town stands upon this chalk; whence its Roman name, importing the white town:[102] it consists of four streets, intersecting at right angles, but oblique to the cardinal points, because such is the direction of the Icening and Watling-street, which here meet. In the centre stood one of those beautiful crosses of queen Eleanor; but fanatic zeal has robbed the town of this ornament. This being a high situation, and no running water near, they are forced to draw up their water, from very deep wells, by machinery of great wheels. Kingsbury, the royal seat over-against the church, is now a farm-house. The church is composed of many parts tacked together, some very old: it was part of the priory: arch-bishop Cranmer was the last prior here. In Dunstable church is this inscription,

*Hic iacent Nicholaus Lane quondam presidens frat’nitat’ sci Johannis Baptiste De Dunstable qui obiit ii die mens’ Decembr anno Dm Mᵒ CCCCᵒ lir Et Agnes ur. eiᵒ quorum animabus propicietur Deus amen.*

[Sidenote: +Maiden Bower.+ British.]

[Sidenote: Tumuli _British_.]

I visited Maiden-Bower,[103] mentioned by Mr. Camden, but cannot think its name has any relation to that of the town: though Roman coins have been found here, I am persuaded it is a British work, like that at Ashwell, at like distance from the Chiltern, and of like form, but more circular: it stands upon a plain, but not far from the edge of a lesser eminence of these hills, about a little mile from Dunstable: the rampire is pretty high, but very little sign of a ditch; nor do I think there ever was much more: it incloses about nine acres: the ground round it is ploughed: this chalk yields good wheat. Between here and the town is a long barrow called the Mill-hill, no doubt from a mill which was afterwards set upon it; the ends of it ploughed somewhat: it stands east and west: I have no scruple in supposing it Celtic. A high prominence of the Chiltern overlooks all, called the Five Knolls, from that number of barrows, or Celtic _tumuli_, round, pretty large, and ditched about upon the very _apex_ of the hill. Close by are two round cavities, as often observed in Wiltshire. The Icening-street runs under the bottom. These chalk hills have frequently veins of strong clay intermixed, and the like between these hills and the sand more northward. This great tract of chalk comes from the eastern sea, and traverses the kingdom much in a like direction with the Icening-street.

At Woburn is some fullers earth. There was a noble abbey, now the seat of the duke of Bedford; in it several valuable works of Inigo Jones left, particularly a curious grotto.

[Sidenote: +Durocobrivis.+]

[Sidenote: TAB XXIX. 2d Vol.]

From Dunstable the Itinerary leads us out of the road, going strait to Verolam, and takes in another station by the way, _Durocobrivis_; which demonstrates it was made not so much for travellers, as for the soldiery or officers that were to visit the garrisons, therefore comprehends as many as could conveniently be taken into that route. About this station antiquaries have been much divided, when it certainly ought to be placed at Berghamsted, commonly Barkamstead, in Hertfordshire, which well suits the assigned distances from _Magiovinium_, and the subsequent _Verolanium_, and has evidently been a Roman town, as its name imports; and probably the castle there stands upon a Roman foundation. It is certain Roman coins are frequently dug up there: my friend Mr. Browne Willys has a Roman coin, found there: young Mr. Whitfield, brother to the major at St. Alban’s, has many Roman coins, great and small, found in the castle at Berghamsted. The inside, within the walls where the lodgings were, is about two acres: the entrance was not at the corner, where now, but in the front of the south side: many chimneys remain in the wall, of the lodgings which extended quite round, leaving a spacious court within; and all the windows looked inward: the ground of the court is distinguishable, being good soil, and there they find the Roman coins; the rest is rubbish and foundations; so that the Saxon castle was made upon the Roman: the chapel seems to have stood against the west wall, where be signs of a stair-case: the walls are of flints gathered from the highlands, very thick, and laid with strong mortar. This town fully answers the distance in the Itinerary, and remarkably the import of the name, according to Mr. Baxter’s derivation, though he erroneously places it at Woburn, _civitas paludosi profluentis_; for here is a large marsh, or bog, wherein the ancient British _oppidum_ was placed: it is most sweetly surrounded with high, hard, and pleasant ground all around, full of hedge-rows, pastures, and arable: the castle was set very judiciously in the north side, upon a piece of dry ground, incompassed with springs, by the Saxons made exceedingly strong. The town is upon the south side of the marsh, stretching itself a good length in handsome buildings, and a broad street: the church is a large handsome building, a monumental _effigies_ of a knight and a lady; upon his coat a bend or belt, and in the sinister chief a martlet; a lion his crest under his feet: it is full of chapels and monuments old and new. This town has been an old corporation; the kings of Mercia resided here; Wightred, king of Kent and Mercia, anno 697, held a parliament here; and here king Ina’s laws were published: all which further confirm its being the place we assert.[104]

Near is Ashridge, an abbey, now the seat of the duke of Bridgewater; a park finely wooded, especially with tall beech-trees full of mast. Hereabouts I observed many great stones composed wholly of little pebbles; others, of larger pebbles or flints petrified together exceeding hard. Near Ricmeresworth, at Moor park, Mr. Styles, digging a hill away, found veins of sea-sand with mussels in them, and many other curious particulars.

[Sidenote: +Verolanium.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XCV.]

[Sidenote: TAB XXX XXXI.]

We come again into the Watling-street at _Verolanium_. I need say little here, after Mr. Camden, Chancey, Weaver, and others. This was the famous _municipium_ of the Romans, destroyed by Boadicia. The form of the city is depicted in plate 95. in one part the ditch is double, but irregularly formed. I imagine the outermost was the only fence of the first city, which Boadicia destroyed before the walls were built, and these reduced it into a more square form; to which the inner ditch belonged. In some measure the track of the streets is visible, when the corn first comes up, or is nearly ripe: three years ago good part of the wall was standing; but ever since, out of wretched ignorance, even of their own interest, they have been pulling it up all around, to the very foundations, to mend the highway; and I met hundreds of cart-loads of Roman bricks, &c. carrying for that purpose, as I now rode through the old city, though they may have stone cheaper, because of the prodigious strength of the mortar, so that they cannot get up one whole brick in a thousand. The composition of the Roman wall is three foot layers of flint, and one foot made up of three courses of Roman brick: there are round holes quite through the wall, at about eight yards distance, in that corner still left by St. German’s chapel: another great piece of the wall is left by the west gate, called Gorham Block; it is always twelve foot thick. I saw a little brass _lar_, or _genius alatus_; another curious antiquity, of a brass knife-handle with odd faces and figures on it, now in possession of Sir Robert Cornwall, baronet; a little urn of white earth two inches and quarter high: part of a great wine-jar, 20 inches high, two foot diameter, in St. Michael’s vestry; another such in St. Alban’s church. In St. Michael’s church sleeps the great naturalist Bacon, who first revived the experimental way of philosophy: his mansion-house or manor was at Gorhambury, hard by, where is a statue of Henry VIII. and several things worth seeing: it is now the seat of my lord Grimstone. Infinite are the antiquities of all sorts that have been, and frequently are, dug up at _Verolam_. When I was making an ichnography of it, I could have taken several pecks of remainders of Mosaic pavements out of a little ditch near St. German’s chapel; and there is one or two intire yet under ground. As you walk along the great road that runs north and south through the city from St. Michael’s church, you see foundations of houses and streets, gutters, floors, &c. under the hedge-rows. The ancient part of the monastic church and the steeple are intirely built of Roman brick, fetched by the abbots from the old city. March 1718–9 a Mosaic pavement was found. The Roman bricks are generally eighteen inches long, twelve broad, one and a half thick. I measured one in the south-wall of the school-house, by the east end of the abbey church, twenty-three inches long, three thick, which probably was made for hypocausts. Upon the walls of old _Verulam_ grows the _bee orchis_, a very curious plant. Many are the monuments, brasses, tombs, and inscriptions, in the abbey church: the vault of Humphry duke of Glocester was lately discovered: the high altar is a curious piece of Gothic work, which I have represented in two plates. Hard by is Sopwell nunnery, where they say Henry VIII. was married to Anna Bolen: part of it is standing. But to say any thing particular of religious antiquities, would be too tedious: they have lately been working hard at pulling up the old foundations of the abbey, and it is now levelled with the pasture, when three years ago one might make a tolerable guess at the ichnography of the place. In the heart of the town of the adjoining corporation stood another of queen Eleanor’s crosses, which they likewise intirely demolished, not considering that such kind of antiquities invite many curious travellers to come thither. This very year they pulled down the stone tower or gate-house on the north side of the abbey, within a month after I had taken a sketch of it. In St. Peter’s church I found this old inscription on a stone,

*EDITHE : LE : UINETER : GIST : ICI : DIEU : DE SA : ALME : EIT : MERCI.*

I shall add no more, than that my notion of the derivation of this town, and several others compounded of like words, is, a fair habitation, _Vrolân_, as it justly merits.

[Sidenote: +Suellaniacis.+]

The Watling-street seems to have passed directly through the Roman city, a little southward of St. Michael’s church and St. Mary’s chapel, so by St. Stephen’s: nevertheless there is a road round about, without the south side of the city-walls, for those that had no occasion to go through the city: it goes by St. Julian’s, once an hospital; then by Colney-street and Radway; thence almost disused, and scarce known but from its straitness: it continues direct, but very narrow, the hedges having incroached upon it on both sides, till we arrive at our next station, _Suellaniacis_, upon Brockley hill, a little south of Elstre, and near Stanmore. From this eminence, where Mr. Philpot’s summer-house stands, is a sweet prospect across the Thames into Surrey: this is by Kendale wood, where formerly they found an old flint wall laid in terrace-mortar as they call it, meaning its strength, so hard that they could not possibly dig it up with pick-axes: they found an oven in the same place. Mr. Philpot, when digging his canal and foundations for his buildings, which are upon the site of the old city, found many coins, urns, and other antiquities. They have a proverb here,

_No heart can think, nor tongue can tell, What lies between_ Brockley-hill _and_ Penny-well;

meaning the coins found thereabouts. In the wood over-against the house, great quantity of Roman bricks, gold rings, and coins, have been found in digging; many arched vaults of brick and flints under the trees: the whole top of the hill is covered with foundations. Pennywell is a parcel of closes across the valley beyond _Suellaniacis_, where foundations are discernible: here likewise they say was a city: two or three years ago they dug privately, in hopes of finding treasure at this place. I am of Mr. Baxter’s opinion, that the name of this station has some reference to the famous British king _Suellan_, or Cassibelan, general of the Britons against Cæsar, and that his town was in this neighbourhood; which I shall consider more particularly upon another occasion. By the road side is a barrow lately dug away.

Hence the road goes through Edgworth; and so at Paddington, by Tyburn, it crosses the other Roman road, called now Oxford-street, which was originally continued to Old-street, going north of London one way; the other way it proceeds by the back side of Kensington, and through an unfrequented path, till it falls into the present great road to Brentford, Stanes, &c. and it is a Roman road all the way, going pretty nearly east and west: therefore our Watling-street must cross it with an oblique angle; and by observation I found it to be about forty-five degrees. Higden takes notice the Watling-street ran to the west of Westminster, over the Thames, so through the middle of Kent: from Tyburn I judge it goes over part of Hyde-park,[105] and by May-fair, through St. James’s park, to the street by Old Palace-yard called the Wool-staple, to the Thames. Here has been an old gate; one part of the arch is still left, but not Roman. On the opposite side of the river is Stane-gate ferry, which is the continuation of this street to Canterbury, and so to the three famous sea-ports, _Rutupiæ_, _Dubris_, and _Lemanis_. This Oxford road was originally carried north of London, in order to pass into Essex, because London then was not considerable; but in a little time became well nigh lost; and Holborn was struck out from it, as conducting travellers thither, directly entering the city at Newgate, originally called Chamberlain’s gate, and so to Londonstone, the _lapis milliaris_ from which distances are reckoned: and hence the reason why the name of Watling-street is still preserved in the city, though the real Watling-street goes through no part of it, but through Southwark; or, if we please, we may call this a vicinal branch of the Watling-street.

[Sidenote: +Londinium.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LVII.]

According to method I should speak of _Londinium_ here: but because the great deal that may be said thereupon will make a discourse by itself, we content ourselves at present with giving the plan of it, as we suppose it might appear in the times of the Romans; and so continuing our tour into Kent, will finish the whole continuation of the Watling-street with what few memoirs I could pick up at that time.

As Old-street went on the north of London, so the proper Watling-street we have been upon, since High-cross in Warwickshire, went on the south; from Stane-gate ferry across St. George’s fields, so south of the Lock hospital to Deptford and Black heath: a small portion of the ancient way pointing to Westminster abbey is now the common road on this side the nearest turnpike; but the continuation of it is quite lost since the bridge was made, and all roads meet at that centre as so many _radii_. When London became considerable, the ferry over-against it, from being better attended, rendered that at Stangate almost useless; so passengers went through the city by Canon-street, Watling-street, and Holborn: hence so little appears of it between Tyburn and the Lock hospital; and probably its materials were long since wholly dug away to mend the highways. Upon this way in Southwark many Roman antiquities have been found, particularly a _Janus_ of stone, in possession of Dr. Woodward: but our business shall be to prosecute the end of the second journey and the whole third and fourth of Antoninus.

From Shooters hill the direction of the road is very plain both ways: a mile westward from the bottom of the hill you find vestiges of it just upon the common: some part of the _agger_ is left, made of gravel near at hand: from the top of Shooters hill you see it butts upon Westminster abbey, where it passes the Thames; and this demonstrates its original direction, and that it was begun from the east; for the turn of the river at Greenwich intercepts it, though not observed in maps: so the way is forced to deflect a little southward there, and then recovers its point: beyond that hill it is very strait as far as the ken reaches. On Black heath a vast _tumulus_, now used as a butt for _archers_, hereabouts in great request till Henry the VIIIth’s time: and hence the name of _Shooters_ hill.

[Sidenote: +Noviomagus.+]

[Sidenote: +Northfleet.+ Ro. _town_.]

It is to be noted that in the second journey of Antoninus, _Madviacis_, Maidstone, and _Durobrovis_, Rochester, are transposed; therefore in the whole between London and Rochester it is twenty-eight miles, as in both the next journeys called twenty-seven, (but more rightly the former:) so that, as the Watling-street leads directly over Shooters hill between London and Rochester, and seeing the whole distance is answerable to fact, we need be in no pain for finding out the intermediate station, _Noviomagus_: doubtless it was about Wellend or Crayford,[106] as Mr. Somner judges, where the respective distances on each side point it out: notwithstanding, as to matters of antiquity, we have nothing to say. So with good reason Dr. Plot settles _Pennocrucium_ at Stretton in Staffordshire, because it is upon this same Watling-street, and answers the distances, though no Roman antiquities are there discovered; and the like must we do of other places. No doubt there were two stations between London and Rochester, though only one mentioned in the Itinerary: Northfleet seems to be the other, where many antiquities are found. I heard much talk of an old town at Plumsted, nearer the Thames, and to which they say the river came up originally: if true, perhaps this was the _Noviomagus_, and the _Trinobantum_, or _Trenowydh_ of the Britons, i. e. the town of the _Novii_ or _Novantes_, of which their old writers make a din, and would affix it to London: they say there are much ruins there. East of Crayford, all along upon the heath, as well as on the other side from Shooters hill, the ridge of the Watling-street is very visible; but beyond Dartford the common road leaves it quite on the south side, which induced me to follow the Roman: it becomes a lane presently, and passes in a very strait line, for five or six miles, through little valleys, woods, and inclosures; and about that distance I lost both it and myself in a wood by Southfleet; which obliged me to endeavour again to recover the great road: by the quantity of ground I went for that purpose, I guess this is a branch of the main road directly to Maidstone, for the convenience of such as intended to go strait to _Lemanis_ by _Durolenum_. The soil from London to Dartford is gravel, but the highest ground has sand: beyond to Rochester it is chalk full of flints and gravel: the flints lie in _strata_, very black, and squeezed flat like mortar in the course of a wall; and above the chalk is pure sand.

[Sidenote: +Durobrivis.+]

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

[Sidenote: TAB. VI.]

The river Medway at Rochester is very broad and rapid, foaming most violently: there is a stately bridge built across it: below bridge lie about fifty of our biggest first rate men of war unrigged, such as the Royal Sovereign, Britannia, Barfleur, &c. The Roman city was very strong, being walled about and ditched:[107] near that angle below the bridge, incompassed by the river, is a large piece of Roman building of the wall, made of rubble-stone laid sloping side-ways, here and there Roman bricks: houses are built upon it, and it is broke through for a passage; in the inside much flint. Dr. Thorp has great numbers of antiquities found hereabouts. This city stands in an angle of the river: it seems to have been of a square form, the Watling-street running directly through it: most of the walls still remain, but repaired. The castle was built out of one angle by William the Conqueror, which together with the cathedral has altered the regular ground-plot of the city, as at Lincoln: the walls of the great tower now left are four yards thick. The body of the cathedral is of the original structure before the Conquest, repaired by bishop Gundulf an architect, who likewise built the castle: the great tower is now called Gundulf’s tower. The chalky cliff under the castle-wall next the river is a romantic sight: the rapidity of the river wastes it away; and then huge tracts of the wall fall down: in some places you see the bottom of the broad foundation, and which in others is carried down to the water. On the north side of the north-west tower of the church is Gundulf’s _effigies_.[108] The front of the church is of the old work, but a new window put in the middle. The eastern gate of the city was pulled down not long ago: I saw many of the stones distributed among the adjacent buildings, being of a Roman cut.

[Sidenote: +Vaginacis.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. 2d Vol.]