THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
LXXII.—CENTRAL ENGLAND:—NORTHAMPTONSEIRE AND WAR- WICKSHIRE :—KELTIC AND ROMAN PERIODS.
OF the Keltic tribes who peopled Britain at the time of the Roman Invasion, Northamptonshire is assigned to the Coritani, and Warwickshire to the Cornabii. There are, however, scarcely any reliable traces in either county of these early inhabi- tants. Cromlechs and similar relics are wholly wanting, and it is difficult to assign with certainty any of the numerous intrenched camps to a British rather than a Roman origin. In some cases, very possibly, the two may have succeeded each other, or may still be traceable side by side. The Romans, however, have left unmistakable footprints. It is evident that their settlement in Northamptonshire especially was of a very extensive character Not only along the courses of the old roads, but over the whole country, Roman remains have been continually turned up, "the most considerable being the tesselated pavements discovered at Weldon in 1738, at Cottestock in 1736, at Nether Ileyford, and more lately at Harpole and Whittlebury. The twenty-seven Roman sites given to this county by Reynolds in his her Britanniarum might now be trebled." The remarkable and extensive earth- works which crown the heights of Borough Hill near Daventry are among the largest in the kingdom. " No one," says a writer in the Quarterly Review, " can mount its commanding summit, and survey the numerous lesser hills that rise below him on every side, without being convinced that so sovereign a position must have been'occupied from the earliest period of military speculation and defence. Since the enclosure the plough is gradually effacing the marks of rampart and foss, and the line of circumvallation, which enclosed an area of about 140 acres, is in many parts utterly erased. Excavations were made here in 1823 by Baker on the conjectured site of the Prztorium, and part of the hypocaust, a tesselated pavement, and a few articles of the bathing toilet were brought to light. The researches at that time stopped were, owing to a more obliging tenant, resumed in 1852 by Mr. Bot- field with great success. Mr. Baker here opened also the range of tumuli, though in som ecases he had been forestalled ; the arms and other remains were of both ante and post Roman date. On this hill races from time immemorial were continued at intervals, till they were 4 cried down,' on the hill being enclosed in 1805." " But the most thoroughly Roman spot in the county is that of Caistor, which name, like that of the neighbouring village of Chesterton, denotes its Latin origin." The remains discovered here include "Roman villas, iron works, kilns for bricks, and potteries, and pavements scattered ' thick as thick' over the whole parish and neighbourhood. The tesselated pavements are very fine." Some antiquaries identify this site with that of the DUROBRIVE of the Itineraries. A Roman road called the Forty -Foo Way (and identified with Ermine Street) enters the county from Huntingdonshire near this village, where it passed the Nene river. Parts of this road were still, fifty years ago, lofty and conspicuous, between Caistor and Upton ; and again in the parish of Barnock." The great encampment called Castle Dykes, south-west of Weedoi4. appears to have been either formed or altered by the Romans.. About three miles south-west of Daventry is Arbury Banks, a large encampment on the summit of a hill. At Guilsborough are some entrenchments called the Boroughs, and in the south-western angle of the county, between the villages of Aynho and Newbattle, is another entrenchment called Raynsbury Camp.
In the division of Roman Britain into Provinces, Northampton- shire and Warwickshire were included in FIAVIA CiEssosErrsis- The subject of the Roman roads which traversed both these coun- ties, and the identification of the stations mentioned in the Iters,. is attended with the usual amount of doubt and difficulty. The great roadway which in later times was called Watling Street seems certainly to have passed through them. It may be traced for many miles from the summit of Borough Hill, near Daventry. On the London side of Weedon it is incorporated with the London high road; from Weedon to Lilbourne it is only a private road, though distinctly marked and well known. It then for a few miles forms. part of the public way between Daventry and Lutterworth Leicestershire), when it again becomes private, and so continues till it reaches High Cross. Here the turnpike road from Lutter- worth to Atherstone (in Warwickshire) passes over it for about two miles of its progress towards Hinckley, and returning bait again about two miles from Hinckley, continues along it to Ather- stone. Beyond Atherstone it is in good repair, and proceeding by Hints, Weeford, and Wall, shortly becomes the basis of the great. Chester road. The Foss-Way intersects the Watling Street at High Cross on its passage from Leicester. Passing near Monk's Kirby and Stretton, it goes through Brincklow, Bretford on the river Avon, and Stretton-upon-Dunsamor. Then crossing the river Leam to. the west of Marton, it leaves Chesterton, Lighthorue, and Com- brooke to the east, and Stretton-on-Foss to the west, near which parish it enters Gloucestershire. A third great roadway (the llkenild Way, it is supposed) has been traced through Warwick- shire. Entering it on the south, it is clearly distinguishable in the neighbourhood of Bidford. Between Wixford and Alcester there are no traces remaining, but to the north of the latter place it again rises to notice, and is known by the name of the Haden Way. After passing Studley it enters a recess of Worcestershire, and returns in the vicinity of Birmingham. Touching the margin of Staffordshire, it proceeds to Sutton Park, where it is to be dis- tinctly traced. At Wall, in Staffordshire, it meets the Watling Street.
A minor road, called the Ridgeway, borders part of Warwickshire on the east. We have already referred to the roadway, identified with Ermine Street, which crossed the north-eastern extremity of Northamptonshire from near Caistor, on the Nene, to Stamford ; and other roadways have been traced or imagined by antiquarians in both counties.
The hers may be tolerably satisfactorily identified with some of these existing roadways, and some of the Stations pretty clearly identified. Entering Northamptonshire by the Watling Street, the LACTODORUM of the Antonine hers is probably Towcester; but about the next station there is more difficulty. In two of the hers we find a station called variously in the MSS. BE IS-NAVENNA, BENNAVENTA, BENNAVENTA, and BANNAVENTUM, which in one her is placed at twelve (Roman) miles from LACTODORUM, and in another at twenty-eight miles from MAGIOVINIUM (the station before LACTODORUM), believed to have been near Fenny Stratford. Borough Hill (already referred to) has usually been identified with this BENNAVENTA, part of the old name being supposed to still exist in the name Daventry ; but in a third her, in the place of this station (at the same distance from LAcrononum) we find a station called ISANNAVANTIA, ISANNA- VANNA, or ISANNAVARIA. Some antiquaries have identified this with Burnt Walls, a space of about six acres, seemingly once surrounded by a foss, at the south foot of Borough Hill, where various walls, arched vaults, foundations of buildings, &c., have been discovered, and whence large quantities of stone have at different times been removed. But Mr. Botfield observes that military authorities conjecture the remains there to have been, if Roman, a mere outwork for the purpose of guarding the station Benna- yenta from any approach on that side. He believes ISANNA- VANTIA to have been on the Watling Street, at a place called Great Shawney, exactly twelve miles from Towcester. There Roman remains are frequently discovered, and in cutting a road through a field in 1836-7 fragments of Roman pottery, bones of men and of horses, several skulls, and numerous coins of the Lower Empire were discovered. In the fields surrounding a house at Thorpe for the space of upwards of thirty acres thick foundation walls and fragments of ancient pottery have been frequently turned up. At first it was conjectured that Great Shawney might be the necropolis of the station at BENNAVENTA ; but from the extent of ground occupied by the relics of Roman origin it must, Mr. Botfield thinks, have been of more importance. He deduces, with some probability, the name itself, Shawney, from a contraction of Isannavantia or Isannavanna, pro- nouncing the vowels in the Continental way. Whatever may have been the relation between BENNAVENTA and this station, and whether or not their respective sites are correctly identified—if they were different places—there can be no doubt that close to or on Borough Hill there was a Roman station. The hers give us another station called VENON/E, one placing it 18 and the other 17 miles from BENNAVENTA. The Iter, however, which sub- stitutes ISANNAVANTIA also interposes a station which is called TRIPONTIUM, at a distance of 12 miles from the latter, and of eight miles from VENONX, which is therefore 20 miles by this route from ISANNAVANTIA. Whether there were two road- ways between LACTODORUM and VENONN., one of which was 29 and the other 32 miles, and which severally passed through the stations of BENNAVENTA and ISANNAVANTIA, must be left to conjecture. TRIPONTIUM, from its name and dis- tance on the route, must have been at some passage over the Avon river. It has been placed at Lilbourne, where there is a tumulus between the Watling Street road and the entrenchment adjoining the church ; also another tumulus on the east side of the village. But Mr. Botfield observes that there are certainly greater indica- tions of Roman occupancy on the other side of the Avon at Biggin and Caves Inn on the Watling Street road. There seems little doubt that we must identify V E NOZLE with the present High Cross, where the Watling Street and Foss Way intersect, on the boundary line of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, the Watling Street itself forming the boundary line between these two counties from where it crosses the Avon to near Atherstone.
The next station on the Iter which we can identify with a site on the present Watling Street is MAND UESEDUM twelve miles from VEricevE), which was probably at Mancetter, or Mancester, near Atherstone, where there are evident remains of a Roman station, the ditch and vallum being in many parts very perfect. After leaving the neighbourhood of Atherstone, the Watling Street passes westward, as we have seen, until it enters Staffordshire, — Wall, in that county, having been identified with ETOCET UM, the next station on the her.
Alcester, in Warwickshire, was certainly the site of a Roman
station or civitas. The apocryphal Richard of Cirencester calls it ALAUNA, which must have been the Roman name of the river Alne, which flows by and joins the Arrow. A LAUN.E CASTRA was therefore the probable name of the station. There is a tradition (told by Prior Dominic in the Chronicle of Evesham Abbey) that the Roman town, with its ramparts and towers, was swallowed up in the early part of the eighth century, because the ironsmiths there would not listen to the preaching of St. Ecgwin, drowning his voice with their hammers and anvils. The further statement that the foundations of the buried town had been discovered by work- men in digging some way below the surface sufficiently explains the origin of the legend. Many coins and other Roman remains have been found hero and in the immediate neighbourhood, and there can be little doubt that this was one of the forges on the skirts of the great forest which covered Worcestershire, which were worked by the Romanized Britons.
Near Chesterton, on the Foss- Way, is an encampment evidently Roman. Roman coins and other antiquities have been found near Birmingham, Hampton-in-Arden, Willoughby (near the Learn, on the eastern border of Warwickshire), and Warwick ; and a Roman pavement at Coventry. There are also some earthworks at Brinek- law, near Monk's Kirby, on the line of the foss, which appear to be Roman.
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