Part 32

From the gate of _Sorbiodunum_ the Icening-street goes from north-east to south-west, by the name of Port lane, over the river Avon at Stretford; then ascends the hill, and passes the united Nadre and Willy near Bemerton, where the stony ford is still very perfect: then it goes across my lord Pembroke’s horse-race course and hare-warren, making a visto to M. Aurelius his equestrian figure in the park. If the spirits and _genii_ of the ancient Romans travel this way, no doubt they will be surprised to find themselves so near the Capitol. Then it traverses the brook at Fenny-Stretford, and so along the great downs toward Cranburn chace: here it delights one to turn and survey its direction towards _Sorbiodunum_, a sweet prospect; whether we regard what share of it is due to nature, or what to art; and of the latter sort, what is owing to the road, or what to the old city. As it enters the chace there is a most remarkable _diverticulum_, and which notoriously demonstrates it was begun from the south: for here, as it came from thence across the woods, where its ridge is very perfect, made of stone, it butts full upon the end of a vast valley, very deep and of steep descent; where it was absolutely impracticable to carry the road on in a strait line: the Roman surveyor therefore wisely gave way to nature, turned the road side-ways along the end of the valley, then with an equal angle carried it forward upon the upper side of that valley in full direction to Old Sarum. That great and wise people, though ignorant of submission, knew nature might be drawn aside, but not directly opposed, especially in works that are to be lasting: hence my intent was, to pursue this noble road as far as it would carry me; and the pleasure one perceives in such a concomicant is not to be imagined by any one but those that experience it: to observe their methods in the conduct of such works, their artifices and struggles between industry and the difficulties and diversities of ground, of rivers, &c. and the continual presentment of somewhat worthy of remark by the way, renders it short, and vastly entertaining; nor is the mind ever at a loss for learned amusement. When it has passed through the woods of Cranburn chace, and approaches Woodyates, you see a great dike and _vallum_ (Venndike) upon the edges of the hills to the left by Pentridge, to which I suppose it gave name: this crosses the Roman road, and then passes on the other side, upon the division between the hundred. The large _vallum_ here is southward, and it runs upon the northern brink of the hills; whence I conjecture it a division or fence thrown up by the _Belgæ_ before Cæsar’s time. I call this the second boundary of the _Belgæ_; two others are already mentioned. I pleased myself with the hopes of observing the Roman road running over it, as doubtless it did originally: but just at that instant both enter a lane, where every thing is disfigured with the wearing away and reparations that have been made ever since. Its high ridge is then inclosed within a pasture just at Woodyates, then becomes the common road for half a mile, but immediately passes forward upon a down, the road going off to the right. I continued the Roman road for two or three mile, where it is rarely visited: it is very beautiful, smooth on both sides, broad at top, the holes remaining whence it was taken, with a ditch on each hand: it is made of gravel, flint, or such stuff as happened in the way, most convenient and lasting. There are vast numbers of Celtic barrows upon these downs, just of such manner and shapes as those of Salisbury plain: at the first and more considerable group I came to, there was a most convincing evidence of the Roman road being made since the barrows: two instances of this nature I gave in the last letter. One form of these barrows, for distinction sake, I call Druids (for what reasons I shall not stand here to dispute:) they are thus. A circle of about 100 foot diameter, more or less, is inclosed with a ditch of a moderate breadth and depth: on the outside of this ditch is a proportionate _vallum_; in the centre of this inclosure is a small tump, where the remains of the person are buried, sometimes two, sometimes three. Now so it fell out, that the line of direction of the Roman road necessarily carried it over part of one of these _tumuli_, and some of the materials of the road are dug out of it: this has two little tumps in its centre.

[Sidenote: +Vindogladia.+]

It was now my business to look out for the station in Antoninus called _Vindogladia_, mentioned in the last journey to be twelve mile from _Sorbiodunum_. By this time I was come to a proper distance: accordingly I found, at the end of this heath, the road which is all along called Iclingdike, descended a valley where a brook crosses it, from two villages called Gliffet. At All-Saints, or Lower Gliffet, there was a small ale-house, and the only one hereabouts (the Rose:) my old landlady, after some discourse preparatory, informed me that at Boroston, a mile lower upon the river, had been an old city; and that strangers had come out of their way on purpose to see it; that ruins and foundations were there; that it had seven parish-churches, which were beaten down in the war time; that many old coins had been ploughed up when she was a girl, which the children commonly played withal; but the case at present was plainly the same with that of old Troy, described in the ballad upon her wall, where she showed me these passionate verses,

Waste lie those walls that were so good, And corn now grows where Troy towers stood.

This account, so natural, satisfied me that _Vindogladia_ must here be fixed, and Wimbornminster be robbed of that honour, where the tide of antiquarians have hitherto carried it, for no other reason but name sake; the distances and road being repugnant. I suppose the name signifies the white river, or vale; _vint_, white; _gladh_, a river; whence our glade, or valley where a river runs. This place being not capable of affording me a proper mansion, I left the more particular scrutiny of it for another opportunity.

Hence I pursued the road on the opposite chalk-hill, where they have dug it away to burn for lime, but much degenerate from Roman mortar in strength: it was not long before I absolutely lost it in great woods beyond Long Crechil; but by information I learnt that it passes the Stour at Crayford bridge below Blandford, where I was obliged to take up my nightly quarters. I was glad to gain the downy country again westward of it, and still full of barrows of all sorts by clusters or groups. I frequently observed on the sides of hills long divisions, very strait, crossing one another with all kinds of angles: they look like the balks or meres of ploughed lands, and are really made of flint over-grown with turf: they are too small for ploughed lands, unless of the most ancient Britons, who dealt little that way; but just such like have I seen in what I always imagine British camps. Above the town of Blandford is an odd intrenchment on a hill, a squarish work, with others like the foundation of small towers: a barrow near it.

[Sidenote: +Blandford.+]

Blandford is a pretty town, pleasantly seated in a flexure of the river, before charming meadows, and rich lands. Wood thrives exceedingly here: indeed this country is a fine variety of downs, woods, lawns, arable, pasture, and rich valleys; and an excellent air: the dry easterly winds, the cold northern, and the western moisture, are tempered by the warm southern saline breezes from the ocean, and nearest the sun. The incredible number of barrows that over-spread this country from the sea-side to North Wiltshire, persuade me a great people inhabited here before the _Belgæ_, that came from Spain, which we may call the _Albionites_: but it is not a time to discourse of that. This year, wherever I travelled, I found the bloom of the hedge-rows, and indeed all trees whatever, excessively luxuriant beyond any thing I ever knew. In this part the _buck-thorn_, or _rhamnus catharticus_, is very plentiful; and a traveller, if he pleases, may swallow a dozen of the ripe berries, not without use. Near the passage of the Icening-street at Crayford is Badbury, a vast Roman camp, where antiquities have been found.

[Sidenote: +Wansdike.+]

[Sidenote: +Ibernium.+]

[Sidenote: Ro. _Camp_.]

[Sidenote: TAB. XLV 2d Vol.]

About three mile beyond this I found another ditch and rampart, which I believe to be the first of the colony of the _Belgæ_; it has indeed a rude ancient look; so that they made four of these boundaries successively as their power enlarged, the last being Wansdike, between North and South Wiltshire. By what I could see or learn, in travelling over this intricate country, the Roman road passes upon a division between Pimpern and Bere hundred to Bere; and that I reckon a convenient distance for a station between _Vindogladia_ and Dorchester, being near the middle: on one side it is about thirteen mile, on the other nine. Now in the last journey of Antoninus before mentioned, immediately after _Vindogladia_ follows _Durnovaria M. P._ IX. Dorchester being very truly nine mile off this town Bere, and which is a market-town too, but far otherwise as to Wimbornminster; I doubt not but this is the true place designed in the Itinerary; but that a town is slipped out of the copies. I think I have fortunately discovered it in the famous Ravennas, by which we may have hopes of restoring this journey to its original purity. That author mentions a town next to _Bindogladia_, which he calls _Ibernium_: this verily is our Bere. Mr. Baxter corrects it into _Ibelnium_, and places it at Blandford, for no other reason, as I conceive, but because he imagined it must necessarily be hereabouts. I was not a little pleased when I found my notion highly confirmed by a great and elegant Roman camp upon a hill near Bere, I think it is called Woodbury, where a yearly fair is kept: this is between Bere and Milburn upon the river: it is doubly intrenched, or rather a double camp one within another. This town of Bere denominates the hundred too. In this case, where a Roman camp, a road, and all distances concur, which in the others are very abhorrent from reality, I imagine the reader will find little difficulty in passing over to my sentiments. The town is called _Bere Regis_, and the camp is the _Æstiva_ to the town. Of Dorchester I have spoken already, beyond which is the original of the Icening-street: from thence I travelled along the southern coasts, in order to come to the beginning of this seventh journey.

[Sidenote: +Moriconium.+]

Wareham is denominated from the passage or ford over the two rivers between which it is situate, where now are bridges: this has been a Roman town. A great square is taken in, with a very high _vallum_ of earth, and a deep ditch: there has been a castle by the water-side, west of the bridge, built by William the Conqueror, perhaps upon the Roman. It is an old corporation, now decayed, the sands obstructing the passage of vessels; and Pool, being better seated, from a fisher’s town has rose to be a rich flourishing sea-port, robbing this place. They say here have been many parish-churches, and a mint. This is probably the _Moriconium_ of Ravennas, as Mr. Baxter asserts. I heard of Roman coins being found here. This country is sandy for the most part, as commonly toward the sea-coasts. I saw a ruinous religious house as I came by the side of the river Frome. This haven is of a vast extent, like a sea, having a narrow entry; an indulgent formation of Nature to her beloved island of Great Britain. I saw vast stones lying loose upon this sand, in some places, like the Wiltshire grey weathers. It is a melancholy unpleasant view hereabouts for travellers, when they come from the other delightful scenes of the better parts of Dorsetshire: it is moory for the most part, full of ling or heath, as on all the sea-coasts here, from the chalk-hills in Dorsetshire to those in Sussex. Two rocks about Corf castle have an odd appearance hence.

[Sidenote: +Alauna.+]

[Sidenote: +Bolnelaunium.+]

Wimburnminster is a small place, of no great trade: a large old church with two towers; the middle one in the cross very old, and most of the church before the time of the Conquest: this middle steeple had a spire which fell down. The river Stour runs a little way south of the town, through a large bridge; _sdour_, a _sibilus_ put to the old Celtic word. The river Alen in several divisions runs through the town, which makes me think it to be the _Alauna_ of Ravennas, put next to _Bolnelaunium_, which I conjecture to be Christ’s-church by the sea-side, that being subsequent to _Moriconium_: that it was not Pool, as Mr. Baxter places it, is plain from a reason just mentioned, Pool being an upstart. Wimburnminster stands in a large extended fruitful vale like a meadow, with much wood about it. These rivers abound with fish. Here was a nunnery built anno 712, by Cuthburga sister to king Ina. King Etheldred was buried here.

[Sidenote: +Regnum.+]

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

[Sidenote: Br. _oppidum_.]

From hence I went to Ringwood upon the river Avon, over a deep sandy moor; which has ever been thought the _Regnum_ in the Itinerary, and begins the _Iter septimum_ of Antoninus. It is a large thriving place, full of good new brick houses, seated by the side of a great watery valley, the river dividing itself into several streams, and frequently overflowing large quantities of the meadow: it seems well calculated to have been an old British town: they deal pretty much in leather here, and woollen manufactures of stockings, druggets, narrow cloth. Roman discoveries I could make little; but the name and distances seem to establish the matter: so I hastened through New Forest, where I found it necessary to steer by the compass, as at sea. They tell us at Wattonsford the memory of Tyrrel is still preserved, as passing over there when he unawares shot William Rufus. The soil is sand, gravel, stone, clay by parcels: these are pleasant solitudes for a contemplative traveller, did not the intricacies of the roads give one uneasiness. Here are whole acres of the most beautiful _fox-gloves_ that one can see, rising upon a strong stem, adorned with numerous bell-flowers as high as one’s horse. Mr. Baxter has a right notion of this name, signifying _lemurum manicæ_, from the supposed fairies. I take these names, and foxes bells, and the like, to be reliques of the Druids, who did great cures by them; for this is a plant of powerful qualities, when prudently administered, in a constitution that will bear it. I observe we derive the names of very many plants from the old Celtic language, as I believe the Greeks and Latins did likewise. The king’s house, as called still, was at Lyndhurst: the duke of Bolton has a hunting-seat thereabouts. I rode through an old camp in the midst of the forest: it is overgrown with wood, seems to have been round: at bottom is a spring: no doubt but it is a British _oppidum_. You may see Southampton from thence. They say the king was killed hereabouts. Here is a great plantation of young oaks, for the use of the crown: a great deal of fine oak-timber left; but the beech-trees are very stately and numerous.

[Sidenote: +Arminis.+]

Romsey was unquestionably a Roman town, and its present name shows as much. The church is a noble old pile of architecture, arched with stone in the form of a cross, with semi-circular chapels in the upper angles. These churches, hereabouts called minsters, were doubtless built by the Saxon kings as soon as they became christian: the manner of their structure is much like those built by queen Helena in Palestine: at the west end of it is a bit of an old wall, perhaps belonging to the nunnery built here by king Edgar. I heard of a silver Roman coin found here. This town is an old corporation, in situation extraordinary pleasant, having woods, corn-fields, meadows, pastures, around it in view: the river and rivulets, which are many, have a rapid course.

[Sidenote: +Venta Belgarum.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LXXXIII.]

Two miles before I came to Winchester, the downs of chalk begin again with barrows upon them. I saw several double ones. The walls of Winchester inclose a long square about 700 paces one way, 500 the other: it stands on the western declivity of a hill, the river running below on the east. Many branches, and cuts of it too, pass through the midst of the city, and render their gardens very pleasant: the walls and gates, as repaired in times long after the Roman, and chiefly of flint, are pretty intire; no doubt, built upon the old Roman. In the higher part of the city is the castle, which overlooks the whole:[138] here is a famed round table, where king Arthur’s knights used to sit. I saw some great ruins still left of the walls and towers that belonged to it; but the main of it was pulled down when Sir Christopher Wren projected the king’s palace there in king Charles the IId’s reign: it fronts the west end of the cathedral. The houses in the town were bought in order to make a street between both, which would have had a noble effect. This palace is a large pile of building, and beautiful, yet with all the plainness that was necessary to save an extravagant expence, or that became a royal retirement: it fills up three sides of a large square, so that the opening of the wings or front looks over the city: three tier of windows, twenty-six in a row, fill up every side externally, besides the fronton in the middle of each side, composed of four Corinthian pilasters: a handsome balustrade runs quite round the top: the inside of this open court is more elegant, and enriched with portico’s, &c. the late duke of Tuscany gave some fine marble pillars towards the adorning it. A great bridge was to have been built across the foss in the principal front; and a garden, park, &c. were to have been made before the back front: the citizens entertain great hopes, that since the happy increase of the royal family, this palace will be finished: it is of plain brick-work, but the window-cases, fascias, cornice, &c. of good Portland stone. There is a great old chapel near it. This place was the residence of the potent kings of the West Saxons.

The cathedral is a venerable and large pile: the tower in the middle and transept are of ancienter work than the choir and the body. Inigo Jones has erected a delicate screen of stone-work before the choir. Here was the burial-place of many Saxon and Norman kings, whose remains the impious soldiers in the civil wars threw against the painted glass: they show too the tomb of king Lucius. Queen Mary was here married to Philip of Spain: the chair used in that ceremony is still preserved. In the body of the church is a very ancient font, with odd sculptures round it. In the city is a pretty cross of Gothic workmanship, but ill repaired. Without the southern gate is a stately fabric, the college, erected and endowed by William of Wickham, bishop here, for education of youth. There is good painted glass of imagery in the chapel windows: in the middle of the cloysters is a strong stone building, the library, well contrived to prevent fire: the school is a more modern structure, handsome, with a very good statue of the founder over the door, made by Cibber. This country is intirely chalk, whence I suppose the name of _Venta_: the city is a genteel and pleasant place, and abounds with even the elegancies of life. Beyond the river eastward is a high hill, called St. Giles’s, from an hospital once there; now only some ruins of it to be seen, and a church-yard, seeming to have been a camp, beside the marks of bastions, and works of fortifications in the modern stile. Here Waltheof, earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, was beheaded, by order of William I. whose body was carried to Crowland, and asserted to have miraculous virtues.

In digging the foundation of a house near the college, in a stone coffin was found a stone set in a gold ring, with this inscription in very old characters, supposed about the sixth century.

_Duce domino comite fidele meo._

A mile to the south of Winchester is a magnificent hospital, called Holy Cross, founded by bishop Blois: the church is in the form of a cross, and has a large square tower. Over it, on the other side the river, hangs a camp upon St. Catharine’s hill, with a _brachium_ reaching down to the water side, for convenience of that element. The way between Winchester and Southampton we perceived plainly to be a Roman road, especially as far as the chalk reached: then we came to a forest where the soil is gravelly all the way.

[Sidenote: +Southampton.+]

Southampton was strongly walled about with very large stones, full of those little white shells, like honey-combs, that grow upon the back of oysters: this is a sort of stone extremely hard, and seems to be gathered near the beach of the sea. These walls have many lunettes, and towers, in some places doubly ditched; but the sea encompasses near half the town: it was built in the time of king Edward III. I observe they have a method of breaking the force of the waves here, by laying a bank of sea-ore, as they call it: it is composed of long, slender, and strong filaments, like pilled hemp, very tough and durable; I suppose it is thrown up by the ocean: and this performs its work better than walls of stone, or natural cliff. At the south-east corner, near the quay, is a fort with some guns upon it, called the Tower: on one we saw this inscription,

_Henricus_ VIII. _Anglie, Franciæ_ & _Hiberniæ rex, fidei defensor invictissimus f. f._ MD. XXXXII. HR. VIII.

In the north-west corner was a strong castle with a mount, walled about at top, as a keep: upon this a round stone tower, with a winding ascent: the Anabaptists are about pulling it down, to build a meeting-house. The main of this town consists of one broad street, running through its length: there are many old religious ruins, and great warehouses, cellars, store-houses, &c. but with their trade gone to decay. It was a great sea-port not long since, and had the sole privilege, by charter, of importing wine from France, till they foolishly sold it to the city of London.

[Sidenote: +Trausantum.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LXXIX.]