Part 23

A little way further, at the end of the Stane-street,[124] the Roman road from Canterbury; and at a proper distance from thence is the port of _Lemanis_. I am surprized that some Kentish antiquaries should, by pretended corrections of the Itinerary, send it farther off to the southern coasts. As soon as I came to Limne church, looking from the brow of the hill to the subjacent marshes, I descried the tattered Roman walls, situate on this southern decline, almost at the bottom. One would imagine the name came from the _Stone-street_; for such it literally signifies, _via lapidea_: this is a solid rock of stone laid out in a strait line between here and Canterbury. Thus in Yorkshire another Roman road is called _Leming-lane_, from its stony composure. _Lhe_ signifies a way in British; _maen_, a stone. Its present appellation of _Studfal_ castle gives occasion to some uncouth etymologies: without any difficulty I think it derived from _stæd-weall_, the sea-shore, in Saxon; so that it signifies no more than _castrum littoreum_. This fine remnant of Roman work, and which was the garrison of the Turnacensian band, hangs as it were upon the side of the hill; for it is pretty steep in descent: the walls include about twelve acres of ground, in form somewhat squarish, without any ditch: a pretty brook, arising from the rock west of the church, runs for some space on the east side of the wall; then passes through it, and so along its lowermost edge by the farm-house at bottom. The composition of the wall is similar to that of Richborough; but instead of hewn stone and regular courses, as there, the interval between the three layers of Roman brick is made of rag-stone: the brick too is of the same whitish kind, but remarkably thin. I suppose the clay shrank much in burning. This interval of stone is four feet of Roman standard: the walls are twelve foot thick, and have some round holes at equal spaces, that run quite through, as we observed at _Sorbiodunum_ and _Verolanium_ perhaps to let the air in for drying the wall, being of so great a thickness. Here are several of the circular, or rather elliptic buttments, as thick as the wall, like those at the castle of _Garionenum_, near Yarmouth in Norfolk, in plate 58. which my worthy and learned friend Mr. Hare gave me from his own mensuration. It is a piece of masonry, I must own, unaccountable to me: they are like round towers or bastions, but solid; and some scarce join to the wall at the sides, but go quite through to the inside. The circuit of this wall is manifest enough on three sides, but that southward is levelled to the ground: every where else, where not standing, it lies sideways, flat, close by, in prodigious parcels; or where standing, cracked through the whole solid thickness, as if Time was in a merry humour, and ruined it in sport: but I believe it is the effect of design and much labour, as I said of Richborough: probably the Saxons or Danes thus dismantled it, to render it useless against their incursions. Where this wall is standing, it is ten foot high or more, made with excellent cement: on the eastern side is such another gate, formed by the return of the wall, as at the place last mentioned. Geo. Hunt, an old man, living in the farm-house, told me he has found coins here: he says, once the sea-bank broke, and his house with all the adjacent marshes was floated: for the level of the ocean is higher than this place; but it has fenced itself out by raising the ground continually near the shore, as it does in other like marshes. Whether the sea reached this lower wall, even in the time of the Romans, I cannot determine; for I do not believe this was the very port, but the castle belonging to it: that, I rather think, was somewhat more eastward, about West Hithe; and there, the town that belonged to it: for they find old foundations frequently under the side of the hill, laid in strong terrace mortar. The rev. Mr. Bagnal, minister of the place, informs me, that the field, of about sixteen acres of ground, adjoining to the church-yard of Limne, is to this day called the Northern town: nor do they know that it ever had any other name; which intimates that the Roman town was thereabouts, lying upon the slope of the hill, as the castle does, and to the east of it. This port is now called Ship-way, where the _limenarcha_, or lord warden of the cinque ports, was anciently sworn; where their courts were kept, and all the pleas relating to these ports: since the decay thereof, that ceremony is transferred to Dover. This Ship-way too denominates the _lathe_, or division of the country. Leland says, the people of Limne had an horn and mace, remaining ensigns of their authority.

Thus have we conducted our journey, for the space of 500 miles, all upon Roman roads, to these three famous ports on the eastern shore, where commonly the great Roman emperors and generals landed from the continent; and in which we have run over such notices as occurred to us in thirty-five Roman stations, many camps, and other things of highest antiquity. The season of the year for expeditions being far spent, it is time to release your lordship’s patience, and retire into harbour, concluding with the great Roman wit, in his poetical voyage,

_Lemanis longæ finis chartæque, viæque._

10 Octob. 1722.

ITER DUMNONIENSE. VI.

_Ipse locis capitur patriis & singula lætus Exquiritque, auditque virûm monumenta priorum._ +Virg.+

_To my Lord_ PEMBROKE.

I have sometimes in travelling been apt, within my own mind, to make a comparison between the excellence of the study of Philosophy, and that commonly called Antiquity, that is, ancient history. The beauties and the advantage of natural inquiries I cannot but be highly sensible of; yet I must needs give the preference to the latter, as it more nearly concerns the rational part of the creation, for whom the whole was made: it is a comment upon the wonderful volumes of divine wisdom, and the conduct of providence in the management of its supreme workmanship. God has given us indeed a large manuscript of his power, and other adorable attributes, in his wide-extended products, the furniture of the world; but in man, a more correct epitome of himself; a delegated immaterial particle of his spirituality, a self-moving principle of free agency, from the very fountain of all existence. As he is the great master-wheel and _primum movens_; so we are the subordinate executors of his mighty purposes, by his direction and superintendence carrying on the regular government and unseen operations thereof. Whoever declaims against this, ought to be looked upon as one of a poor, narrow way of thinking, and who does not deserve so much as that noble faculty of the soul, reminiscence or memory, which is the same to a single man, as ancient history is to the whole community: such a one no more claims the name of a scholar, than he that knows but the letters of the Alphabet, or whose study consists only in Gazettes. It is the knowledge of antiquity that can give us a maturity in judgement, either in persons or things; and how unfit such a one is, that is destitute of it, in the executing the great offices of life, I need not inculcate.

But nothing I can say in favour of this subject, can be so great a panegyric to it, as your lordship’s illustrious name prefixed. The glorious ardour for this kind of learning, that kindled in your younger years, and that through a long cultivation of it has produced a boundless extent of knowledge, with the deepest penetration, the strongest judgement, the fire of the soul, and all sublimest qualities which the world admires in your lordship; bears down all opposition to the study of antiquities, wherein you preside most worthily; wherein no one dares to be rival, or hopes to be equal. We see the fruits of it in the best-chosen library of ancient authors, in the best collection of most ancient coins, statues, busto’s, and learned marbles, which the world can show. You, my lord, by treading in the steps of the great Arundel, have brought old arts, Greece and Rome, nay Apollo and all his Muses, to Great Britain: Wilton is become tramontane Italy.

Every part of learning is your lordship’s province, and sure of your protection. But I have a particular happiness in laying before you the following account of this summer’s journey, because the greatest part of it was by your own direction, and as excursions I made whilst at your lordship’s most delightful seat at Wilton. I shall begin with what I observed in my tour about it, and proceed to my more western perambulation through a country pregnant of antiquities, and the greatest curiosities in the world.

The _Belgæ_, the ancient inhabitants of this country, were a brave and warlike people, when on their original continent; and we have no reason to think, after transplantation on the British soil, they abated aught of their courage and valour, natural to its inhabitants. These were one of those powerful nations, whose conquest gave opportunity to the emperor Vespasian highly to signalize his conduct when he first made a figure in arms. Hence it is that we find so many camps hereabouts, from the sea side to the midland parts; many of which were made by him, and others by his undaunted opposers. The road from Wilton to Shaftesbury, called the Ten-mile Course, is a fine ridge of downs, continued upon the southern bank of the river Nader, with a sweet prospect to the right and left, all the way, over the towns and the country on both sides: a traveller is highly indebted to your lordship for adding to his pleasure and advantage, in reviving the Roman method of placing a numbered stone at every mile, and the living index of a tree to make it more observable; which ought to be recommended as a laudable pattern to others: thus C. Gracchus planted a stone at every mile, with the distance inscribed, says Plutarch; and thus Rutilius, Itinerar. II.

_Intervalla viæ fessis præstare videtur, Qui notat inscriptus millia crebra lapis._

[Sidenote: +Chiselbury.+]

[Sidenote: Br. _oppidum_.]

Between Nᵒ 5. and 6. is a pretty large camp, called Chiselbury, upon the northern brow of the hill: it is single ditched and of a roundish form: before the chief entrance is an half-moon, with two apertures for greater security: there is a ditch indeed goes from it downward to the valley on both sides, but not to be regarded. This I imagine relates not to the camp; for I observed the like across the same road in many places between little declivities, and seem to be boundaries and sheep-walks made since, and belonging to particular parishes. I fancy this name imparted from some shepherd’s cot, anciently standing hereabouts, in Saxon _Ccsol_. It seems to be a Roman camp, but of later date. At the end of this course, when you come to the great chalk-hill looking towards Shaftesbury, are three or four Celtic barrows, one long and large, pointing east and west: in this hill is a quarry of stone, very full of sea-shells. Not far off, in the parish of Tisbury, near Warder castle, is a great intrenchment in a wood, which was probably a British _oppidum_, and near the river before mentioned.

[Sidenote: Carvilii _tumulus_.]

Returning, we see upon the highest eminence that overlooks Wilton, and the fertile valley at the union of the Nader and Willy, the famous King-barrow, as vulgarly called: it is a round _tumulus_, of a most ancient form, flat at top, and without any ditch. Your lordship rightly judges it in situation to be one of the highest barrows in England, being, by exact observation from the water-level and calculation, at least four hundred foot above the surface of the ocean. This, questionless, is a Celtic _tumulus_: and the very name, inherent through long revolutions of time, indicates it to be the grave of a king of this country of the _Belgæ_, and that Wilton was his royal residence, which for goodness of air, of water and soil, joined with the most delightful downs all around it, must highly magnify his judgement in choice of a place second to none for all the conveniences and delicacies of life. If we reflect a little upon the matter, it appears a supposition far from improbability, that this is the very monument of Carvilius mentioned by Cæsar, who, joining with the other kings along the country on the sea-side from hence to Kent, attacked his sea-camp on the Rutupian shore: and this was to make a diversion to the great Roman general, pressing hard upon Cassibelan; for, as the late learned and sagacious Mr. Baxter observes in his Glossary, where should _Carvilius_ live, but among the _Carvilii_? as _Segonax_, one of his confederates, among the _Segontiaci_; that is, _Segontium_, or _Caersegont_, as the Britons call it; which is now Silchester. And it seems to have been the fashion of that time for kings to be denominated from the people or place they governed; as _Cassibelan_ was in name and fact king of the _Cassii_; and many other instances I might bring of like nature. Where then should _Carvilius_ live, but at _Carvilium_, now Wilton; or where be buried, but in the most conspicuous place near his palace? and no other barrow competitor to leave any doubt or scruple. It is natural to suppose that the very spot where his residence was, is the same where king Edgar’s queen spent the latter part of her life in a religious house she built near your lordship’s seat, being a hard dry soil, gravelly, and incompassed with two fine rivers, which in early times added much to the security of the place, and much sought for by the Britons. We took notice, when with particular pleasure we visited his _tumulus_, and paid our respects to the illustrious _manes_ of the royal defunct, that, among other views of great distance, we could see Long-barrow beyond Stonehenge, and all the long ridge of Martinsal hill, St. Ann’s hill, and Runwayhill beyond that; upon which goes the great Wansdike, which I take to be the northern boundary of the Belgic kingdom. I question not but one purpose of this interment was to be in sight of the holy work, or temple, of Stonehenge. Here then may we conclude rest the ashes of Carvilius, made immortal by Caæsar for bravely defending his country; now resting in the possessions of a successor, master of both their great qualities; who, when wielding the British trident, in a fleet infinitely superior to Cæsar’s, could assert a more universal empire. In you, my lord, the memory of Carvilius flourishes again, in your eminent love for your country’s honour, and in your care for preserving his monument, and adorning it with fresh verdure; by planting four trees round its edge,[125] and introducing it as a _terminus_, in one of the visto’s, to the admirable equestrian statue of M. Aurelius, in the middle of the principal star of your park. Thus, according to ancient usage, was the _tumulus_ of Diomedes planted with the _platanus_ brought from Asia for that purpose; as Pliny informs us in book XII. cap. +i+.

[Sidenote: +Yarnbury.+ Ro. _camp_.]

[Sidenote: +Amsbury.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LXVII.]

[Sidenote: +Chloridunum.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XLI.]

[Sidenote: TAB. IX.]

From hence riding along the hare-warren and end of the park, we are entertained with the landscape of no less than five rivers, four retaining the old British names: the villages on each side of them are so thick, that they seem to join and form long cities in woods. About the union of these rivers are three cities and three cathedrals within a triangle, whose sides are less than three miles; Wilton, Old and New Sarum. The _Nadre_ signifies a snake or adder, metaphorically drawn from its winding current: it rises by the end of the Ten-mile course above described, and passes by a pleasant village belonging to your lordship, Chilmark, famous for its quarries; of a very good stone, white, and that rises in any dimensions: there is now a single stone, lying over the mouth of the quarry like an architrave, full sixty foot long, twelve foot thick, and, as the workmen have assured me upon examination, perfectly without flaw: sometimes here are found great petrified oyster-shells. The Willy rises about Warminster, taking in a little brook, the Dyver, passing under ground, runs by Yarnbury, a vast Roman camp, where some think is Vespasian’s name; a great semi-circular work at the entrance: several Roman coins have been found here. Not far off is a ditch called Chiltern, which seems to be some division of the hundreds. There is another camp on the other side the Willy: then it runs by Grovely, a great wood of your lordship’s: it admits another stream coming on the west side of Stonehenge from Orcheston, remarkable for a long kind of grass, which without good proof I should scruple relating, for it is commonly twenty-five foot in length, much coveted by cattle; by Mr. Ray called _gramen caninum supinum longissimum_: he says they use to fatten hogs with it. This Willy, that gives name to Wilton, passes chiefly on the north side of the town, makes the canal before the front of the house, and then joins the Nadre, coming on the south side of the town and through the gardens, at the end of the avenue. The Avon arises from under the great ridge of hills that divides Wiltshire into north and south, crowned with the Wansditch: it passes southward through innumerable villages to Ambsbury, the _pagus Ambri_ famous for a monastery built by one Ambrus, which the monks and fabulous writers have wrested into _Ambrosbury_; then for a celebrated nunnery of noble-women, great numbers of whom, against the institution of Nature and Providence, were here veiled: it is now the seat of my lord Charlton, built by Inigo Jones, and deservedly to be admired: some new works are added to it under the direction of my lord Burlington, possessor of his spirit, and a noble collection of his designs. The famous old city of _Sorbiodunum_ may be said to stand upon this river: it meets with the other two just before it passes through Salisbury, and beyond it receives the Bourn, which has dropped its proper name: but I guess it to have been _Colin_ or _Colinity_, the same as _Clun_; for at its fountain-head is _Colinburn_: all these rivers are called _burns_, _Willyburn_, _Adderburn_, &c. below Salisbury enters another, I suppose called _Ebbesburn_. From Harnham hill we have a view of both Sarums: the old city, with its high-crested triple fortifications, threatens all the circumjacent country: the new justly boasts of its lofty spire, as wonderful for the slenderness of its foundation, as its great height, being 450 foot, making one of the visto’s to the front of Wilton-house. To the east is Clarendon, which your lordship first observed, from old writings, ought to be called _Clorendun_, from the famous Roman camp half a mile off the park near the Roman road: this was made or repaired by Constantius Chlorus, father of Constantine the Great; it was he that slew Allectus, after he had basely murdered the valiant Carausius. Constantius lived at the neighbouring _Sorbiodunum_: he was of British extract, the husband of Helena, a famous British princess. This camp therefore, properly written, is _Chloridunum_, being a beautiful fortification of a round form upon a dry chalk hill: within is a circular ditch, having two entrances answering to the entrances of the camp, and leaving a large space between it and the _vallum_. I suppose this ditch was a lesser camp before, inlarged by Chlorus, for keeping his legions as in a summer-camp before the city: this they did by carrying away all the earth of the old _vallum_ to the new; for it is evident the present rampart is of much larger quantity than could be taken out of the subjacent ditch. Chlorendon park is a sweet and beautiful place: here king John built him a palace, where several Parliaments have been held: part of the building is still left, though they have been pulling it down many years: it is chiefly of flint, and was a large place upon the side of a hill, but no way fortified. This palace of king John answers directly to the front visto of Wilton house over the length of the great canal, and is called the King’s Manor: they say here is a subterraneous passage to the Queen’s Manor. Between the camp and the park runs a Roman road, which has not been taken notice of, from _Sorbiodunum_ to Winchester full east and west.

[Sidenote: +Aukbury.+ Br. _oppidum_.]

[Sidenote: +Walls.+ Vespasian’s _camp_.]

[Sidenote: +Cheselbury.+]