WESTMORLAND The Historical Monuments - Commis: sion's new volume on Westmorland
(Stationery Office, 30s.) has few line buildings to describe and to picture in a series of 160 plates, for Westmorland as a Border county was sparsely popu- lated and poor up to 1714. But in the favoured minority are the stately Norman castles at Appleby, Brougham and Brough, all repaired by Lady Anne Clifford in Stuart days ; the fascinating Early English church at Kirkby Lons- dale with the Devil's Bridge, one of the best mediaeval bridges that sur- vive ; Sizergh Castle, a noble Tudor pile with much carved woodwork of the period ; and finally Levees Hall, a perfect Elizabethan manor-house that has survived miraculously with its internal decorations and its lovely gardens set about with cut yews. The historical introduction is of great inter- est. Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler deals with the prehistoric remains, as yet not very closely studied and somewhat puzzling, and with the more definite evidence of Roman occupation, dating as early. as Agricola's campaign about the year 80. It is interesting to know that Agathopus, the name of the commander of the cavalry detachment stationed at the camp at Kirkby Thorc, was found in his tombstone in Nuniidia, where he was born and where he died. Such little facts make one realise the far- reaching sway of Rome. One of the Roman roads that traversed the county went direct north from the fort at. Ambleside over High Street, at an alti- tude of 2,600 feet. _
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