Roman Remains , N O Less Than Thirteen Monumental and Other Inscriptions

P LA T I E .

B T NE A R M A N ENTURI N A ND H I WI E UND IN TH E TOM S O OF O C O S F , FO N RTH WA LL THE CITY CH E TER IN I O OF OF S , SS7 . TH E

RE CE NT D IS COVE RIE S

RO M A N RE M A IN S

FOUND I N REPAI RING

T H E N O RT H W A L L

OF TH E CITY OF

H E T E R C S .

(A SERI ES OF PAPERS READ BEFORE THE C TE R A R C DE OL OGI C’A L A ND H I S I H E S A TOR C S OCIE TY, E TC

R I PE RM ISSION N AND EPR NTED BY OF THE COU CIL . )

x I d E tensively llustrate .

WITH A N H I T RI L IN E DITE D S O CA TRODU TI N . , C O , &c ,

E A R A K R M P . W E . A J , . . ,

I I TH E I ED TOR AL SECRETARY OF SOC ETY, ” “ E CH ESH IRE AUTHOR OF AST ,

& . c. c c , & , & .

O M A N CH ESTE R

IN A . IRELA N D CO P R TE RS, PA LL M A LL. 8 1 8 8 .

TA BLE OF CONTENTS.

H ISTORICAL INTRODUCTION OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE DISCOVERI ES OF ROMAN REMA INS C I I R I AT HESTER, DUR NG THE F RST EPA RS To TH E W I I N N 8S . the Cit urve S o M r. ORTH ALL , 7 By y y r ( I . M atthews J ones) I to I D TH E R I C I I I C R I OMAN NS R PT ONS D SCOVERED AT HESTE , DUR NG I R I N W IN I 8 THE F RST EPA RS TO THE ORTH ALL, 8 7 . By

t t W Thom son Wat n he la e . p ki I I to 24 NOTES ON A SCULPTURED STONE RECENTLY FOUND IN THE N W CI Y C W . de ORTH ALL OF THE T OF HESTER By .

ra B rc P . S. A . G y i h , 25 to 39 TH E A GE W C W I OF THE ALLS OF HESTER, TH REFERENCES

R DI I . E . P . Loftus ock TO ECENT SCUSS ONS By Br ,

TH E DISCUSSION ON THE ABOVE PAPER ’ n Wat n s V s . W Thom so e M r . p ki i w ’ Pi ton s V e ws Sir J ames A . c i

‘ ’ o T K enn H u es V ews Profess r . M y gh i ’ M r W de Gra B rc s V e s . . y i h i w ’ W b ole s V e s r G . Shru s M . . i w ’

M r. 1 M att e s ones V e s . h w J i w ’ T H n s V e M r. . odgki i ws ’ K R T K M R . BROC S EPLY o THE VARIOUS SPEA ERS 9I to 97 TH E INSCRIBED ROMAN STONES RECENTLY FOUND AT C I C I R I To HESTER, DUR NG THE SE OND SER ES OF EPA RS W W F A I N . de Gra B rc . S 8 to ! THE ORTH ALL By . y i h, 9 3 TH E CITY WALLS OF CHESTER : IS ANY PART OF THEM

W. [ R ? G . Shrubsole F. G . S. 2 to I OMAN By , 3 54

D : I TS W S I N I EVA ALLS AND TREETS, OR CHESTER THE T ME

R F . I o I . W . hru le . G . t 68 G . S bso S OF THE OMANS By , 55 ’ TH E CHESTER A RCH/EOLOGICAL AND H ISTORIC SOCIETY S EXCAVATION COMMITTEE BALANCE SHEET OF THE EXCAVATIONS FUND I N DEx

L T LL T IS OF I USTRA IONS.

T I . OMBSTONE OF A ROMAN CENTURION AND H IS WI FE

z DI I . AGRAMMAT C SECTION OF THE NORTH WALL fo n ate t ( ldi g pl ) o face p. I DIAGRAM SHOW ING THE RESPECTIVE COURSES OF

S WI R R I in situ TONE, TH THE OMAN EMA NS

foldin ate to ace ( g pl ) f p. 4 FRA GM ENT OF A ROMAN TOMBSTONE P I TH E F I ! R N P II t ate o ac . 6 ORT ON OF R E E OF A OMA ( l . ) f e p BU ILDI NG P I R T M P t III ORT ON OF A OMAN O BSTONE ( la e . ) CARVING AND INSCRI PTION ON THE SIDE OF THE TOMBSTONE OF THE ROMAN CENTURION AND H IS WIFE ROMAN TOMBSTONE P V ( late I . ) ROM AN TOMBSTONE !

R T WI ceeac ma llm s &c. OMAN OMBSTONE, SHO NG THE , , ,

t ac . 20 ON THE SIDE ( Plate V. ) of e p P I R T I I ORT ON OF A OMAN OMBSTONE, DEP CT NG A

R M A P a e VI to aee . 2 OMAN ATRON AND HER TTENDANT ( l t . ) f p 5 TOOL -M ARK S ON THE ROMAN STONES IN THE NORTH

W . f r S etc e b E . P . Lo t s B oc P . S. A . ALL k h d y u k, (folding plate ) ’ M K DI I K I R. BROC S AGRAMMAT C S ETCH OF A SECT ON

N W a 6 OF THE ORTH ALL to f ce p. 4 S I N E S W W I ECT ONS OF ORTH AND A T ALLS, SHO NG

- RE R M E E. P USE OF OMAN OULDED STON S . By

Loftus Broc P . S . A . k, ROMAN INSCRI PTION P t VII ( la e . ) ROMAN INSCRI PTION vi LIS T OF ILL S TRA TI ii U ONS .

T I I D A P a e III t t o aee . I O OMBSTONE OF CEC L US ON TUS ( l V . ) f p 4 T M A I L I R A H O BSTONE OF UREL US UC US, A OM N ORSE

SOLDIER ( Plate IX . )

L R I I I P ate . to aee I I z ARGE OMAN NSCR PT ON ( l X ) f p. T M DI S - O BSTONE OF OGENES, THE TANDARD BEARER

(Plate XI . ) M TO BSTONE OF H ERM A GORA S ( Plate XII . ) TOMBSTONE OF A ROMAN STANDARD BEARER

P ate III ( l X . ) SMALL FIGURE OF A ROMAN SOLDIER H L N I STO RI CA I N TRO D UCT I O .

IN the spring of 1 88 3 the necessary repairs to a portion of the north wall (near the Northgate) , which had f u of allen down, bro ght to light a number worked Roman

f o f stones belonging to Roman buildings , and a ragment a Roman tombstone (erected by Marcus A pronius) now

This preserved in the Grosvenor Museum . may be looked upon as the ﬁrst deﬁnite indication that the north wall of

Chester was in part built up of stones o f undoubted

f r Roman workmanship, which had been taken rom earlie

buildings, and had been made use of in erecting the wall .

la o f 1 88 of Some four years ter, in the spring 7 , a portion the upper part Of the north wall wasObserved to be out

of the perpendicular, and it became necessary to take

and t down rebuild his portion , which was known to be one of the breaches made in the walls at the time of the

he S 16 . t iege of Chester in 45 Whilst doing this work,

City Surveyor was requested to examine the lower portion

. Of the wall so as to ascertain if any Roman inscribed or I L I R D TI H I S TOR CA N T O UC ON.

sculptured stones were to be found . The results of this

Of e xamination were very startling. The interior the lower

the f portion of wall was ound to be full of Roman remains , n o less than thirteen monumental and other inscriptions

ou t Of the being taken this small portion of wall , together

with a great number of stones, which had formerly belo nged to large and important Roman buildings . A full account of the remains found in this the ﬁrst rebuilding of the north wall will be found in the ﬁrst two papers in

h fﬁ r t is volume, the one the O cial Repo t of the City

’ Surveyor, and the other the late Mr. Thompson Watkin s a of n ccount the inscriptions the discovered .

x The interest e cited by this ﬁnd was very great . The various inscriptions were popularly described from t the L ime to time in chief ondon and provincial papers, a nd it was very generally felt that further ex plorations

- s if . e hould, possible, be made To this end a sub committe o f the Chester Archae ological and Historic Society was

I th 1 88 appointed on the s October, 7 , with power to collect subscriptions and to issue circulars in furtherance Of that o bject . This committee succeeded in raising nearly one

. t hundred pounds, and wi h this money a further portion of

’ x and the north wall was carefully e amined , once more a n umber o f Roman inscribed and sculptured stones were brought to light, as well as numerous fragments of Roman f buildings O considerable size. Portions of the soil, which had accumulated on the outside of the wall , above the

’ r l Of ock, were removed , and the ﬁne massive wal built H IS TORI CA L IN TR OD UCTI ON xi

u Ro m an u ndoubtedly stones, laid in regular co rses, was e xposed . The numbe r of inscribed and sculptured stones discovered in this second rebuilding Of the wall was four

teen , and a full illustrated account of them by Mr. W . de F Gray Birch, will be found in this volume, together with the list of those who contributed towards the cost of

this second exploration .

A S the Council of the Chester Archae ological Society

were of opinion that many persons , who were not members

of that Society, would probably be interested in these

discoveries , they authorised me, as their Editorial Secretary,

to have the various papers on these discoveries , which had

1 88 - 8 been read before the Society during the session 7 ,

printed in a small volume by themselves . This has now

been done, and in the following pages there will be found,

in addition to the three articles before mentioned , the c L f arefully prepared paper by Mr . E . P . o tus Brock,

- L a well known ondon architect, on the vexed question of the age of the walls of Chester as indicated by

recent discoveries , and also the paper by Mr. W . de Gray

F so - Birch , on the called Ecclesiastical stone, read f 8 1 88 . be ore the Society of Antiquaries on December th, 7

In connection with this subject, it has been thought only fair to those who have taken an inter'est in the much d isputed question of the true age of the Chester walls, to

r hr bsole . . . S u eprint the two papers by Mr G W , read in

1 88 Of : Of 3 , on The City Walls Chester is any part them

R o m an ? : and on Deva its Walls and Streets, or Chester xii H S T I ORI CA L IN TR OD UCTI ON .

in the time of the Romans , which ﬁrst directed special

attention to the subject of the walls . By this means all those who have paid any attention to this question will

have the case put fairly before them , and can study the

S arguments used on both ides . In these two papers will

be hr l . S ubso e found the several statements made by Mr ,

which Mr. Loftus Brock took occasion to examine and

’ criticise. At the conclusion of Mr. Brock s paper an im

u portant discussion arose, in which many disting ished

antiquaries took part, amongst whom the late Mr.

Thompson Watkin , Sir James A . Picton , Mr. W . de Gray

- - . o o n be Birch , and Mr H dgkin , of Newcastle Tyne, may

mentioned .

The whole gist of this controversy turns on one or two

points . Both sides admit that the worked and inscribed

stones are clearly Roman , as are also the large stones laid

in such regular courses on the outside of the north

wall, overhanging the canal , and now exposed by the

who removal of the accumulated soil of centuries . Those

contend for the Roman origin of the walls Of Chester claim

in s itu that these stones are , in the very positions they

one were placed by the Romans themselves, at least

thousand ﬁve hundred years ago, and that they wilfully

despoiled their own cemeteries and used up the stones Of the temples and other large and important Roman build

Of s ings , in order to ﬁll up the interior portion the wall

who they were then building. Those, on the other hand ,

' assert that there is no Roman work now in s ztu allege that R L I TR D C I N H IS TO I CA N O U T O . mi

these Roman stones, which are built up in such regular

th e s courses on out ide of the wall , were placed there by

a Of mediae v l builders , who also made use of the fragments

Roman buildings and of the tombstones from the Roman

the cemeteries , in order to ﬁll up the interior of walls built i in mediae val times . The whole quest on is a very intricate o ne , and one that deserves to be thoroughly investigated. A few of the controverted points may perhaps be brieﬂy alluded to here.

In the ﬁrst place the stones on the outs ide of the north

. l wall are aid in such regular courses, that every architect is or builder, who has seen them , at once convinced that they must have been carefully dressed in the quarries to

c for ertain deﬁnite heights, before being used the wall .

This would therefore Show that those who placed them in their present position were those who originally had them

dressed in the quarries . But every one admits that these

stones are undoubtedly Roman and bear the tool -marks of

the Roman masons ; hence, if those who originally dressed

them in the quarries built them into the wall, as we no w

Of see them , then this portion the Chester walls is un d oubtedly Roman , and we see it now as the Romans left

ve it one thousand ﬁ hundred years ago. If this is not the

ae case, we are forced to admit that the medi val builders ,

ﬁnding portions of the old Roman walls in ruins, rebuilt

them course by course, or that they were at the pains o f

SO selecting stones of equal height, as to make the courses

as uniform and as even as they now are . In either case x iv H IS TORI CA L I N TR OD UCTI ON

this involves an assumption by no means easy to admit because it is obvious that a wall built of irregular courses

x would have been as strong as the one now e posed , and

would have been built at far less cost and trouble .

Secondly, that although this massive style of wall

building and the entire absence o f mortar are by no means conformable with what is generally understood to be

r Roman work , yet, on the other hand, they do not ag ee

with any undoubted medie val work with which we are

- familiar. It is, however, a well known fact that the walls

Isurium of , now called Aldborough, in Yorkshire, are built

o f large squared stones like those of Chester, and without

any bonding courses of tiles, whilst in France the ﬁne

walls of Arles are , as Mr. Roach Smith has pointed out in

olleeta nea A nti ua his C g , faced like those of Chester with

large square stones without any bonding courses of tiles . The' walls of many of the old Roman towns in France

he were laid without mortar, as were also some portions of t old wall of London .

“ Thirdly , that the practice of using up tombstones by the

Romans themselves is shown in certain well - known walls

in Rome itself, as, for instance, the tomb of the young

poet, Sulpicius Maximus , in the Porta Salara, at Rome,

and the handsome tomb of Eurysaces, the baker, and his

f . wi e, in the Porta Maggiore Both these are in the walls

of Rome, built by Aurelian in the third century, and f added to by Honorius in the ﬁ th. Again , too, the walls

of many of the Roman towns on the Continent, such as

H IS TORI CA L I N TR O O D UCTI N . o f the wall on the north side of the city should be carefully e xplored . Whilst there is no doubt that this would entail

x some little e pense on the corporation of Chester, yet the remains which might co nﬁdently be expected to be found l l would amp y repay any out ay. Already these discoveries have increased the number of the inscribed Roman stones l previous y found in Chester, during the past three hundred

f - years , rom ﬁve to thirty two, and the Grosvenor Museum has been greatly enriched by these valuable remains now placed there . And a museum full of the remains of those who erected the ancient city of Deva will ever be a con

stant source of attraction to visitors ; so that, if a utilitarian argument may be used , any money spent by the corpora tion would be amply refunded to the ratepayers by the

s V o f increa ed number of isitors which a museum , so full

rare treasures, would attract to Chester. Now that we know

that the north wall is full of Roman remains, none can say what unex pected discoveries might not be made and what

of new light might be thrown , not only on the history

Chester, but also on the history of the Roman occupation

of England . The letter of Canon Raine, of York, is well worthy of the serious attention of the corporation and

citizens of Chester, supported as it is by Mr. W. de Gray Birch and many other distinguished antiquaries and men

of letters . Canon Raine writes

I express the earn est desire of many in wishing that

the excavations at the walls o f Chester Should be con

tinned and every Roman inscription extricated . There H IS TORI CA L IN R OD T v T UC I 01V. x ii

can be no harm in rebuilding the wall pro

vided - the old face stones are used in the work . The ff vandalism , in my idea, would be in su ering the

inscribed stones to remain where they are. The

ancient history of Deva is a matter of the greatest

r consequence to eve y student of antiquity, and we ff l cannot a ord to ose the evidence, which these easily

t ff at ainable inscriptions would probably a ord . Surely this appeal will not fall on deaf ears ! Any of my readers who may wish to study the Roman remains found at Chester at greater length may be referred

to the following works . The late Mr. W . Thompson

’ R oma n Cites/tire 1 886 Watkin s , published in ; the various pape rs in the old series of the Tra ns actions of tile Chester

f o c stor c ociet A rc zw lo i a l a nd H i i S . g y , and in volume i of the

’ o l . urna new series ; Mr. C Roach Smith s papers in the j of

' tire B ritts/e A rc/zwolo ica l A ssocia tion I 88 - 8 g for 7 , and the

’ Picton s A ntiqua ry for the same years ; Sir James A .

e address to the British Arch ological Association , printed in their journa l for 1 8 88 ; and a fe w papers in the

A rckwolo ia . g , by Sir William Tite and others It now only remains for me to add that I am indebted

fo r &c . to my wife the drawings of the Roman tombstones , ,

with which this volume is enriched . They have all been

r ve y carefully drawn from the originals , and the drawings ,

before being used , have been compared with the stones themselves so as to insure the greatest possible accuracy .

The inscribe d and sculptured stones here ﬁgured , and the x i H IS TORI CA L I TR OD TI ON vi i N UC . others found during both series of repairs to the north

wall , are now all placed in the Grosvenor Museum , and

V can there be seen by any one isiting Chester, as the

Museum is open every day of the week, except Sundays .

EA RWA KER. J . P .

PENSA RN ,

A B N W E ERGELE, ORTH AL S ,

e tember I 888 S p , ,

\ DIA RAM ATIC S ECTI N OF TH E NORTh WALL. G M O \

The or na ra n of ic t s is a ac a nd ite co was igi l d wi g, wh h hi bl k wh py, plo tted from dimensions taken at various points when the wall was under o n re air and the exact os t ons of the scu t re mon menta and g i g p , p i i lp u d u l arch t r n s r o n o i ectu al sto e ecovered are Sh w n the plate facing page 4.

I . M W C t Sur e or C ester. ATTHE S J ONES, i y v y , h

Scale : nearly Qof an inch to a foo t. O F F I C I A L R E P O R T O N T H E D I S COV E RIE S OF ROM A N REM A I N S AT CH ESTER D R N F RST REPA R , U I G THE I I S N 8 ORTH WA L L 1 8 . TO THE , IN 7

B W E Y TH E ITY R EY R M I M ATTH E S ON . C SU V O ( R. . J S)

' R ea a a t!: October , 1 887 . I

Y n —I lord , ladies, and gentleme , have the honour to report that in my ofﬁ cial capacity I was instructed by the Improvement Committee (Alderman L o ittler, chairman) to make safe that porti n of the city wall h “ on the nort side, popularly known as one of the breaches ,

- of 16 6 . made during the siege Chester, 45 ” This breach , situate ﬁfty paces from the west angle of

oe f the Ph nix Tower, had been built in an in erior manner,

i . e . , with small stones on the internal and external wall r faces, with backing and ﬁlling in the body of small ubble in mortar ; the outer face set twelve inches in from the f Older wall right and le t of it, and having no tie or bond with the latter.

The stones were very much decayed , and as the face and B OFFI CIA L RE P OR T ON DI SCO VE RI E S OF R OM A N

body of the wall were parting from each other, immediate

action was necessary, more especially owing to its dangerous

position on the scarped rock , overhanging the Shropshire

Union Canal . This portion was at once taken down to the

level of the massive stone wall underneath, which proved

- on examination to be the sub structure .

It may be convenient here to state, to prevent any dis

putes and for future guidance and reference, that not a

S ingle stone, showing any characteristic workmanship, style,

- - k or period , was found in this stone and mortar wor , from

- V r the level of the sub structure upwards . e y small quan

tities of tile fragments were found , but coins , pottery, or other relics were remarkably distinguished by their absence

u d ring the whole course of the work .

- In the No . 9 course of the underlying sub structure

a massive w ll , the fragment of monumental stone numbered

No . 4 was the ﬁrst inscribed stone met with ; and , having 1 88 personally discovered , in 3 , the interesting stones now e in the Museum (and known as from Water Tower Stre t) , in

S S the underlying imilar old wall , ituated to the westwards

of the Northgate, the men were cautioned to be not only observant but most particular as to the handling of a ny

stone that might appear to be of value .

It was now deemed expedient, previous to rebuilding,

- f to thoroughly examine the sub structure, not only or

that which it might contain , but also as regarded its strength and capability to bear the new work proposed to

be built on it. Accordingly, with the kind permission of f V r . the e y Rev the Dean , a sha t was sunk close to the wall

’ - Six e in the Dean s Field to the solid rock, twenty f et in

depth from the top of the parapet wall . An opening was then made through the massive stone wall , in order to make a communication with the outer face, where a similar shaft had been sunk through the earth ,

OFFI CIA L RE P OR T ON DIS CO VE RI E S OF R OM A N

it being necessary to bond or tie the old and prese nt new

r i be work together, ce ta n stones had to moved , and while

e n j alously guardi g the old face and keeping it intact, some

ﬁf - e ty eight work d stones in all were got out . These are numbe red on the drawing submitted here

a S r with, which lso hows eve y course and the position of

in itu every stone when s . The centre line being drawn o n

can the plan to scale, measurements be taken therefrom ,

a e r and all the stones being numbered , it will be easy to sc

tain their exact position in the wall . The appendix to this report is a general description only

o rf nc of the stones, as perhaps it would be c nsidered pe u

r tory on my part to either fu ther describe them , or give an

O o n pinion as to their bearing recent discussions, seeing that papers are promised dealing with these subjects, and

in are included the programme of this session . Special mention may, however, be made of the stone , marked No .

“ ” 1 . 4, and known as the Marcus Aurelius Alexander stone

u I th f This was discovered on Aug st s , at a distance of ﬁ teen yards from the foregoing general work of repair, on the r ﬁf . teenth cou se It formed an outer face stone, with the i nscription inwards, and was bedded amongst stones like

. 0 ex lo itself, showing evidences of great decay N further p h ration has been made here, t ough a section showing the later and earlier walls is still left for the inspection of those who are interested in the subject. From the drawings of the cornices and the sculptured

- stones exhibited to night, some idea may be gathered of the splendour and grandeur of the buildings from whence they came, previous to being built in this wall to tell the story of the past. The other drawings submitted depict what is seen at the recent excavations, which I may also say agree with former ones, and I venture to think that by the cuttings Ca(IRS E l o 2

D AGRA M S H W N TH R P E W TH TH I O I G E ES ECTIVE COURSES OF STON , I E R M A N RE A I N IN I O M S S TU .

RE M A IN S I N TH E N OR TH WA LL A T CH E S TE R .

O e being left pen , great assistance will be given to arch o f logical searchers a ter truth . The pieces o f Samian ware and concrete now exhibited

f anteﬁ x were ound at the Roodee excavation . The was found during the intefcepting sewer excavation in 1 874.

f anteﬁx The numerous ragments of Roman pottery, ,

the &c. legionary tiles, marble, glass, Samian ware, , also on table, were found on the property of His Grace the Duke V ’ L of Westminster, near icar s ane, and I have the per

Of mission His Grace . to ask the Museum Trustees to accept the same . The Society is much indebted to the Right Worshipful the Mayor and the Town Council fo r their liberal instructions in regard to the work at the north wall . In concluding w this report, I have personally to ackno ledge the aid and assistance of many ladies and gentlemen ; and in connec L tion with the work, Mr. Wright, Messrs . edsham and

' r a em lo es Roberts, and the other co por tion p y also deserve a meed of praise for their care and zeal in carrying out their instructions . It may also be mentioned that the necessary work of repair would not have been so costly, had not extra labour been entailed in order to recover these

' has e ﬁ ected valuable memorials, and this happily been , f l without any destruction of the ace of the ancient wal ,

which we all so highly Cherish and venerate .

PPEND A IX .

No . cut

on stone . 2 . Sculptured stone, with two standing headless

ﬁgures, one with a bird in the right hand , the P f other with a sheaf ( ) in the le t hand . (See

O . Plate II . , pposite p

" 6 o n w . R u ded jamb of doorway, ith part carved

ﬁgure. OFFI CI A L RE P OR T ON DI SCO VE RI E S OF R OM A N

No. out 0 on stone . 1 . Sculptured stone representing two ﬁgures, one , a male with a gown and a stole the

other in a plain dress, each holding some 1 Object in the left hand .

2 . 3 . Stone base of pilaster

1 2 . . Angle pilaster caps

: 58 . Monumental stone

PVB LEG V MACED ET VIII AVG ET II AVG ET XX VV VIXIT A NNIS LXI A RISTIO LIB H F C

f Le t half of draped ﬁgure. Half-round coping o f gateway ; the centre carved

with the face of a god , probably Hercules . Three-quarter length nude ﬁgure of athlete f carved in high relie (white stone) .

a t inscri Monument l stone panelled , with his p tion :

D M

M . CLVVI . M A N I VA LENTIVS F O P IVLII

26 o f of . Part the body a large size carved male

ﬁgure with toga .

1 i ri . nsc 3 Monumental stone, with the following p tion :

T s is the so -ca e ecc es ast ca stone c has cause so m c hi ll d l i i l , whi h d u h contro er It was s este se era riters t at it re resente a man in v sy. ugg d by v l w h p d ec e as t ca v ments ence the nam n at it was not Roman but cl si i l est , h e, a d th m A arefu n ne be fo n on P at edie val in character. c l drawi g of the sto will u d l e ’

and M r. de ra B rc s a er on it ns on . 2 . VI . , G y i h p p up begi p 5 E I PLAT I .

FRA GM ENT OF A ROM A N TOM BSTO NE FOUND IN TH E NORTH WA LL

T E ITY H ESTER IN ISST. OF H C OF C ,

P RTI N TH E RIE! E A R MA N BUILDIN UND IN TH E N RTH O O OF F OF O G , FO O WA H E ITY CH E TER IN I LL OF T C OF S , SST.

8 . OFFI CIA L RE P OR T ON DISCO VE RIE S OF R OM A N

on stone . 2 0. Upper portion of monumental stone ;

ﬁgure reclining. 2 t 3 . Monumen al stone

D M M SEXTIVS CLAV BELLIC CLA CELEIA A (NN )O R V

(STI)P E N D .

Plaster angle caps .

Moulded cornice, with dentils .

- CO in Half round p g, with return angle .

Architrave or frieze.

n Dentil cor ice . L arge white stone, with low relief carving of the

hind quarters of some animal .

Splendid example of scroll frieze, with birds ,

introduced . (See Plate II . , opposite p . f Return architrave or rieze .

Splayed stone.

Return dentil cornice.

Low i or relief carving, white stone, nude warr or

athlete, with weapon .

Red stone, looped festoon carving. Monumental stone

L . A NNIVS L . F TRO M A RCEL

Richly carved stone cap or pedestal .

Return angle moulded cornice .

x Small splendid e ample, carved female head c niche or anopy.

Return angle moulded cornice .

Straight moulded cornice . E PLAT III .

P RTI N A R M A N T M BST NE UND IN TH E N RTH WA L O O OF O O O , FO O L H E C ITY E TER IN l8 8 OF T OF C H S . 7 .

RE M A INS I N TH E N OR TH WA LL A T CH ES TE R . 9

No. cut

Return angle moulded cornice .

Return angle moulded cornice. ” rv t Ca ing showing Genius , wi h trumpet and

c cornu opia. r t Monumental white stone, with this insc ip ion

D M

M . AVRELIVS ALEXA ND

PRA E(F) . CA ST . LEG . xx NA T

VI X A N . L II ( ) . XX

ICES . ET .

Upper part of monumental stone ; recumbent

ﬁgure, with a cup in the right hand , a child is

seated at the foot of the couch . (See Plate

III . , opposite p . Upper part of monumental stone ; recumbent P female ﬁgure, having ﬁshes ( ) in spandril,

and a scallop shell at the back of the head , with this inscription underneath (see Plate IV . O 1 8 , pposite p . )

D M

37 . Moulded cornice.

2 . L u 9 arge stone, with two draped standing ﬁg res

in recesses ; very much weathered . This inscription is underneath one of them (see V . 2 Plate , opposite p . 0) W 10 RE P OR T ON DIS CO VE RIE S IN TH E N OR TH A LL .

46. Dentil cornice .

1 . 5 Straight moulded cornice.

f U o f . 5 . A ragment of the pper part a Roman altar In no regular course the following have been discovered

1 9. Inscription

2 1 . Monumental stone with this inscription (see

I O . V . Plate , pposite p D M

FVRI . M Ax1 M I

M 1L . LEG . xx . vv

ST(IP . AN ) xx11

H . F . 0

Head of ﬁgure.

Fragmentary draped ﬁgure .

Cornices .

f of Several small ragments monumental stones ,

with traces of lettering. T H E RO M A N I N S C R I P T I O N S D I S ERED A T CH ESTER DUR NG TH E COV , I T T N TH WA LL FI RST REPA IRS O H E OR ,

IN 1 887 .

l Y W TH OM PSON WA TKIN . B .

( Read l otk D ecember , 1 867 . I

HEN I last had the pleasure of reading a paper e before this Society , some three y ars since, on ” of Facts connected with the Roman occupation Cheshire, I said that in the Roman age there had existed in Chester Of stately and classic structures, which all trace, above

” “ ground at least, had vanished , also that it was but little ” Deva we knew of the history of , but that much of that n history had to be disinterred, and no doubt eve tually would be disinterred , in the form of inscriptions .

S Ever ince then , I am glad to say, there has been a more Or less increasing interest taken in the Roman antiquities

n of this city, which has at last culminated in the gra d dis coveries made o f the inscribed and sculptured stones built

U the rt oe x p in no h wall, near the Ph ni Tower, discoveries

are f remarkable in themselves, and which now being ollowed

’ W t ad h ene t of his w n to M r. at n s at s a er has not h t e O i g ki de h , hi p p b ﬁ

correct ons and a t ons. It has o ever een caref rea o er one i ddi i , h w , b ully d v by o f his friends. I 2 R OM A N I NSCRIP TI ON S DIS CO VE RED D URIN G

up by other discoveries equally interesting. I hope they

in will still continue to be made. Hundreds of Roman

scri tio ns p are, as I have frequently said, built up in the

walls . It has long been a puzzling question , how is it that so few traces both of Roman architecture and Roman

tombstones have been found in Chester, whilst other large Roman stations yield them plentifully ? That is now being

— — ae answered baths and basilica Pr torium and Forum , have all been robbed , despoiled , and even demolished for the sake of their large and valuable stones in order that at

various times the walls might be kept in an efﬁ cient state . But I do not intend to- night to touch upon the question of the age of the walls— that question is being well threshed ” out elsewhere— and so I will say nothin g as to the time when these stones and the great number of tombstones

were removed and built into the wall . The stones more or less speak for themselves as to the grandeur of the buildings

from which they were taken , but the inscriptions require some looking into to make them reveal their hidden

n » meani gs . This is what I now propose to do, and I ven

ture to hope that, although my paper is literally ﬁnding ” sermons in stones, those sermons may not be found dry

and uninteresting.

- Some of the original stones are exhibited here to night,

r but others are too ponderous to be easily moved . Thei I inscriptions have, however, been carefully copied . No .

(No . is

L . A NNIVS . L . F TRO M A RCEL

f Though imper ect, this stone would appear to have con

The n m ers thi n rac ts are the ﬁi ial num ers cut on the stones u b wi b ke o c b , ’ o as to ena e t em to be rea en See M r. Matt e s ones s bl h dily id tiﬁed . ( h w J — Re rt . I I o po , pp . )

R OM A N I NS CRI P TI ON S DI SCO VE RED D URI N G

. S fo r f e Mr Charles Roach mith, example, is requently spok n

. S of as Mr Roach mith, the Charles or letter C . being

dropped .

be This will seen in the next inscription (No . which is

This is also, as regards the close of the inscription , imper

O - fect. It pens with the well known D M standing for ”

i e. . , To the gods, the shades, or To

” ' ' S Fla uza S a tum zua ra uomeu ' the divine hades, , the p not

. &c. f being given The age, , is broken o f. All that we can

' say is that the stone commemorates Madam Fla m a Sa tur ’ f u zua . f It appears, rom slight traces le t, to have borne abo ve the inscription a representation of the death - bed scene, as in many other instances .

’

. D M D zzs M m b . O a us No 3 (No whilst pening with ( ) ,

tribus gives us the and also the birthplace . It is, however, imPe rfect D

M SEXTIVS ' OLA V BELLIC GLA CELEIA A RVM X PEND

° and should be expanded : D( zzs ) M ( a u zbus ) M ( a rcus )

’ ’ ' ' S ex tius Cla u( a za B ellzd us ) Celeza A ( uuo)ru m or translated : To the

ex tius Bellicus of divine shades . Marcus S the Claudian

of a Ce leia o f o f tribe, (a native ) Claudi years age ” service. It is only recently that I have seen either this

of . stone or a drawing it From a rubbing sent, I concluded that the letter C was the end of the third line, which I ﬁnd CIA f it is not, and that was the commencement of the ourth , FIRS T RE PA I RS TO TH E OR TH L N WA L. 1 5

whereas it is GLA . I consequently expanded the end of

' o f B ellzccza the third and commencement the fourth as ,

' ' B ellzccza uus B ellicus part of the word . These are in reality

la C . The last abbreviation we have in other instances in

Cla udia Celeia c Orelli the case of the town or colony of , g , 0 1 GLA CELE No . 5 , where is used . The town which is

’ Czl now named ly, was in the ancient Noricum .

. . 2 its f No 4 (No 4) is a most interesting stone. On ace

of f it bears the representation a centurion and his wi e, the h latter on a smaller scale, as if in the background . Beneat f I the eet of the centurion is the inscription (see Plate . , frontispiece) D M M I AVR N E POS LEG XX VV CON IVX PIENTISSIM A F C VIX A NNIS L

ra 'uomeu The only difﬁ culty in this is the p . I opine that

‘ M A R fo r M a rcus the stone cutter has intended to give us ,

. r e somewhat ligulate, but has stopped One a ch ologist asserts that the stroke after the M is a well - known abbre

' viatio n ra uomeu llf a u zus for the p , but this is generally M ’ ; a small comma - like ﬁgure being introduced after the

' M ra uomeu M a nzus . Granting, however, that the p is rather

M a rcus than , the expansion would be

’ ° ' ' ' M a nzus A ur ( elzus ) N epos ceutu rzo Vzces zmw

' ' ' '

A uz L . the ura mt zx zl u s . . C ) . V To the gods shades

the Manius Aurelius Nepos, a centurion of Twentieth

L V V . egion , the alerian , the ictorious His most dutiful ” f r f f o . wi e caused this to be made. He lived ﬁ ty years

Upon the side of this stone is an inscription , which is, so h ' far . t e re resenta as recorded , unique in Britain Under p

' tions of an ascza (or ax e) and a malleus (a hammer or mallet) we have the words I 6 R OM A N I NSCRI P TI ON S D I SCO VERE D D URI NG

SVE A SCI A D

' or s ub a scza Under the axe (she) has dedi cated [the Numerous instances of this some what mysterious formula occur in the south of France and

CARVI NG AND INSCRIPTION ON TH E SIDE OF TH E STON E BEARI NG

I OF A C I A ND H IS WI E . P ate I THE F GURES ENTUR ON F ( l . )

L m elsewhere. Many are in the yons Museu . At Col chester and at Lincoln tombstones have occurred with the

' of ascza representation the , but without any allusion to it . f i We shall, however, gather more as to the sense o th s inscription immediately.

. 8 of No . 5 (No 5 ) is only the lower part what has been a grand monument, consisting of at least two large stones , the

in upper one, in addition to the commencement of the

has f - scription , probably borne a ull length (or nearly so) FI R R PA I RS TO TH E OR T A ST E N H W LL .

representation of the deceased . What remains of the inscription is

P B v M E V . LEG . A C D . ET

II . A VG . ET II . AVG . T . XX . VV V I . E VIXIT A NNIS LXI A RISTIO LIB H F C

Leaving fo r the moment PVB at the commencement of

' Centurio Le i om this inscription , the remainder is plainly, g s

ct VII] . A u usta et 11. A u us ta V. g ( ) g ( ) et

' ’ ' ’ ' ' X X lerza V Vzx zt a uuzs LX . V( a ) ( I . A rzs tzo

“ lib( ertus) lz( eres) A centurion of

M acedonica f the ﬁfth legion (surnamed) , and o the eighth

A u u s ta o f A u u s ta (surnamed) g , and the second (surnamed) g ,

’ f Va leria zctrix and o the twentieth (surnamed) V . He lived

- ris io f sixty one years . A t (his) reedman (and) heir caused

. L A u u s ta this to be made The Second egion , g , the L o f Twentieth egion , and a vexillation the Eighth Legion

A . D were in England in . 44, under the Emperor Claudius, and from continental inscriptions it would almost appear that a vexillation o f the Fourth Legion (likewise surnamed ’ ' zzc M acea m a ) was also here . It is quite likely (as the in scription is evidently o f early date) that the oﬁicer who has been commemorated by this stone served in each of the legions named in Britain , though, if so, a vexillation of the Fifth Legion must be added to those already known to have been in our island . I think the letters PVB at the commencement have been part of some such title as

' CVRA T OP PVB cura tor o eru m ublzcorum ( p p ) , and if the

o f upper part this stone is found , it will probably prove not

t of f only the tru h this, but that the de unct was a native of

f. Rome itsel Certainly, he was an important man in

Deva .

6 . 2 1 No. (No ) is on a tombstone, the upper part ofwhich represents the deceased lying upon a couch, with a cup or C 18 R OM A N I N SCRIP TI ONS DI S CO VE RED D URING

glass in his right hand , leaning upon his left arm , his head

o to the right, and a tripod table in front f the couch . (See

IV : Plate . ) The inscription is

D . M

FVRI . M AXI M I

ST XXII

H . E . C

’ ' ' D ( zzs ) M a uzbus ) Fu ri ( z) M axim z

' ' ' ' ' ' e zme V zctrzczs S tz eua ioru m Vzc s p X X II .

' ' “ m ur mi H eres F acieua u C a ) . To the divine shades of

n o f L Furi s Maximus, a soldier the Twentieth egion , the

V r - o f Valerian , the icto ious, of twenty two years service . ” (His) heir caused (this) to be made. We have here an

deiﬁcation the example of the (to a certain extent) of dead, the ma ues o divine f the defunct being named , as we often meet with it elsewhere. This is the second instance o f a

’ member of the gens F urza being named in a Chester in

the i r scription , other being on the altar to M ne va by

n Furins Fortu atus . 1 No . 7 (No. 4) is also interesting. A plain inscription within a panel ; it reads

D . M . M AVRELIVS A LEXA ND

PRA EF CA ST . LEG . . XX . Q Q NA T Q Q RVSC Q Q Q

' ' D ( zzs ) M au zbus M a rcus A u r( elzus ) A lex a na( er)

' ' ' P r¢f( ectus ) Cas t( rara m) Vzceszm a N a t( zoue)

A u uos LX X [I 1 ( ) To the divine shades .

W tk n d M r. a oes not ment on the ast ne It ma o e er be a e i i l li . y, h w v , dd d t at t s ine is ver zz n and t at out of t rteen etters we are on h hi l y pu li g, h hi l ly certa n of t ree CES occ rr n a o t the m e of the ne and ro a i h , u i g b u iddl li , p b bly fo e ET llow d by .

20 R OM A N INS CRI P TI ONS DI SCO VERE D D URIN G

f o f r the eet for inscriptions, one which is insc ibed , other is blank . The inscription , which is under

u V. ﬁg re, at present reads (see Plate )

(D)OM IT

. . VRNI A VIX XII . . N

h D omitia Sa turnina Vixit A nnos X II X L t at is, I It seems most probable that the ﬁgure above the inscription f is a emale, as in the other the garment is shorter and

o f portions two legs are visible , but both ﬁgures are much worn . The great value of this stone, however, consists in

of as cia the representation upon its side the (or axe) , com bined malleus 12 0 with what seem to be a (or hammer), a 2

scal ru m (or spade) , and a p (or chisel) ; and we have here all the implements necessary both for digging the grave and carving the stone. The inscription has evidently been

s ub ascia us re re dedicated , and the stone enables , by the p sentatio n f of the our implements, to understand that by

o f that phrase, it was not only the carving and dedicating the stone that was meant, as some writers have thought , nor yet simply the digging of the grave, as others have asserted , but both combined .

- . 28 No . 9 (No ) represents, again , a death bed scene the defunct commemorated being here in a semi -recumbent

u . posture upon a couch, with the us al tripod table in front

He is holding a glass in his right hand , and a child at the foot of the couch is in an imploring attitude. (See Plate

x III . , opposite p . Unfortunately, with the e ception of

fo r iis M a ni6us o ff. D . M D . ( ) ( ) the inscription is broken

The ascia and malleus are on the side of this stone also. f 10 . 0 In No . (No 3 ) we have also a emale, on a couch, in

- o f a semi recumbent posture. There is a sort scallop shell f ornament behind , and the tripod table in ront. All that is

FI R T R PA IR T H N R T A L 2 S E S O T E O H W L . 1

M D i left of the inscription beneath are the letters D. . for ( is )

M a nibus ( ) , and the end of the ﬁrst line, which has been I NA m f o f . ee , evidently the ter ination a emale name (S I V . . Plate , opposite p

. I 1 2 1 No (No . 5) in some respects resembles No . , naming ’ tribus aomus the and also the . It reads

D M M CLVVI M A NI VA LENTIVS FORO IVLII

i e. . B i zs M a nibus M a rcu s Cluvius M a rci Filius , ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )

A n iens i s tribu Va lentius Valentinus Faro I ulii TO ( ) or . l i . C uv us V the divine shades Marcus alentius, the son of ” A ni si ii of e n s Iul . Marcus, the tribe (from) Forum Several

o f Iulii places bore the name Forum , the two most prominent being the modern Ft ejus and the modern

ﬁrs - Friuli . It is most probable that the t named town was the birthplace of the deceased .

. 1 2 1 . No (No . 3 ) is interesting It is a monument erected to three young slaves by their master. The text seems to be, untying the ligatures

D IS M A NIBVS A TTA NVS N A TILIA NVS A N X PROTVS AN XI I POM PEIVS OPTATVS DO M INVS F C and I would read it D( i)is M a nibus A tta nus (A ) n( nos

os X ratus a n nos X I P om eius A tilia nus A n( n) F ( ) I . p

' ra vil Opta tus Dominus F( aci endum) C( u ) . To the divine

A ttanus A tilianus shades . (he lived) years, ten (or

P m eius tatus Pro tus . o O more) years, twelve years p p (their)

master caused (this) to be made. It seems evident that NVS the N S in the second line is ligulate, and there is pos 22 R OM A N I N SCRI P TI ONS D ISCO VE RED D URI N G

ibl Viz ic s y another numeral after the X in the third line.

is understood . This is the ﬁrst inscription found in Britain in which the word D ominus occurs in the sense o f ” master.

1 No. 3 (No. 4) is a mere fragment and much worn . It

seems to be, G XX VV

X . A N .

H . F . C

and has commemorated some member of the Twentieth

Le ion is Vices im a Legion , for we have part of the words g( )

V aleriae V ictricis Vix it A n nos ( ) ( ) , part of ( ) ( ) , and the ' initial letters of H ( eres) F( aciend um) C( u ra vit) His heir ” caused to be made .

N O . I am not sure of all the letters in this much i worn fragment . I am nclined to think they are

C F GLA SA V XXX

e ii F li s Sa n . i . . C a i u , ( ) ( ) in the second line

S a ua ria - o f would be part of the word , a well known town the Claudian tribe, and it is here in the normal place after

co n omen the g . The XXX are numerals, part of the expressed

e age of the deceas d . 1 “ VS In No. 5 we have nothing but , probably part of the

co nomen . g , and XXX part of the numerals of the age “ 16 No . is part of a large and ﬁne inscription , but beyond IF IE V the letters or , with part of above, we have nothing left . It has probably come from a building. 1 " No . 7 has been also a tombstone . Before it was noticed

n to be inscribed, the workmen had been chiselli g it to ﬁt it

1 ar nc u e in M r The inscriptions to which an as terisk is here afﬁxed e i l d d . ’ ones No . e n too orn and fra m ntar to be se arate num ere . J 59, b i g w g e y p ly b d

(See p . FI R RE PA I R T0 TH E OR TH WA LL 2 ST S N . 3

for again the wall . We have consequently only a few t letters left, of which nothing can with certain y be said , though several possible readings of some of them may be

attempted . “ 1 8 No . is also too small and worn a fragment to pro

n nounce deﬁ itely upon .

1 No . 9 (No. though its purport is clear, is much

o f worn , and some the letters are uncertain . The letters that can be positively identiﬁed seem to be D CIN CINI VETE RA NV VIX A N LXXX

CVRA . . A EL C A N D I

D zzs M a nibus It commences with the usual ( ) ( ) , but the

name of the deceased is doubtful . It has been rendered

Cincin ius . , but there is no such name known Still it is

possible that such a name may have existed . The stone

f co n omen is imper ect , and we have , no doubt, lost the g . We

can gather, however, that the deceased was a veteran of eighty years of age [vix ( it) a n( nos) LX X X and that the stone was erected by some one whose nomen was probably

liu IE s .

Such, then , are the inscriptions which have so far been

exhumed , with the exception of those which have only

been recently disinterred , during the repairs of the last few

weeks . Unlike the stones from buildings (though as to those

of there are exceptions) they are all early date, and the com

arative p state of freshness of most of them suggests that,

like tombstones in country churchyards , they gradually sank in the ground, or fell over on their faces (thus pre serving the inscriptions), until they were ruthlessly taken

not n 22 . See e o p . 2 A 4 R OM N I N SCRI P TI ON S I N N OR TH WA LL .

up by a race, to whom Roman tombstones were about the last thing to which consideration was shown . Centuries

s after altars to the heathen gods had ceased to be re pected , the memorials of the dead were still held in reverence, not only by law, but by common consent and by Christian

t . chari y Heathen invasion was , strange to say, the com m ence m e nt of their desecration , though at the same time it was a foreign race which carried it out, and the fanatical zeal of various professing Christian sects in later ages com

le e p t d that which the invader had begun .

However, they are still amongst us , notwithstanding they are removed from their original sites , and from their inscriptions we gather the nationality of some of the ofﬁcers and soldiers who garrisoned Deva ; we gather too that the

cas tru m slave owner also was represented in the . Syria, southern France, and the Adriatic shores sent their contin

an f gent here . On one stone o ﬁcer high in command , the

P ra ectus Cas trorum was f , who responsible for the forma

r tion and prese vation of the camps of the legion , either permanent or temporary, is commemorated . I hope that before the excavations are closed some tablet with a dedication to an Emperor, and bearing the name of his legate, may be found , as in other places . Chester at present is singularly devoid of an i nscription of that class ; but I do not despair o f yet seeing a tablet set up by the order of

arche olo the great Agricola himself. There is a mine of

ical g wealth still buried at Chester. Be it yours to remove the veil which has for centuries hid it from human eyes .

PLA T E VI .

PORTION OF A ROM A N TOM BSTONE ( DEP ICTING A ROM A N M ATRON

A ND H ER A TT ENDA NT) FO UND IN TH E NORTH WA LL F TH IT . O E C Y

OF C H EST ER, IN J ULY, 18 8 7 . N O T E S O N A S C U L P T U R E D S T O N E RECE N T LY FO U N D I N T H E N O RT H

WA LL O F T H E CI TY OF CH E STE R .

H BY W. DE GRAY BIRC , F. S. A .

I ( FROM T H E P ROCE E D NGS OF T H E Socnrrv o r A NTIQUA RI ES , D EC. Br a ,

HAV E the honour of exhibiting to the Society of

Antiquaries a sculptured stone— consisting~ o f the red sandstone common to the district— found on the 2 sth ofJuly

o f f last at Chester, at a depth many eet below the surface

Of of the ground . It formed one of the building stones the city wall in the fourth course above the rock . The subject sculptured on it is remarkable for having aroused a very considerable divergence of Opinion as to its date and meaning, and I have therefore accepted with great pleasure the kind Offer of the municipal authorities o f Chester city

(conveyed to me through Mr . I . Matthews Jones, the city v surveyor, to whom I enture to suggest that the thanks of this Society are due)— to allow me to place the stone itself before the meeting, and invite your opinion as to the origin and date of the design .

’

. M r. o nes S J drawings, here displayed , how

1 — — o f . A section scale one and a half inch to the foot

R r nt m n of the o n ep i ed by per issio C u cil . NOTES ON A SCULP TURED STONE

’ o f t the wall the ci y at the Dean s Field , where the sculp tured f stone was ound, standing on the rock bed , and partly

Of covered with a bank soil . There is a restoration of the parapet on the top of the wall which need not trouble us

on this occasion . 2 . An elevation of the stone courses with the sites of t cer ain stones marked . The stone under consideration is I No . , and was found lying down in the fourth course above the rock .

r I gather from the repo t of Mr. Jones to the committee in 2 th charge of the repair of the walls, dated 4 October, that he was instructed by the Improvement Committee to make safe that portion of the city wall on the north

“ ” side, popularly known as one of the breaches made

“ u A D 1 6 - 6 d ring the siege of Chester, . . 45 . This breach ,

t oe si uate ﬁfty paces from the west angle of the Ph nix Tower,

i e had been built in an inferior manner, . . , with small stones on the internal and external wall faces, with backing and ﬁlling in the body of small rubble in mortar ; the outer

O face set twelve inches in from the lder wall , right and left

of it, and having no tie or bond with the same .

The stones were very much decayed , and the face and

body of the wall were parting from each other . Immediate

r action was necessa y, more especially owing to its dangerous

position on the scarped rock, overhanging the Shropshire

Union Canal . This portion was at once taken down to the

level of the massive stone wall underneath , which proved

- on examination to be the sub structure . Not a single

stone, showing any characteristic workmanship, style, or

- - r period , was found in this stone and mo tar work , from the

- V sub structure level upwards . ery small quantities of tile

fragments were found , but coins , pottery, or other relics

1— 10 See pp . . 2 RECEN TL Y F OUN D I N TH E NOR TH WA LL . 7 were remarkably distinguished by their absence during the whole course of the work .

was It deemed expedient, previous to rebuilding,

- to thoroughly examine the sub structure, not only for that which it might contain , but also as regarded its strength and capability to bear the new work proposed to be built on it. Accordingly, with the permission of the Dean , a

’ Shaft was sunk close to the wall in the Dean s Field

- to the solid rock , twenty six feet in depth from the top of the parapet wall .

“ An Opening was then made through the massive stone wall , in order to make a communication with the outer face,

r h where a similar shaft had been sunk through the ea t , which had accumulated on the top of the scarped rock .

At this point, on the outer face, bedded on two footing f courses on the rock, was ound a splayed plinth , running f along the ace of the wall , and of similar dimensions and workmanship to that found elsewhere under the mas sive stone wall below the soil level .

“ In this opening the most important ﬁnds were made.

N O 1 The sculptured stone, . , exhibited here this evening, was found on the fourth course above the rock, and formed

- one of the building stones of the wall .

. 16 Sir James A Picton , in a paper read on the th

A rcha olo ical November last , before the British g Associa

o f tion , descriptive the recent excavations by the wall ,

oe states , with regard to the Ph nix Tower, where the breach was made

The wall here is based on the solid rock, which, within

e r e ndicu about twelve feet outwards , is scarped down p p

- ﬁv larly twenty e feet to the towing path of the canal .

n About three yards in height, above the rock, a slopi g bank of earth covers the base of the wall . The wall — — here as at the Kaleyards below the ground , about nine 28 NOTE S ON A SCULP TURED STONE

feet thick, is built with solid ashlar, with a slight batter

inwards . Above this the wall , eleven feet high , is com

o site p ; the outer skin is squared ashlar, the stones only

reaching partly through the wall , and left with a toothing

or zigzag ; the rest is rough rubble, with an inner facing. It is here that the bulk Of the moulded and sculptured ” stones were found . No medie val mouldings have been found among these

remains , and none are of disputed date except this one, all

others being universally accepted as Roman . I cannot,

however, agree with Sir James Picton , when he proceeds to state that if the stole-like garment on the larger ﬁgure

ae be ecclesiastical , it by no means follows that it is medi val , “ for Christianity being the prevailing religion before the

departure of the Romans, this sculpture may therefore be ” - n . Roma o Christian in its origin I do not think so, for there is no need to attribute any Christian origin to the

stone . The stole, as I will for convenience style this part

r of the dress, was pa t of the attire of a Roman matron ,

who is here, as I suggest, portrayed with a mirror in the f left hand , an object probably not unfrequently ound in f her hands during li e.

As for the stone itself, there are portions wanting on the

- right hand side and at the bottom . In its present con

dition it measures nineteen inches long, nineteen and

- three quarter inches wide, and ten inches thick . The feet

of the two ﬁgures are wanting, and possibly some acces

sories - on the right hand side , which would have made up

the dimensions of the stone, when perfect, to about two f eet square The band , or frame, which was left when the sinking or scambling ” was executed to obtain depth for

the relief, measures nearly two inches wide on the left side

margin and one inch along the top margin .

o f Almost the earliest notice this stone, as a relic that RE C N TL Y F O D I N TH E OR TH W’A LL E UN N . 29

d coul be attributed to Roman origin , was given in the

A thene u m 2 th of the 7 August, in an article descriptive of the visit of some Of the members of the British Arche o

s 22nd o f logical As ociation to Chester on the that month .

“ It is therein described as a sculptured stone, bearing full

u - length ﬁg res, one of whom wears a cloak and stole like

e bands, so exactly like the medi val representation o f a

’ bishop s vestments that at ﬁrst sight one refuses to believe in its Roman date . This implied assertion of a Roman date was shortly afterwards challenged by Mr. Thompson L Watkin , of iverpool (a writer on Roman epigraphy in

R om a n Cheshire Britain , and author of , and other works),

1 who had , indeed , on the 3th August, described this very

“ A cadem e stone in the y as probably a medi val tablet, with the ﬁgu res o f an ecclesiastic and a female sculptured upon

n f it . The exact age will , however, I thi k , be di ﬁcult to ” O determine. This statement of pinion comes almost as a f “ corollary rom his assertion , in another place, that the

n wall is not Roman i s itu in any portion . f In a letter addressed by me, shortly a ter the August

Liver ool D a i visit referred to above, to the editor of the p ly

P os t , and printed in that journal, I mentioned several reasons why I believe the sculpture to be Roman , chieﬂy

i o f ( . ) the scooping out the stone in order to obtain

— a sufﬁ cient relief practice not uncommon in Roman art, as those who are familiar with the Roman sculptures in the

f ew British Museum will admit . The room of Roman and Gre co- Roman bas-reliefs shows several instances of this particular treatment, which is so well known as really to need no argument o f mine to prove it ; (ii . ) the peculiarly

- cut cramp holes , which are quite Roman . Mr. Thompson

Watkin , however, adheres, throughout the controversy

o f e fo r which has arisen , to his attribution a medi val date

so - e this called medi val ﬁgure, and in this view he is NOTES ON A SCULP TURED STONE

followed by many antiquaries . For example, Mr. E . W .

‘ of 1 1 88 Cox writes, under date 4th September, 7

“ With respect to the stone commented upon by Mr. de

Gray Birch, I have examined it most carefully. I have compared it with the undoubted Roman sculptures stand

ing beside it, and others equally accessible, and I take it

e to be certainly medi val . This stone is most important

in deciding the age of the walls, because, naturally, a wall built of Old remains is more recent than the remains that

compose it, therefore it must be later than the latest

ascertained period o f its material . The two ﬁgures repre

an O sent ecclesiastic with a cope and stole, and an bject in is one hand resembling a chalice ; this latter defaced , but

Of f Of the outline the oot remains, and that the bowl con taining the consecrated wafer. The Object is not at all

‘ ’ ‘ ’ . bu like a lamp or a ﬂower The head is defaced , t there

of are clear traces a nimbus . The Other ﬁgure I do not f — take to be a emale, but a youth probably an acolyte .

o f The countersinking the ground , to give relief, which Mr. de Gray Birch says is characteristic of Roman work, and

e not of medi val , is not a feature conﬁned to classic or

- later work ; it is abundant in late Gothic work , especially

on tombs, to which, probably, the stone once belonged . By looking at the adj acent Roman sculptures his assertion is at once refuted . The ﬁgures and inscriptions on various Roman stones show both relief from the plane surface and

n countersinking, provi g that this feature is no peculiarity by which to distinguish Roman work. The tooling differs entirely from the Roman , and was wrought with a different tool . I venture to assert this with some conﬁdence, being

’ f of mysel accustomed to the use sculptor s tools . Is it at all likely that the cope, the stole, the nimbus, all very

on n of clearly shown this ﬁgure, to say othing the probable — — chalice all medie val characteristics are mere accidental

32 N OTE S ON A SCUL P TURE D STONE

A cadem : Sir Henry Dryden , in the y , says Some per

r sons asse t that the wall is not Roman , because one piece of sculpture o f two ﬁgures is (as they assert) medie val and

. t ecclesiastical If similari y of material , design , size, and

workmanship is any evidence, this sculpture is contem

orar p y with the rest of those found . It would be easy to u produce Chinese or B ddhist ﬁgures , which to some extent ” e resemble medi val ecclesiastics .

Mr . C . Roach Smith, in a second letter addressed to me ,

l oth under date of October last, states that he considers

o f the second ﬁgure holds a pet cat, the head which is

o f apparent to him . He says also that Mr. Blair, South

’ Shields, tells him he has seen photographs at Dr. Bruce s

of this stone, and both he and I (Bruce and Blair) agree

that . it is, beyond all doubt, Roman . In another letter

. : t Mr Smith says Both are girls, one wi h a mirror, the

other holding a small animal .

. for Mr Blair, to whom all antiquaries are indebted the thorough and masterly investigation he has recently made o f the fertile Roman cemetery in the district o f South

: Shields , writes of this stone thus To place the subject on a proper basis , I think you should insist upon one or

Of two the other stones similar in design , and which are of

S undoubted Roman workmanship , being sent with it to how ”

&c . how alike they are in every respect, material, design ,

f u Mr . Blair thinks the aces of the ﬁg res have been f mutilated, as in almost all cases , rom a superstitious dread

- o f in a post Roman people, certainly not for the purposes

o f f walling, as the level the aces would not be higher than

o f the edges the stone. But this can hardly be the case, fo r the stone was found in the Roman wall already mutilated before its incorporation into the work . I have not, however, asked the Chester authorities to send me any o f the f the other sculptured stones ound in north wall , for R CE TL Y FO D IN TH E ORTH WA LL E N UN N . 33

n n Of Mr. Blair has ki dly se t me a sheet small drawings Of

the stones , which have been categorically described by Mr.

M . Jones in his report referred to at the begi nni ng of this 1 paper. Several of these bear comparison for treatment

- with the stone under consideration . The dove tailed cramp - holes resemble those found on other stones taken — d from the wall the material is i entical, viz . , the red sand — stone Of the locality and I believe that the tool - marks

’ and method of sculptor s art disclosed by close examination “ indicate nothing but Roman work .

As for the details, the hair, or the little that is left of

hair, on the larger ﬁgure seems to be worn long down to

the collar, and is waved or plaited as in the smaller ﬁgure.

o f I see no trace nimbus , although Mr. Cox , in the passage

I have just read , speaks strongly on the presence o f this

e . mblem The cloak is large, and there is nothing about it which militates against its Roman origin . The stole or band (which I will call for convenience a stole) passes over

arm - the , and across the shoulder blades behind horizontally,

- and not over the collar bone, as it would have been worn in

medie val days by a clerical personage. The mirror in the left hand of the larger ﬁgure is very clear its handle with

the - i knob at end , and the shoulder bar at the place of nser tion of the tang into the handle, are unmistakeable. These

Of peculiar ecclesiastical vestments the Middle Ages, the

in surplice and stole, have their prototypes the costume of classical times . Another peculiarity is the treatment of

- 1 10. See pp. M r B a r has o nte Since this paper was read . l i p i d out an illustration of a ’ ‘ ’ e lda d to m stone in M . de Ga mont s A b c ire A rcli éolo ic vol. i. . 0 b u g , , p 49 , r r nt a re in an arc e recess ear n a ress s m ar ep ese ing ﬁgu h d , w i g d i il to that of the s - a e m e e a r est and not on so but he has a c al ce in hi o c ll d di v l p i , ly h i s right

an or rat er w at the m e -a e a ocates of the C ester stone ou h d , h h iddl g dv h w ld call l d Of A s re ar s the a e of t s t r one ; the face is a so knocke f. g d g hi he e can be no ” est on as it is nscr e D TICILIJ E M . a on the to . qu i , i ib d, l g p D 34 NOTE S ON A SC ULP TURE D S TONE

- the drapery by a peculiar kind of parallel roll work . This is well shown in a Roman sculpture discovered at Carlisle

' 1 8 ou rnal o tile B ritts/z A rc/ze olo ica l in 79, ﬁgured in the j f g

A ssocia tion . . . 10 . , vol xxxv , p 4 There is, too , in this latter monument a border or band enclosing a sunken ﬁeld in fﬁ which the e gy stands in relief.

Westro Mr. Hodder pp, writing of the Catacombs , states 1 that many of the paintings are probably intended for

portraits of the persons interred , surrounded by paintings o f scriptural subjects as indications o f the faith of the

deceased , who is usually represented in the Oriental attitude

o f prayer, and attired only in a dress closely resembling the

surplice and stole. The surplice is sometimes white, the

emblem of purity, sometimes red , as washed in the blood

s Of of Chri t ; and the stole is the emblem servitude, the ” yoke of Christ, over the shoulders . I am indebted to Mr.

Jones fo r drawing my attention to this passage . Whether the paintings of persons in surplices and stoles ’ are to be referred to the early— say the third century— stage o f the

— n Catacombs , or the later eighth or inth century, I have no knowledge but if these details are to be interpreted as

pointing to a Christian element in the sculpture, conceding e it to be Roman , th n its importance is increased a thousand f old , for it stands practically alone as a genuine relic of a

l e cu tus strenuously denied by almost every arch ologist, mainly from the fact that hitherto it has received none of the support with which the occurrence o f Romano - Christian

British antiquities should and must invest it .

WestrO arl and I m eri al Rome. Lon on 8vo . 188 M . H odder pp, E y p d , 4,

20 . p . 3 9 r a nt n s of t s n see Raff. Gar cc Vetri om ati di u re in oro Fo p i i g hi ki d u i, ﬁg c i De miteri ristian i d Roma Roma to 186 tav. . . 1 and trovati n ei ci , , 4 , 4, i ﬁg

a Solterranea cristiana Roma fol. 186 tomo ii . tav. xx . tomo Rossi , Rom , , 7 ,

xx i . tavv. x . xiv. x iii . v ii RE CE TL Y F OU D IN TH E OR TH WA LL N N N . 35

The controversy as to the date of the city walls still rages, but I think that in some respects this sculptured stone is the key with which we may at least unlock some of the secrets connected with them . If it be that Mr. Watkin ,

hrubsol . S e . Mr , and Mr Cox, and their followers are right in attributing it to medie val times after A D then l — it follows that the cyclopean walls of Che ste r built more R oma no of ﬁne squared stones set together with very close joints and no mortar— a city eminently teeming with

u o f ndoubted Roman remains a ﬁne character, as is evinced

by the important collections , well cared for in the Grosvenor Museum— cannot be of greater antiquity than the stone which has been taken out Of its fourth lowest co urse into

r which it was set at the time o f building. On the othe if — hand , it be made clear and I call upon the Society to — if h decide this point it be made clear, beyond doubt, t at

ecu the stone, notwithstanding its apparent novelties and p

liarities , is Roman , then I think we are entitled to hold that the wall itself which contained it and many other

o f Roman sculptured stones , not one which , with this soli

tary exception , has been challenged by the gentlemen f i above re erred to, and which possesses the three pecul ar

o f — o f characteristics Roman wall want mortar, massive

— o f blocks, and ﬁne joints is indeed a Roman monument

the very highest value for its many aspects .

Much has been written on the wall , but not always have f the writers observed accuracy in their research . In one O

o f the latest contributions to the literature this subject, the

description of Caerleon , in South Wales, co . Monmouth ,

Giraldus Cam bre ns is f by , has been trans erred to Chester

For the two n s Of Roman a s I M rs de ran a are l of ﬁn ki d w ll ( ) u g d pp i , e

s are stone 2 o r ft. 1 o r 2 ft. t c xta osées sans ciment and 2 qu d , 3 , 4 by hi k, ju p , ( ) M urs de etit a are of sma stones encr ste in mortar see De Ca mon p pp il, ll u d , u t,

bécé i re vo . i . 2 A da , l . , p 5 . 36 NOTES ON A SCUL P TURE D STONE

because of the use by Giraldus of the Latin periphrasis

Uros Le ionu m 1 g in reference to that city, notwithstanding that the uros is declared by the chronicler to have been forti ” ﬁed coctilibus per Romanos muris , an explanation which ought to have put Sir James Picton on his guard against

“ so remarkable an error. It is true that the civitas quae ” K arle io n Brittannice et Lea aceastre dicitur g g Saxonia,

H ovede n of , relying on the Saxon Chronicle which occa

s io nall — y transmutes names in a poetic crucible is Chester,

“ and Higden expressly mentions civitas Carlegio un sive Lege ce stria quae modo Cestria dicitur but I am inclined h to suggest t at in some instances at least Holt, in Den bi hshire g , may with great probability be intended and the

- variant forms of place names attributed now to Chester,

L - now to eicester, in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, are very

much alike . As for Holt, Camden states that the ancient

s m Leonis Ca tru . was on the river Dee, opposite Holt Castle

u Roman antiq ities are frequently found here, whence it is supposed to have been a Roman station . The fortress

cas tra Le ionis here, according to some, was called g , or the

L castell Llion castle of the egion in Welsh , at a later time m for cas t e o L ions istaken the l f .

’ It has, I believe, been suggested by one antiquary at

re re least, that this sculptured stone may be part of a p s e ntation o f Dew M a tres the , but in the newest work

on these divinities, which is found in the current number

’ o f the jalzr- Buclte r des Vereins von A ltertlzumsfreu naen

im R/zein nde la . : , heft lxxxiii ( Bonn Marcus, under title of Der M iitte r Oder Matronen Kultus

iral u Th r nam e of Caer eon i This is a false derivation by G d s . e p oper l s

Caer Llion as it is a a s foun in our more anc ent M SS. The s n cat on , lw y d i ig iﬁ i of Llion seems to be streams torrents or ﬂoodin s and the sit at on Of the , , g , u i — ’ ace r a nam is on the an s of a r er. G nn s N en nius pl which bea s th t e b k iv u , 102 p . . E N TL Y F O D I N H N OR T W RE C UN T E H A LL . 37

m aler De nk . und seine , by M Ihm , I see little or nothing

r that can be ve y critically compared with this stone. The

M a tres not unfrequently are seated, and carry baskets or b ’ f . N O dishes O fruits . 345 of I m s exhaustive list of extant monuments dedicated to the honour of these D ee is from

: DEA BVS Chester, and it bears the explanatory inscription

V r t M A TRIB . or . nsc La . . S Ihm takes it from the C p I . vii

1 68a , but it has no resemblance to the work on the stone f be ore us . I am more inclined to see in this disputed monument a rudely- carved iconic ﬁgure of a deceased Roman provincial lady with her daughter or servant beside her. It is to be hoped that some day the lower part of the sculpture may be found , bearing an inscription to settle the points of controversy. But the prime and paramount interest is not whether the ﬁgure be a divinity or a mere mortal , but whether the work be Roman or medie val . The following letters relating to the stone under notice were also read

2 2 L 4 , West Derby Road , iverpool , h 8 t 1 8 . December 7 , 7 D ear Sir,

O . I bserve that Mr W . de Gray Birch is to read to morrow night a paper on the peculiar sculptured stone recently found in the north wall of Chester, and that the stone itself is to be exhibited . In the A t/zenwum O f the 26th November there is a com m unicatio n from Mr. Birch on this stone, in which he says that whilst he holds it to be of Roman date I hold it to be

e medi val . This is somewhat inexact, and I have so stated it to be in some correspondence I have had with Mr. Birch in Liver ool D i P a ost. the p ly I have there stated , and again

os t- R oma n repeat, that I believe the stone to be p , but I will

ﬁx no date . My idea O f the medie val period seems to 38 NOTES ON A SC ULP TURED S TONE

differ from that of Mr. Birch considerably in the date of its commencement as well as (probably) its duration .

“ As it might be understood in the discussion to- morrow

e o u that I pronounced it medi val , I beg that y will com m unicate Of this letter to the meeting the Society. I may add that I know of about eighty arche ologists and architects who have either seen the stone or a photo

- graph of it. About exactly one half o f these deem it post

— o Roman the others Roman . But every ne (with two exceptions), of whatever age they think the stone, consider f 1 the ﬁgure on the le t (minus its face) to be that of a male . ’ Mr. Roach Smith s view, I believe, is that it represents a female holding a mirror. But though if the stone were unanimously admitted to

e be medi val , it would prove that the wall whence it was

e taken could not be earlier than medi val times , still , if it

r were conclusively proved to be Roman , it could no mo e affect the question of the date of the walls than the numerous Roman tombstones and sculptures which have

been found built in them . The opinions of its age which I have heard expressed vary from the eighth to the end of the eleventh or be ginning f of the twel th century . f f I remain , dear sir, yours aith ully,

“

H M P N A TKI N . W. T O SO W

W . H . St . John Hope, Esq .

Temple Place, Strood, th 1 88 December s , 7 .

My dear President, I have before me a photograph Of a sculptured stone

take n » out o f o f the Roman wall Chester. It is broken

The omcial report made to the Chester City Council also states it to

e e . be a mal . (Se p

A E W LL T H E G OF T H E A S OF C H E ST E R, W I T H RE FE RE N CE S TO RECE N T D I S I N C U SS O S .

BY E . P. LOFTUS B ROCK,

IR ea d [ Otis ya n ua ry ,

WI LLINGLY accepted the invitation of your council to read a paper to thi s Society on the walls of your ancient city. When this was proposed to me it was not k nown that an able and exhaustive paper on the subject , by Sir James A . Picton , would be forthcoming ; m and it is possible that, had this been known , y invitation

would not have reached me . As it is, however, I fear the subject has been already discussed and may be considered

- as settled . It only remains for me to night to review, w here on the spot, before you who kno all the local sur

roundings , some of the arguments I have used in public

correspondence.

I can hardly, perhaps, expect that you will consider this

an interesting paper, for it will deal entirely with a mass of

technical evidences . It is , however, only these that can be looked to if we would extract the secret of the age of the work from the walls themselves ; and I must throw

myself upon your indulgence while the task is pursued .

TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL OF CH E TE S S R . 41

It need not be necessary to occupy time in the discussion

of the question, Were there any Roman walls to the

Roman city of Deva ? Yet it r is necessary for the com plete ne ss of my theme that we Should start with the

a certainty th t there were such walls , leaving for the moment

their actual positions out of the question . Mr. Roach Smith has conclusively shown that all the principal Roman

fo r cities were walled , and Deva, being the home a long

O f L a period the Twentieth egion and a city of import nce, would O f necessity not be destitute Of the defences com

mon to other cities . We can tell by analogy , therefore,

a that there were Roman walls . Ap rt from this we can tell

almost certainly by the arrangement of the principal streets ,

at right angles to one another, which still continues , that

h S Of ad . their plan the frame, so to peak , enclosing walls

A comparison of the plans of other Roman towns , an

Of elongated square , as some them are, but not all by any

me S w ans, ho s that the lines of the present walls of Chester

O f are not unlike those such towns as Colchester, Caerwent ,

s Burgh Ca tle (as originally built by the Romans) , and many

others . These are all more or less of a parallelogram , with

the four angles rounded . We thus , by analogy , advance

the inquiry a step further. While there is everything to justify the belief that Roman Chester was walled , there is nothing unreasonable in supposing that the general plan of the present walls is fairly like what we might expect to

ﬁnd enclosing a Roman city . A step further may be taken by showing that the existing walls do actually stand on the lines of those of Roman date

e . by two inter sting facts The north gate of Chester, taken

Of down at the beginning this century, is known to have had a Roman foundation upon which the modern gate is 6 . a 1 built The east g te, taken down in 7 7 , had its well known arches clearly and conclusively of Roman work A GE F E WA OF CH E TE R 42 TH E O TH LLS S ,

f manship . Both o these gates are in line with the north

s f and east wall respectively, and it is di ﬁcult to arrive at any other conclusion than that the gates where built to be

passages through walls . If so, it is more likely that the present walls are on the exact Old lines of the ancient

e ones , than that they were only a few feet more or l ss away

e t e from the pr sen positions . This much th y might be , but the existence of the gates would not allow them to be

Of Old s more. The retention the foundation would be a reason to induce any rebuilde rs to keep to the Old line s ff rather than to go a little o them . Were any great change

in position needed , the gates would have to be altered to

suit it , and this, we have seen , was not done .

Analogy with other places will help us yet a step more .

s s With the exception of only a few instance , uch as Roman

Canterbury and Roman Rochester, there are no Roman walled cities in England which have not preserved some

Of tradition or trace the courses of their walls , although in

e it most of them actual remains exist . At Rochest r is all

e but certain , by analogy, that the medi val walls actually

stand on the Roman base. Chichester, until four years S ago, was another city without a trace, as many aid , of its

Roman walls . We had excavations made, and the Roman

foundations were revealed , perfect and complete, and

e supporting the present walls of medi val date. These considerations render it evident that it is not usual for the trace of Roman walls to be lost in our English cities, and that it is usual for portions to be extant .

It may not be undesirable, before I pass on to a minute survey of the walls of your city, to make some remarks personal to myself.

at. I arrived Birkenhead in August last, in consequence of the visit of the Britis h Arche ological Association to

Liverpool, having purposely avoided giving much attention FE RE CE TO RE CE T DI C O WI TH RE N S N S USSI NS.

to recent controversies relative to the age of these walls .

It had been at a time, many years previous, that I had read

’ - Mr. Roach Smith s well known paper claiming a Roman

r date for a g eat part of them , and his items of evidence

f . were, there ore, not vividly before me I had in my hand ,

- r however, a paper written by a well known local antiqua y

o f and geologist, whose interest and appreciation ancient 1 to work we all must admire. It is but fair say that my

’ r remembrance of Mr. Roach Smith s theo y was inﬂuenced

the SO by that paper, and more since I knew that he did

not possess, necessarily, technical knowledge of masonry ,

nor had he had the beneﬁt of any local residence. It was with these feelings that I undertook to guide our party during their visit , and to make myself conversant with a subject of such extreme importance it was of necessity

incumbent upon me to study the walls themselves . My

work , cheerfully rendered to the Association , ofinvestigating

the buildings to be visited , speedily led me to the ﬁrst item

Of of evidence, which shook my belief in at least one the

f r statements made in the paper re er ed to . It was with respect to the supposed structural impossibility of your Cheshire red sandstone to resist the action of the elements

for more than three or four hundred years at the most . At Bebington Church I found the well - known tool - marks of

Norman date remaining on the external walls, in full ex

osure . n p to the south and the west The sto e, being so

- in perfect as to show the easily obliterated tool marks, dicated that there was at least some red sandstone in the

1 For conven ence of reference it m a be state t at a s mm ar of t s i , y d h u y hi a er rea to the Soc et on Decem er 8th 188 has een rawn th e p p ( d i y b , 3) b d up by

a W hrubsole and will be foun in vol. . of th ut or M r. G . . S e h , , d i ’ o t ou m a l T is s mmar has a so een t e N ew Series of the S cie y s y . h u y l b printed in the A ppendix to the volume on Roman Rema ins recently fou n d TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL OF CH E E R 44 S ST , county that had resisted the elements for double the time stated . The stone has never been disturbed since its erec tion , and it is likely to exist perfect for many more hundreds of years . At the adjoining village of Bromborough , in the

V icarage grounds, is a collection of ancient red sandstone carvings removed from the old church, demolished shortly

f the; a ter beginning of the present century. There are

Of several examples of interlaced work Celtic type, testifying

s Of to the inﬂuences of early Chri tianity, of a style design

e which does not come to us from Augustine . Th y are doing the unworthy duty of ornamenting the garden as rock work, and while we may be thankful that their pre

rv se ation is possibly due to this cause, we may express regret that their extreme importance does not cause their removal for permanent preservation into some secure place of shelter. These stones , notwithstanding their bad usage, are perfect . The sandstone has not yielded to the inﬂuences of the weather, and, like the walling at Bebing

i n as t . ton , is likely to last for centuries It has bee stated , proof of the rapidity with which the local sandstone decays, that the remarkable quartz pebbles found in its material are not unfrequently found standing out from the su rface of stones worked only eighty or one hundred years ago .

At Eastham Church , next to Bromborough, there is some

- n good sixteenth century walli g in a pale red sandstone , and many pebbles are found on the surface . These were

O the ﬁrst that I saw, and careful bservation convinced me

f o f that the sur ace the stone had hardly decayed at all , but that the masons had left the pebbles projecting wherever a they met with them , a sensible pr ctice which, I afterwards learned , is continued to our own day, and hardly ever de parted from . Coming to Chester itself, the Dee Bridge , erected in place o f its prede cessor in the fourteenth ce n

e tury, is constructed of good red sandstone which, consid r

TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL OF CH E TE R 46 S S ,

o f with percolated earth . The beds the stones are truly worked, very even and neat , and there is no mortar, except that the rock base has been prepared by a layer of mortar L laid on it . ooking at this portion of the wall, it seems

“ ” an S impossible to detect y ign of the wall being double, or of the m asonry having such wide joints that a man could put his arm into them . This description must apply to either the work above or of some portion that I have not seen . The courses are of varying heights, and the beds of w the stones are laid fairly horizontally, ith a tendency to follow the undulating nature of the rock on which the wall f is built . There is a cham ered plinth now buried beneath accumulated earth . The stones are neatly worked to a face in front, still perfect, but there is no face behind, for

o end the st nes irregularly, some projecting beyond the others . This shows conclusively enough that the inner f face was never worked air to be seen . It is at the point shown on the section , backed up on the city side by a bank

fo r of earth, which accounts the uneven nature of the work , and we may conclude that this bank is part Of the original

r const uction . Above the plinth of three courses the wall rises to the height of seventeen courses of the construction

. n Off already named There is then a rou ded set , and above

n this there is a change in the mode of buildi g. Partly on the massive wall of masonry and partly on the earthen bank,

n n w with no sort of fou datio except what the wall gives, ith

f n no extra ootings or projecti g course on the city side, rises

- w the poorly built all , which we have seen from a distance.

ff r Mark the di erence of its const uction . It has an inner and an outer face of rough squared stones not in all cases laid horizontally, but in most laid random , the space

n f betwee the two aces being ﬁlled in with rubble, after

e f the style of all the medi val walls o Chester. It is built

o and w with mortar not over go d . It is in ith work of

E CE N T DI I WI TH REFE RE NCE S TO R SCUSS ON S. this nature that the repairs’ visible from a distance have been effected .

n The construction of the base bei g so peculiar, it is well I to dwell upon it at length . am willing to admit that it is

t and unlike any o her city wall in England, its formation

r makes much of the recent discussion ve y reasonable . The construction adopted must have required forethought, and correspondence with the workers at the quarry. The builder must have set out his rod , determining the heights

Of fo r the varying courses, while the stones are of equal height to each course, they are not the same, one course with the other. As set out, so must they have been worked . at the quarry . As worked , so must they have been

and delivered , sorted , built. Now, it is agreed by the greatest number of those, who have taken part in recent discussions ,

o f that the face stones are Roman workmanship . Indeed ,

inco n no other conclusion can be arrived at, for they bear testable evidence that they have been fashioned by Roman

- - hands . They have well deﬁne d and varying tool worked patterns , and they have in some cases peculiar lewis holes h . o w of no modern form These are T shaped, but used I cannot tell . Certainly they could not be hoisted with the lewis now in use. It is in this part of the wall that the extraordinary collection of moulded , inscribed , and sculp tured Roman stones has been found— a collection which is remarkable, not only for its interest, but for the enormous quantity met with in such a small space . These stones were doing duty with the other walling, several of them appearing on the face of proper height with the other courses . Many of the other plain stones bore evidence of some prior use, but their heights accorded with that of the f courses in which they were ound . We have thus evidence that the builders of the wall had these stones to their hand

e f n b ore comme cement, and that they studied their sizes . E A G H E WA LL OF CH E TE R 48 TH E OF T S S ,

It may even be that the existence Of the se stones and others yet to be found regulated the heights of the courses

out e e when at the quarry for the wall . The evid nc s of the masonry lead me to conclude that the work was leisurely

executed , and well studied before commencement, the

builders commencing, as Sir Henry Dryden has well said ,

with the Roman sculptured stones . w If we examine the position of the upper all , the section shows that it was so placed by builders who had but little knowledge of statics and who were very careless of their

f - foundations . The effect O this upper wall is to thrust out the lower one ; and it must have done so but for the excel

lence of its construction . The latter is an admirable piece

“ ” of masonry, still perfect, and not at all like the ramshackle wall surrounding the wigwams of some N ew ! ealand

r f savages, to which it has been ve y un airly compared . But it is time to turn to some objections that have been expressed . It is said that the base wall has itself been underbuilt, probably, it is supposed , to carry it down to the

— a r rock very necessa y thing to do, if done properly . One friend has suggested that this was done when the canal

for was dug. What more likely than the Roman stones from some prior wall , or from an amphitheatre on the opposite bank, to have been found in the excavations , and used there in the necessary underpinning ? I reply that the stones in the wall are all uniform ; their edges Show no

S - ign of any such ill usage as a fall into a moat would entail , and a burial there for perhaps much over a thousand years .

an ff t infal Nor is there y di erence in colour, as here would libl y have been ; but what is even more to the point, there ff is no di erence in the general range of the joints in height.

But it is said that the upper wall is the older of the two,

w of and that the lo er wall , although built Roman stones , is s a mere buttres wall to that above it. The date of this WI TH RE FE REN CE TO RE CEN T D I C I ON S S USS S. work is assigned either to the period of the Civil Wars or

later, when breaches were made, and afterwards repaired

e by forced labour, Roman stones b ing dug up from then

existing Roman ruins , and the sculptures in cemeteries

disturbed by the siege works .

O This is a long series of bjections, and each item has

been strenuously insisted upon . They are capable of being

answered , however, with very great ease .

The lower wall is not a buttress wall , for no mason would

have built it so . Had the wall above it been ﬁrst erected , he would have proceeded to underpin it by placing his new

wall completely beneath and not partly at one side of it .

fo r But the upper wall could never have been erected ﬁrst, it would have had to stand on an earthen bank of made

e earth , with a rapid slope down to the dge of the ditch ,

scarped in the solid rock . Would any builder have been rash enough to risk such construction ? Is it possible to conceive such a wall having been built ? It would not have

. f lasted the soaking of a single winter There are, there ore ,

at the outset two structural impossibilities . The slope o f such a bank , with the best angle that could be given it,

- me would be ﬁfty two degrees . I have asured it from the lowest point of the upper wall to the extreme edge of the scarped rock of the Roman ditch . No bank of any

material except rock , and certainly no bank of made earth , could stand for any length of time supporting such a wall . But it would be necessary to have some sort of ﬂat base to

e build the wall upon , and this would make the angl worse

s by so much . There are many points of this discu sion that have to be treated with becoming reserve and caution ,

but this is one that does not admit of any doubt . No such

O wall could be built on any such bank . The pinion that

the upper wall is older than the lower cannot be sustained . if Again , any such work as the lower wall had been built E 0 TH E A GE OF TH E WA LLS F CH E R 5 O EST ,

during the Civil Wars, or of the time of Queen Anne, is it not reasonable to suppose that there would have been some record, for see what the structure shows us must have been done ? The under wall of massive stones may be traced in several other portions, as we shall see, in various other parts of the city. In some places these are several courses in height, in others only a few. All above is walling that bears evidence of having been repaired over and over again . But if the lower courses are really of the date of the Civil

r e Wars or later, it means that not only was the wall built ° wall has from its base upwards then , but that the since f again been rebuilt all but these ew remaining courses .

Surely such a series Of rebuildings is incredible. I have been at some pains to show that the cost of rebuilding the

oe w wall from the Northgate to the Ph nix To er, a distance

- of three hundred and ninety four feet, omitting the breaches

and supposing all the stonework to be available, without 2 60 cost , from some older work, would amount to , 5 ; and

if this comparatively small length were extended , the cost

of the whole wall would be simply enormous . I have shown

the minute nature of the corporation accounts, and I have called for some notice of entry of any such heavy e x pe n

i u r d t e as this work would have entailed . I have had no res

o nse . p If any such accounts were ever in existence, record

must remain . None is produced . In like manner, I have taken the cubic contents of the stones acknowledged to be

Roman in the small length of wall referred to . There is sufﬁ cient to build a tower as high as that of your cathedra l f and fourteen eet square, solid . I have already shown the c nature of the construction of the masonry in ourses . Let us see how it affects the statement that the stones were found in some Roman ru ins at the time o f the siege or

ffi later. Now, such ruins must either have produced su cient coursed stone to admit of the whole of the walls where

TH E GE F TH E WA H E TE R 5 2 A O LLS OF C S , f ormed part of older ornamental buildings . More recently

e the same has been noticed in B lgium , and not long since certain bastions were found , evidently built at a somewhat

L . later date, against the Roman wall of ondon Four of these have been more or less examined , at distances apart from one another, by Mr. E . Price, and a few months ago I noticed a ﬁfth . They had in each case

e Roman sculptures built up as part of th ir material , although there are none in the wall itself. The adding of Roman towers to previously existing Roman walls may be noticed at Caerwent, Burgh Castle , Richborough, and doubtless in many other places . Who can tell what they may contain ! Examination of the London and the Chester sculptures indicates that they are weathered to some ex tent, although some are so perfect as if but very few years had elapsed between their execution and their secondary use as mere walling stones . Now, what are the probabili ties as to these stones ? Did they lie in some Roman ruin until discovered by the builders Of the wall ages after wards ? I think their state of preservation forbids this belief. I think, too, that they could not have been found in such abundance ready to the builders ’ use if a long time had intervened . We have to admit that they were either used by the Romans themselves, or that they were removed from their original positions by Ethelﬂeda several centuries afterwards . Of the two, I consider the former the more

fo r reasonable, the latter would require us to consider that h the Saxons rebuilt the walls in stone, which we know t ey

r hardly ever used in milita y works . The other, on the contrary, enables us to indicate an easy solution . It is this . In looking at a map of Chester, an ordinary observer may soon convince himself that the extent of the present walls is very great, and he may reasonably enquire if their course is likely to represent the original size of the WI TH RE FE REN CE TO RE CE T DI C I ON S N S USS S . 53

city. My belief is , that the existing line represents some increase, considerable even it may be, of the Roman area of the city in later Roman times . Now, at an earlier date cemeteries would have existed within what is now the line of the walls . What is more reasonable, then , to suppose that on the extension of the area the Roman sepulchres were demolished , and the stones thus ready at hand , on ? the spot, used in the building of the wall This supposition derives support from the fact that in London Roman in term e nts have been found in many places which are now

Of well within the area the Roman wall . In both places , L n ondo and Chester alike, the sculptures, the inscriptions, and the moulded stones all point to their having formed

- portions either Of sepulchres or of moderate- sized buildings that may have been so used . It may be well at this stage of our enquiry to consider

the the peculiarity of construction , absence of mortar. This is certainly a novel feature for our consideration , for we can point to nothing in England on such a scale of magni tude as the walls of Chester. We have abundance of f ancient British dry stone walls , put together as ences are built, and have always been built, but no buildings . A member of your Society has kindly told me of many re

a taining w lls , and such like works, which are built, and even now built , at Chester and its locality, with dry masonry : but here we have a city wall necessary to be of great strength . Is it likely to have been built after a siege, ? to resist artillery, without mortar Can we ﬁnd anything at all resembling its construction in military works ? Is it possible that one construction without mortar would have been adopted for the lower part and a totally different mode of building with mortar for the upper portion ?

e Failing this , and failing the lower part being medi val , of which there is no sign whatever, there is but the other TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL O CH T R 54 S F ES E ,

n e co clusion , that this wall , built of Roman ston s, is Roman in date from base to summit as far as the dry masonry

O extends . The pinion expressed by Mr. Roach Smith forty years ago is fully borne out . It is valuable in this direction to consider the evidences in existence which prove that the Romans did actually build without mortar at Chester. There is direct and posi tive evidence of this in the sculptured and moulded stones which Mr. Jones has so carefully brought to light. These by their sizes Show that they must have been portions of ff many di erent buildings and not of a single one . In almost every case their joints and beds Show that no mortar

was used in their original construction . In some few only the upright joints show that mortar was used to ﬁll

them in .

There is also documentary evidence. Dr . Stukeley de scribes his inspectio mo f the two Roman arches o f the East

“ 1 2 gate in 7 5 , and tells us It is admirable that these vast

h of arc es, made stones of so large dimensions and laid without mortar can stand at all when their proper butment ” Roma n ites/ti e . . C r is destroyed Mr Watkin , in his , gives

some very interesting data with respect to the Eastgate, and f t k l ’ . S u e e s gives at length the quotation rom Dr y book, to h which my attention was called by a friend at C ester. Mr .

Watkin also prints a note appended to a drawing, published f by Hemingway, rom which we learn that a statue which

existed in the central pier of the arches, in one large stone , was “ grooved or ﬁxed into the gate by a kind of dovetail s work . This also sho that the masonry was put together

the without mortar, for huge stone could not have been lowered into its groove had mortar existed . But the objec tion has been urged that Dr. Stukeley was not a man of

O accurate bservation , and that he mistook an arch that

f r wanted p ointing o one that was built without mortar . F T RE CE T DI CU N WI TH RE E RE N CE S o N S SSI O S. 55

Now, such a point of detail is likely to have been rightly noted , whatever may have been the discursive nature of the

’ co nﬁ rm a worthy doctor s writings ; and , as we see, it has tion from a writer ﬁfty years later.

e The recently excavated sculptures have the m rit, apart

n from their desig and inscriptions, of revealing to us con e lusively that the Romans did in England , in the instances

of the buildings to which they belonged , construct their

masonry without mortar. It is needless to say, for the

practice is well known , that not only did the Romans erect

their principal works in Italy without mortar, but that in 1 f Gaul the practice was common . It is of interest to re er

to continental usage, and it seems not unreasonable to infer

that what was common there should be practised here . The large number Of sculptured stones found has

i s already been referred to , but there an aspect of their

: discovery which merits special attention . It is this The

stones are all of Roman date . They are of earlier date

than their use in the wall, but they are all Roman . The value of this evidence is of more importance than at ﬁrst

sight might appear. A comparison or two may bring out

into greater force this value . For instance, were there any

question as to the age of some written document, strong doubts as to its genuineness would arise were it discovered that the written date was earlier than that Of the water

mark of the paper on which it was written . Were some

hoard of coins found , and there were doubt as to when they

fo r were hidden , we should be able to know certain that f the deposit must have taken place some time a ter, and not f at all be ore, the age of the latest coin . Now there is one

M r. T omas Blashill at a recent m eet n Of the Br t s A rc e o o ca h , i g i i h h l gi l A ssoc at on eta e the constr ct on of the ce e rate Porta N ra at Tre es i i , d il d u i l b d ig , v , e ronz am which is formed of unmortared masonry put tog ther by b e cr ps . TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL OF CH ES S TER ,

. . 1 f stone which Mr Jones has very rightly marked No , or i t is paramount in importance, and it was the ﬁrst or nearly

“ the ﬁrst that was found . It has been called the eccle s iastical stone, and it has caused no small portion O f the recent discussion . Its Roman date is now set beyond cavil

fo r or doubt, it has had inspection by the best judges in 1 . n England Its workmanship, its design , and the si gular

e costume which is not eccl siastical , all point to its Roman

n . e origi Had this stone been found to be medi val , it would have greatly tended to disprove that the walls are of

Roman date. It would have been like a modern coin found among a hoard of ancient ones . The fact that workman ship o f no other age than Roman has been found built up in the walls is a very noteworthy one, and must have its

f . e ull share of consideration If thes walls were erected , as

s some a sert, so late as after the siege, is it not a matter of surprise that no relic of medie val Chester has been found used in their construction ? There must have been many

u b f buildings r ined by the siege, many pulled down e ore

Of the events of that time trouble ; and yet, although the walls have been opened in more than one place, Roman sculptures, and nothing but Roman sculptures , have been f ound . There is full analogy to this in the ﬁve bastions attached

L n to the earlier Roman wall of o don . I claimed a later

Roman origin fo r these. While they have yielded a great number of Roman sculptures , there is nothing of any other date . In one bastion was found one half of a Roman sepulchral monument, and the other half was found in another bastion at some distance Off. The sepulchre was

’

W . d ra B rc s a er on t s ston r a f h See M r. e G e e e ore t e o et y i h p p hi , d b S ci y

Of A nt uar es Lon on and ere re r nte . 2 to the n er iq i , d , h p i d , pp 5 39, by ki d p m ss on of th o nc of t at Soc et i i e C u il h i y. WI H R FE RE CE S O R E CE DI C I ON S T E N T NT S USS . 57

doubtless midway between the two, and its materials, there

fore, available for both . It has also to be remembered that f none of these stones have been ound , at Chester, in the

upper wall . All have come from the lower unmortared

base.

e Of I hav now, so far as this section the wall is con cerned , done my best to meet all the objections that have be en made . I hope with due regard and respect to the

few obje ctors . I now proceed to make a general remarks with the view of showing that the outline of the section indicates all the usual parts common to many Roman f walls . There is the outer fairly worked ace ; there is the L chamfered plinth, such as is found at ondon , and the Rich borough and Chichester bastions. There is the rough inner surface covered by an earthen bank, and, if we suppose an upper parapet higher than the earthen bank instead of the upper wall, we have a design such as we can see at

Caerwent, Chichester, Silchester, Burgh Castle, and other

. a few : places In f ct, and in a short words while there are no forcible arguments against the Roman date of the walls , we ﬁnd that they are constructed after a Roman plan , with all their details worked out as the Romans have worked them out in other places, and that the stones are the work f of Roman masons . Is it not, there ore, right to conclude, as I assert we ought to conclude, that the large unmortared stones of the lower wall is Roman work in s itu P I exhibit an engraving of a portion of the wall of Rome

M atro nis L between the and atina gates, of squared stones, the exact counterpart in size and style of masonry of your

Chester walls . Above is later Roman work of brick . I cannot say whether or not mortar is used to the lower portion . The consideration of the other portions o f the walls will take far less time, since we need turn to them only for 8 TH E A GE OF TH E WA L OF CH E TE R 5 L S S ,

Of Ro m an ° date additional evidence . Three points require

n brief notice alo g the line of the north wall . The cornice near the Northgate has been said to be only of Jacobean

e date . The member of your Society already referr d to has recently sent me interesting data with respect to its de

s O f n sign , and has hown that instead its bei g all of one pattern there are in fact two and perhaps three variations . The decayed nature of the edges of what may be the third

w u e pattern makes the latter some hat do btful , but th re are

t e . certainly, he says, two. Among h stones which Mr Jones

s has found , there are several moulding so exactly like both of these patterns as to justify the belief that they are all alike Roman , and this is brought to a certainty when it is apparent that the tooling and other marks of workmanship

’ f l s ri O . n tuke e s de c are Roman date We k ow from Dr. S y p tion that there was a moulded cornice over the Eastgate . It is reasonable to believe that there was also a corn ice over the Northgate, and that , in erecting the wall to the left of e it, the moulded stones taken from adjacent sepulchres wer utilised to continue the cornice along the wall . The stones of corresponding pattern found built up as old material in

s the wall are angle stones, and , therefore, valuele s as a con tinuati n o r n the o f the cornice . I exhibit eng avi gs of Porta

Chiusa and the Porta Appia of Rome, both of which have

n small cornices, in the latter instance returned arou d the

ﬂanking towers .

’ t n In Mr. Hughes building yard here is an interesti g spot fo r the study of the wall . The ancient lower wall has

few t been reduced in height only to a courses, and here is a curious plinth formed of Old Roman carved coping

ass f co ns tru c S d. O tones , much disturbe Above it is a m

o e . tion , p orly built, of many varying medi val dates A

r r o n in re the little fu the , building the wall , part of core of th e wall was believed to be o f Norman date . Here

WI TH RE FE RE CE S T RE CE T DI C I N O N S USS ON S. 59 sculptured stones of Roman date and of no other date were f ’ ound . At the wall in Mr. Hughes yard , objectors to the

o Roman origin have to c nsider how it comes to pass that, if the base of the wall , which agrees with that of the lower

’ wall shown in Mr. Jones section , were erected at the time

S o ? of the iege, what has bec me of all the upper part The few lower courses are clearly O f different date than the upper portions . The supposition requires us to believe that the wall was actually wholly built like the lower portion , and that it must have needed all but entire rebuilding

one n since , and several repairs , after a other, since even that ! The improbability of the supposition is well shown

t O at his point . It also enables us to consider an bjection ” that has been made . The wall is said to be double or

“ hollow ; the same is said of part of the north wall , although there is no Sign of any such defect where Mr.

’ Jones section was taken . This may be true, and , if so,

O there is a reasonable solution . We bserve that there is no sign of a sloping bank to the inner portion . The wall is faced on the inner as well as the outer side, and it goes

. n ot down to the modern level of the street . May it be possible that in adding this facing to an older wall , or to a

Of O portion an lder wall , the builders were as careless of their foundations as they were in erecting its counterpart , ’ ? the upper wall of Mr. Jones section There would thus be what would appear like two walls, and any settlement ff would have the e ect of separating them . This is a

u reasonable sol tion , but if found to be correct it will be h evidence that one part of the wall is older t an the other, for if all had been built at one time no such separation would be likely. Our third point along the northern wall is Pemberton ’s

Parlour, and relative to the inscription recording the

tem spending of p. Queen Anne, it need only be 60 TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL OF H R S C E STE ,

said that this sum does not represent anything like what would be necessary if any entire reconstruction had taken

s u m place . The was a large one, and , as is expressly stated ,

a nd it was expended in repairing breaches , new paving,

u . fﬁ s ch like There is no di culty in determining, by the

colour and the style of the masonry, what works were then

actually done . They are generally the topmost and nearly

the latest of the works, except those of recent years . The inspection of the walls above ground having shown

Mr. Jones and myself that it would be of advantage to have some excavations made for the inspection of the members

e u of the British Arch ological Association in Aug st last, we conferred with respect to the most advantageous posi

S tions to how any variations of construction . The works of repair at the north wall had laid open the foundations down to the solid rock ; but it was obvious that at other

parts there must be no rock base. We therefore determined

n upo a spot, at the Kaleyards , in the east wall , where the

ff Ro ode e subsoil was likely to be di erent, and the wall , m which is built against a ping bank . These positions commended themselves also to us since they had the f advantage of being distant rom one another. At the Kaleyards there were three or four courses of

o f massive, unmortared stone, similar to the base the north

wall, but with the city wall built on the bank to the west

of these courses , quite apart from them , the city wall

r e having eve y appearance of being of medi val date, but

constructed to a great extent of good red sandstone, which probably was taken from the older wall and more or less f reworked . The older courses are orced out of position by the thrust of the upper wall . Our excavation laid bare the wall to its base, and revealed the same class of work as at

n the north wall , including even the chamfered pli th . The

fo n subsoil proved to be loamy clay, and a u dation had

6 TH E A GE OF TH E WA L OF CH T R 2 L S ES E ,

built prior to the siege of Chester . Clearly it cannot be all of these . The excavations have revealed a massive wall , which has been traced downwards for thirteen feet . The excavation had then to be stopped on account of the rise

O of water. For its whole extent, as far as pened , the wall

r proves to be a magniﬁcent piece of mason y, put together with large stones laid in courses, in perfect preservation .

The facing has been neatly worked, and it exhibits tool ff marks of Roman character. There is a set O beneath the f water, not a cham ered plinth . Some of the joints have

- flint like mortar, to which reference will presently be made. Still more recent excavations have revealed the curious fact that although this mass of masonry is fully eight feet thick, it is backed up with hard concrete on the city side, thus forming a solid mass, wall and concrete together thirteen feet thick, making one of the most solid of walls, whether intended to resist the wash of the tides below or the thrust of the bank of earth behind it. It is evident that this wall is something more than a few courses o f loose stones laid beneath the bank to keep up the pre sent city wall . That it has no relation to a flight of steps is apparent on finding that the steppe d - like look of the upper portion (above ground) is owing to the removal of the facework at this point. This removal enables us to see that the coursed work Of the facing is carried through the thickness, and that its construction is precisely the same as to the north wall , except that it is a little thicker, has mortar and concrete backing, and goes down deeper. That this wall is no abutment of any bridge is soon apparent. The wall can be traced for nearly one hundred and fifty feet, although in some places it is hidden by the earth of the sloping bank . Now a bridge must have started at right angles to the face and have gone forwards . But there is in front now only the bare level of the reclaimed land of RE T C T DI SSI WI TH REFE NCES O RE EN SCU ONS.

Roo e e x the d , and formerly the broad e panse of the river with land a mile distant on the opposite side. A bridge or f a pier even would have surely le t some traces . No road

leads in the direction no road is known to have done so .

re The wall is curved on plan , and it has a general

- semblance to the curve of the north east angle of the city . In these we may perhaps recogn ise two out of the four curved angles usual in the plans of Roman cities laid out

uniformly as at Colchester, and this supposition derives some support from the fact that the end Of the wall going northwards lines out exactly with the western face Of

Watergate . Beyond Watergate, and even at the gate

s it elf, there are foundations that appear to show that there

was either an inner wall , or that the Roman wall was once

Of a few yards further east the present one . The assertion that this wall was erected fo r a battery

merits more extended consideration . Old maps, we are

r ff told , show it so used , and the position of a batte y to a ord protection at so important an angle where it was so greatly ‘ suﬂi cie nt needed is to show, apart even from the evidences

’ of the m aps that a battery may actually have existed at any

rate somewhere here . The member already referred to has

’

e . S ing niously proved this Old maps also how a ruin , Edgar s

Palace, probably a building of Roman date, on the opposite L side of the Dee. ater maps, subsequent to the siege, do

not do so, and hence it may have been demolished to pro vide the acknowledged Roman stones seen in the Roodee

wall , where in addition many of the internal stones Show f evidences O prior use. The depth of the Roodee wall he accounts for by the belief that when erected as part of this

r batte y it had a ditch in front of it . After the siege, when

all the defences were levelled , this would be ﬁlled up, and

so its present buried condition is accounted for. These

e arguments are of no littl force, and they have to be TH E A GE OF TH E WA LLS OF CH T R 64 ES E ,

treated accordingly with respect . There are three struc tural features, however, that I think outweigh them . They are as follow : ( 1 ) While the length of the Ro odee wall is

ne about o hundred and ﬁfty: feet, the depth of any available platform on the top and between it and the city wall is less than twenty feet in the widest part, decreasing to nothing

— for at each extremity out of this, thickness a parapet has to be deducted . This space even would not all be available

of for the placing artillery, for the city wall is heavily buttressed , and these buttresses encroach into the limited space named . Since the wall has evidently been built if slowly and at great cost, it seems hardly likely that,

of erected at the time the siege, it would have been built

r . 2 Of such meag e dimensions ( ) Such a work, if erected

o f then , would have been erected rapidly necessity, and not slowly. It therefore seems incredible that the Roman stones would have been taken down so neatly as they must

S have been , since they how so true and even an appearance

Ro odee in the wall, where they are laid in horizontal courses, with through ashlar courses as in the north wall .

of for t Instead this, rapidi y of construction , they would

in n The have been laid ra dom courses . (3) mortar is

x t Roman mortar. I now e hibit a specimen kindly aken

‘ : out fo r me by Mr. F. R . Williams . It had to be sawn

ﬂint- x through to extract it, so hard and like is its te ture .

n and A portion has bee subjected to chemical action , powdered brick has been found in it. This specimen was submitted to inspection at an evening meeti ng Of the British

Arche ological Association , and it was pronounced to be o f

as Roman date. This may be accepted decisive evidence, coupled with the resemblance of the work to the walls

Roodee of . elsewhere, that the wall is also Roman date In addition there are pilaster-like buttresses projecting from

h e e e the face of t e wall , which would hardly have b en er ct d

L 66 TH E A GE OF TH E WA L S OF CH E STER .

After the lecture was concluded , Mr. Brock reported that a small third brass coin Of Julius Constantius had been shown to him that morning. It had been found by a

Of workman in one the unmortared joints of the lower wall .

It was a genuine coin of an ordinary type .

f The ollowing is a verbatim report , corrected by the various speakers , of the discussion , which ensued on the con ’ V clusion Of Mr. Brock s paper. The Chairman (the e ry h Rev. the Archdeacon of Chester) explained t at, owing to the number of speakers, it had been decided by the Council to allow each speaker a quarter of an hour only, so that all

Of might have an opportunity being heard . d Mr. W . Thompson Watkin said he suppose he should be looked upon very much in the light of a barbarian for

Of attempting to assault the Roman theory the walls . He only wished that he could prove them to be thoroughly Roman ; in fact no one would be more heartily delighted v to do so than himself ; but he must say that, after ery

’ many years study of them , he had come to the conclusion that, above ground at least, nothing Roman could be found .

He thought it would be almost impossible to answer Mr. t Brock at great leng h in the limited time at his disposal , and that he had best take the subject Of the walls under three heads . And the ﬁrst head would be as to what was

above ground . That, he thought, had been very fully

the entered into previously, especially by members of the

e Arch ological Institute during their visit to Chester. He might say that he had been in recent correspondence with

e some of the heads of the Arch ological Institute, who were

also among the chief Roman authorities in Britain , and — whom he was sorry to see we re not there that night Dr.

O . Bruce, Mr. Scarth, Mr. Ferguson , and thers But he ’ M W TK IN S VIE WS . 6 M R. TH O PS ON A 7

adhered to his former opinion , that above ground he could see nothing Roman , in spite of what had been done in the way of explaining them recently. Now, coming to the

x the recent e cavations, he might as well go to point at once . The usual Roman method of making a wall was to f have an outside ashlared face and an inside ashlared ace, with a mass Of concrete or grouting between . Sometimes there were rows of tiles , bonding tiles, but occasionally f there were none . There was generally also a oundation f O . boulders laid in clay or massive concrete Now, he had been very wishful that they should obtain some sample of t that concrete foundation . On the sou h side of the city , or

Of the south side of the Roman area, near the north wall

’ Of d St. Michael s Church, a portion the foun ation of the

— o f south wall was met with boulders bedded in concrete . But there were none of these characteristics of Roman workmanship in the wall laid bare on the north side Of the city. They had certainly on the outside what he might call a dressed face ; but the inside, instead of being faced as in the diagram shown— he had been down twice into the

— f r excavation was ormed ve y irregularly, with great spaces between the stones ; and when they were aware of these circumstances they would see that they could not be laid of the regular widths Shown in the diagram . There were h large spaces but no mortar. The wall was built from t e foundations Of stones like those (pointing to the tombstones

& c. . , exhibited) and was eight feet thick He quite agreed

f nece s with Mr. Brock that the embankment was per ectly sary when the wall was made ; but who made it ? With an irregular face, nineteen feet high, with no mortar, that r wall in a comparatively short time, without the suppo t of the embankment, would collapse he thought any architect would say that. Certainly the Romans, he thought, would 68 TH E A GE OF TH E WA LLS OF CH ESTER.

deem it a disgrace to build such a wall as that, especially

when the original embankment face was generally dressed .

e Of But here th y had nothing the sort. And more than ! that, look at the material used . Tombstones Why the

Roman Governor of Chester, if he permitted the use of

those tombstones for building purposes, would be liable to

severe imprisonment under the Roman laws . Even if an

Of extension the city was necessary, those tombstones would not be used for that purpose ; the graves would be respected though the tombstones might be laid down

U ﬂat on their faces, but not built p in the wall . It had

been said , too, that the external stones ﬁtted , and were

closely jointed . But he did not see, if they got plane faces

on large masses of sandstone, with immense pressure upon f them , how they could ail to be closely jointed . If they

S rubbed two such stones together for a hort time, they would see how very soon they would become closely jointed , and where even they were not so plane faced the enormous pressure would help to make them closely jointed .

a Allusion had lso been made by Mr. Brock to the

Romans building large walls without mortar, and he

x had instanced e amples on the continent, but every one of

Of ad them was disputed Roman origin , and they were vanced on the ground that they were built of the same material— tombstones and the architectural portions of large mausolea. He did not know if Mr. Brock had seen in fact he knew he had not seen— the nature of the interior f f f of the wall where this ear ul and wonder ul cornice was . r Fou years ago, when making some important excavations f there, it was ound to be a very poor wall . Certainly it was not backed by a mass like that (alluding to a sectional drawing of the north wall) . The large stones in front he

admitted were Roman , but they had been put there at 1 08 some later date, and that date he believed was 7 , the

0 T E A O TH A L F CH E T R 7 H GE F E W L S O S E .

Caerleon , and on the Roman wall . Dr. Bruce found an

o ne i O f altar built up at station , but no nstances tomb stones being so used were met with ex cepting those of the L bastions in ondon , about which he would speak directly. On the Roman wall two instances had be en found of

tombstones used as hearthstones, or ﬂoors, but these were

Of in ruined buildings , both which in the middle ages were

- used by moss troopers, and were known to be at places where the probability was that the stones were used at

. t that period In fact it might be said of a certain y , for on

Of the ﬂoor one building, a large villa, several tombstones

’ debris were found mixed with , which would not have been the case if the building had remained as it was when the

Romans left it. The stones had evidently been brought

L s ! there afterwards. And with regard to the ondon bastion

They were not appended to the main Roman wall . Mr.

Price, who excavated them, spoke of them as thirteenth

century work . The chief ones were at Tower Hill and

Camomile Street . Mr. Brock spoke of ﬁve being traced

t . altogether, but the o her three had not yielded much

: Mr. Brock They have not yielded so much , but all are

of the same features.

: Mr. Thompson Watkin , continuing With regard to the plinth again ! It was said to have been traced all round

the walls. It was no feature of Roman work ; it might belong to any other age ; and if the plinth was destroyed

' in any such war or commotion as had taken place at

Chester it would certainly have been renewed to match .

’ Then , coming to the wall in Mr. Hughes yard , where was what had been spoken of as a buttressing wall . He did

not know what Mr. Brock referred to when he claimed that portion of the wall (pointing to the upper portion of

O the wall in the diagram) to be lder than that below .

: Mr. Brock Upper wall . M R T M N WA TR ’ W H O P O IN VIE . . S S S 7 :

. : Mr Watkin , continuing I certainly never said anything of the sort, nor have I heard any one else say so . It stands to reason it cannot be . But there is a buttressing

’ In wall Mr. Hughes yard composed of Roman stones , whereas the wall behind is very much like the one where the cornice is at the Northgate.

Roodee He had written and spoken much about the wall, and he believed it to be no part of the walls whatever . It

Of f was certainly composed Roman stones in ront, and , as f he had said , Roman work would be ound behind it . Well , the excavations had revealed the truth of that . Mr. Brock f spoke of it as a wall thirteen eet thick . He (Mr. Watkin) believed there were something like nine feet of wall and f f our feet of concrete, and it was ound to have extended much further inwards and seemed to have borne up some building. His remark that it was an abutment of a bridge, which Mr. Brock demurred to, was a tentative one ; and , instead of the bridge being in the direction Mr. Brock had

. o ut to wards Ro odee pointed , the , it was at right angles to

h SO w t at entirely, as to cross the creek, which they kne from old maps existed at that portion of the Roo dee to th e end of the sixteenth century. That might have been a later use for it, but he believed it had originally kept up the bank on which stood the Roman villa they knew — existed behind it, from the excavations recently made to

r keep up that bank and prevent it slipping fo ward . A

Of series landslips had taken place, as they had found , on

Roodee the ; in fact, between the Watergate and the Water f 1608 Tower the whole wall ell down from that cause in , and the greater portion of it was rebuilt . So that, while

be he always admitted that those stones were Roman , he lieved them to have been put in position at a later date,

and used for that purpose .

With regard to the gates, Mr. Brock had said that H GE T 72 T E A OF H E WA LLS op CH ESTE R .

bo th the Northgate and Eastgate were Roman . But

’ k le . Stu e s S with reference to Dr y ketch, if any one looked at it, he would see that there was nothing Roman about it . ff More than that, Dr. Stukeley gave details as di erent again concerning it to what he sketched . He sketched three

S archways abreast, but said it was a ingle arch , while all the time it was a double one, with one half blocked up.

They knew that from other sources . So that Dr. Stukeley totally contradicted his own words . Mr. Brock also said the accounts for the rebuilding of the walls ought to be forthcoming. Well , he (the speaker) did not know of any

i in case in which repa rs were made after a siege, when an vading army entered a city, where any account had been made up . He thought he might just as well ask for the bill of the Twentieth Legion for building the walls originally. If Mr . Brock knew as much of invading armies

as he (the speaker) did , he thought he would not look for

’ cases of that sort . With regard to the repairs in Anne s

’ reign , he thought the inscription on Pemberton s parlour

ffi . was quite su cient Mr. Brock had also mentioned that

large buildings erected without mortar had collapsed .

Well , there was no such thing in the Chester walls ; they

found nothing of that sort so far, and that , he took it, was another of his (the speaker’s) ideas of further evidence that

the walls were not Roman . The Chairman reminded him

that his time was up . He had had to go very brieﬂy

through this discussion ; he was handicapped , and would

have liked to have gone into it at length , and hoped to do — ” so yet in black and white .

Sir James A . Picton, who was next called upon

to address the meeting, and who , on rising, was received

with hearty applause, said , under the exigencies of the case

e h was quite prepared to give way to others . He had

already, as some of them knew, written rather copiously on

T R 74 TH E A GE op TH E WA LLS OF CH E S E .

f defend the ordable part of the river, and to crossﬁre

’ s with a battery or fort situated on the ite of Brewer s Hall , on the opposite side . He (Sir James) had again carefully considered that question , but could not see his way to altering the opinion he had already formed upon it, that they had there a veritable relic of the emporium of the

Roman city; when the Roodee was covered with water and

r r formed a noble estua y or port . He would be sor y to

O dogmatise . No pinions on the subject could have greater authority than strong probability. Absolute certainty was

out of the question . Two lines of argument were open to

them . The ﬁrst was that of historical and documentary

evidence. The second was that of the construction and tangible evidence of the remains . If these two lines con

verged towards the same point, they were as near certainty

as it was possible to arrive .

First, then , as to the records and documents . Original

records and maps , as they all knew, were extremely

scarce . There was a great propensity in authors and his

to rians to copy one from another, which reduced what at ﬁrst appeared to be a multiplicity of evidence to one Single

m a thread . The earliest p of Chester which he could ﬁnd ’ Wance slaus in s a le Ro a K V ll. was that by Hollar, given in g y The date was not difﬁ cult to ascertain within very narrow

. 16 8 limits He gave a print of a Roman altar found in 4 ,

be ore so that it could not be f that date, and the work was

16 6 a ter published in 5 , so that it could not be f that . Mr.

Cox spoke of a map of the time of Queen Elizabeth, which

Roodee did not give the remains . He (Sir James) had not

m et with any such map, and from what he had seen of

maps of that period , there was not the slightest reliance to

’ be placed on their accuracy. Hollar s map had a view of

the city from the west attached . Both map and view were ‘ and had executed with great beauty, all the appearance of ’ I N S VIE W . SI R jA M E S A . P CTO S 75

f accuracy . In the map was shown a plat orm or terrace

running along the outer face of the city wall , about two

a hundred paces long, according to the sc le, returned at each

“ Roodee end . Mr. Cox said , It does not give the wall ,

but it gives a sloping bank . The ﬁrst appearance of the Ro odee wall in any map or view is the map of Chester with ” the outworks copied by Broster. He (Sir James) had the ’ V K in s Vale R o all f map and iew in g y lying be ore him . In the map there was clearly and distinctly Shown a n arrow

platform two hundred paces long, returned at each end , on

o r the site of the R odee mason y. This was also manifest in

the perspective view . Mr. Cox called it a sloping bank .

Be that as it might, however, if the platform , as he main taine d 1620 f , existed in , it could not orm a platform on the

w f 16 out orks of the royal de ences thrown up in 43 . f The next re erence by Mr. Cox was to a map of the city, with an account of the siege, published by J . Broster and

1 0. Son , 79 The map was not a document contemporary

with the date of the siege. It was a compilation , whence

derived was not stated . The outlines of the city were

’ much the same as in Hollar s map, with the addition

16 of the earthworks thrown up in 43, and the fort and

’ r S batte y on the west ide of the river, on the site of Brewer s Hall The descriptions accompanying the map were not contemporary, and would almost lead one to suppose that the writer had not visited the locality. No. on

the map, was described as outworks on the hill at the

L Ro o dee . ittle So far from being on a hill, the work was

at the lowest possible point, at the edge of the then existing

water. Turnpikes were described where none certainly

existed till long after the alleged date of the map . It f would seem that the writer, ﬁnding the plat orm on the

map, and not knowing anything about it, hastily came to

the conclusion that it formed part of the fortiﬁcations . The 6 TH E A GE OF TH W F TE R 7 E A LLS O CH E S .

’ map given in Hemingway s history ( 1 8 3 1) was a f acs imile

’ Bro ste r s of , with the same descriptions attached . He had carefully examined all the publications upon Chester within his reach, and could ﬁnd no contemporary evidence of any outwork or fortiﬁcation having ever existed on the

Ro o dee . ff Now, let them examine the evidences a orded by

“ the remains themselves . Mr. Cox said the remains are 16 2 eminently consistent with a fort of the date 4 , and ” Le t they accord with nothing so well as that . them see in what this consistency consisted . The contemporary 16 2 accounts of the siege stated that in October, 4 , the Common Council determined that Special care should be taken for the defence of the city. In accordance therewith the outworks and entrenchments were carried on with so

“ much vigour that in the beginning of 1643 the mud

&c. walls, mounts, bastions, , were all completed , and r ff seve al e ective batteries planted . These were all earth works not a word was there of slightest reference to any

oo works at all on the R dee . The whole of the construe tions were completed within about three months . Now, on the supposition that this masonry on the Roodee was a

fortiﬁcation thrown up at the time of the siege, they must

s believe that whil t everywhere else round the city, where

s ufﬁ the only assaults ever came, earthworks were found

Roodee cient, on the , which was free from attack by its

situation and never was besieged at all, it was found

necessary to have a solid construction of hewn stone .

Moreover, that stone was not found nearer than six miles

the from Chester, and was identical with the remains at

Kaleyards . So that they must believe that in the course of

three months the stone was quarried , carted six miles

through a hostile host, worked into solid square blocks ,

r and built into a rampart two hundred ya ds long, carried

E F TH E WA LL OF C E TE 78 TH E A G O S H S R .

ff wall facing in an entirely di erent direction . In point of

the fact, although the city was furiously attacked on other three sides, no assault was ever attempted from the

dee Ro o . There were several interesting corroborations of the “ ” f existence of an emporium or whar in this locality. He had alluded to the narrowness of the strip of land between the edge of the breast wall and the foot of the f city wall . It would be di ﬁcult to ﬁnd a use to which such a narrow long strip could ever have been put but it must be remembered that the west wall of the city was much later in date than any of the others, and was only built after the tidal water had receded and left the city high and dry . If they regarded the structure as the retaining wall t of a wharf, with a return along the creek at the nor h end,

e r th y could easily understand that, when the wha f became useless , in building the city wall it would be advanced as f far forward as would be consistent with sa ety, and so encroach on the original wharf. There was a singular conﬁrmation of this view in the fact that the wharf situated a little more to the east of the Little Roodee— where the — “ ” water approached the land was termed the New Wharf, and was so marked on several of the maps . Down to a f recent period this new whar was lined with warehouses, and approached from the city by a gate called the Ship

Gate. The water front had a retaining wall of a similar

oo character to that on the Greater R dee . These erections were swept away when the city wall was extended , and

a the land enclosed for building the new g ol . Everything pointed to the conclusion that the work in question was anterior to the city wall , and corresponded in a remarkable

o f degree with the work at the Kaleyards . Both were

Roman construction , built with large stones without mortar, of material not found in the neighbourhood, and R E S OR M KE NN Y H GH E ’ VIE W P OF S T. U S S. 79

- with tool marks of Roman character still to be seen . He invited careful examination of this ancient relic, believing

the it, as he did , to be probably earliest in date of any of the precious remains of antiquity to be found in the glorious old city of Chester.

‘

M K e nn . . Professor T . y Hughes , M A , said he came to learn all he could in respect to a subject of which at present he had not sufﬁ cient knowledge to criti cise . If it would be in order, however, he would like to

n ask a few questions . For insta ce, in the course of the remarks of the gentlemen who had already spoken— and who were essentially conversant with the subject— he would have liked it to be pointed out more clearly why they gave no alternative dates for the origin of the walls between the — Roman period and the seventeenth centu ry why they met with nothing of fourteenth - century work He would like to ask Sir James Picton what was going on in Chester at the time Conway was being fortiﬁed , and why they could not be put in possession of certain facts to form a

? e conclusion Th y had heard of buttresses, which were not

r but ordinary butt esses , ﬂat pieces of masonry against the wall, and a good deal had been said about the character of the stone ; and he would like to know whether, in the present day, if they were building walls of that character, with such materials and under such circumstances, they would not readily run into the large ashlar work o r not ?

Various things of that sort required explanation . He thought there would be very great difﬁ culty in under

o f pinning the wall , as had been spoken , although after

’ what he had seen of Mr . Jones work it might not be so

r impossible with him . If they looked at desc iptions and histories of fortresses , they would , he thought, see how such

e r walls as they had in Chester were worked up . But, p

be haps , covering the stones with earth for so long might 8 0 TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL O C T S F H ES E R .

the real point to be considered in their preservation , as well as the wide foss keeping the ene my at a distance from

the wall . At present they seemed not to possess sufﬁ cient

few s data to form a judgment, and he hoped the remark

he had made would call them forth.

Mr. De Gray Birch, who was the next speaker,

remarked that so much had been said about the wall , that it might be well if at that late hour o f the evening he had

e som thing to say concerning the stones, which had been

S neglected by the previous peakers, although they were the

key to the position . He submitted that in the course of the extensive excavations that had been made no relic had been challenged either by Mr. Watkin or his followers as

e having a medi val origin, with the exception of the important stone exhibited this evening and known as the ” ecclesiastical stone, from its having been so called by

o f the opponents of the Roman origin the walls . That

stone, he was glad to say, had received greater attention

elsewhere than in Chester. It had been his good fortune, by the courtesy of the city authorities (whom he begged that evening to thank) to set that stone before the most eminent antiquarian authorities in London ; and he was glad to say they accepted it— as he himself had stated it

f ﬁrs t— n 1 to be rom the as of Roma origin . Some had stated that the larger ﬁgure on the stone indicated an

ecclesiastical dignity, accompanied by an acolyte . He

believed Mr. Watkin had gone so far as to characterise the

o f for ﬁgure as the fourteenth century, he (Mr. Watkin) had said the ﬁgure on the left hand had a strong resemblance

to ﬁgures on corbels, commonly seen in churches of that

’ M r. B rc s a er rea e fo re the Soc et of A nt ar es Lon on o n i h p p , d b i y iqu i , d , 8 u the 8th Decem er 1 8 be foun on . 2 to ere an strat on b , 7, will d pp 5 39, wh ill i f t s stone is en o hi giv .

82 TH E GE T E TE R A OF H E WA LLS OF CH S . other conclusion than— and he was sure those present would come to no other conclusion than— that they were Roman stones . With regard to these ancient relics discovered in

’ the Dean s Field , he thought it would be right if the Society in its wisdom were to publish them in a tentative manner, and without delay. He knew it was intended to give a but detailed account of all the stones taken out of the wall , in the interest of the arche ological world he might say they wished to have this pabulum that they might digest 1 e it at l isure .

hr b h . S u sole w o Mr , was the next speaker, said that having on a previous occasion explained his views at some w length , he would now only refer to some items hich came before them in this discussion for the ﬁrst time. Mr. Brock

1 2 had quoted from Stukeley, who in 7 5 visited Chester, and professed to have seen a Roman archway at the East

o f v gate . In estimating the value this e idence, we must remember that his narrative is often inexact, and , as in this

r case, contradicto y. The Eastgate was standing for forty three years after it was seen by him . From drawings of the period , we know that what he saw was the pointed arch

1 68 of an Edwardian building, which was taken down in 7 , f when inscriptions and sculptures of Roman age were ound ,

built into the structure, just as in the north wall . Forty y ears ago, when sewering was being done near the East

gate, the Roman level was reached at a depth of ten or f twelve eet, and with it the paved street. This would bring the crown of the Roman gate about on a level with

the pavement over which Stukeley passed , so that instead of seeing it above his head— if it had existed at all— it

would have been beneath his feet .

’ M r B rc s re ort on t ese sfones rea to the Soc et on the th A r . i h p h , d i y 9 p il ,

1 w be fo n on . 8 to 1 1 . 888 , ill u d pp 9 3 ’ M R . SH R UB SOLE S VIE W S. 83

S - Mr. Brock had poken of the supposed bullet marks to be

o f seen on the walls , as an evidence their antiquity. Well,

the w he ( speaker) did kno , that a tale of this kind was told ” - o f by the self constituted City Guides, but, like many

cu m ra no salis their tales, it should be taken g . It was the ﬁrst time that he had heard of an antiquary endorsing their views . A careful examination of the walls would have shown that thes e so -called shot- holes occurred on the inside as well as on the outside of the walls— an

- awkward incident for the bullet hole theory . Their occur rence is due to natural causes, in this way. The walls are

- built mainly of sandstone taken from the pebble bed series, so called from the presence of a number of small rounded

e o f p bbles . With the weathering the stone these pebbles drop out, and in each cavity so left, on a windy day, ﬁne

of grains sand are whirled around , and little by little the

“ ” hole is enlarged , until it becomes ﬁrst the bullet hole,

’ and next the round - shot hole of the guides lively imagination . Speaking of the stone leads me to notice the remarks which have been made as to the good quality of the stone composing the walls .

’ Sir James Picton : I didn t say that.

hru s l Roode e Mr. S b o e : In the wall I believe Mr. Brock stated that the original Roman stones still remain , and h f that t ey are of exceptional quality, and brought rom a distance.

’ Mr . Brock : I didn t say that .

h l h s S rubso e . a Mr. : Well It been so stated a good many times , during the recent controversy.

. : Mr Brock I would say if I knew it, but I really do not h know where t e stones came from .

hr bsole : Mr. S u Some antiquarians had gone to the

t for the Peckfor on Hills, and some to Helsby stone, but 8 TH E A GE OF TH E WA L F 4 LS O CH E STE R .

the point was that the stones in the wall were really local

stones, and that their identity as such was established be

yond doubt. He would now refer to the ﬁnding of a

Roman coin in the walls by a workman, as mentioned by

. . of Mr Brock This circumstance, if true, would be some

value in determining the age of the wall . It opens out a

O somewhat amusing episode, since it is an pen secret that

not one, but a hundred or more of Roman coins were, ff d for 18 6 . during the past summer, o ered sale at . each, to ” strangers visiting the walls . To enhance their value in

o f f the eyes purchasers, they were guaranteed to be rom ” the hole in the wall . My surprise is that only one found

its way into the wall . I do not say that the coin has not

o f h come out the wall , but t at its stay there was very

r short, and that in appearance it ve y much resembles the

larger importation . It is not the ﬁrst instance in Chester in which a demand for certain antiquities has led to a

supply.

: Mr. Rimmer Where were they found

hrubsole : r Mr. S Ve y hard to say. The caution to the public against purchasing them would be found in the

ourant Chester C about two months ago . The coins which

s of s I saw were third bra s Roman, and the lowe t value .

They arrived early in the summer, and at one shilling and Sixpence each must have proved a proﬁtable investment to

the introducer. Another little matter he wished to refer

- s to . Mr. Brock had given them some half dozen rea ons ,

why there was no military platform on the Roodee . He

B ut said there could not be ; there was not room . he (the speaker) had brought a photograph of one of the

of oldest maps Chester, and those present might look at

for was it, and judge themselves whether there really not ample room . f was The next point he wished to bring be ore them this ,

H 86 TH E A GE OF TH E WA LLS OF C E STE R .

of it used by Mr. Brock, he challenged its accuracy, and said it did not give a true idea of the wall itself when ﬁrst opened to view. The stones on the inner face below the

s soil were of the rudest po sible character, projecting one or f two feet beyond the line of the face. Many ell down as

as w the earth w removed . The drawing sho ed the wall as

had e the surveyor repaired it, and not as it was wh n ﬁrst

had as e . open d out What been done, they might have

was s noticed , to form a loping trench down to the base of the wall , and this was what he saw . That the stones on

e the inner face were irregularly placed , one row proj cting

fe one or two et beyond another, and , naturally enough , some stones had fallen down . He well remembered it,

s for one day as he was passing he heard the mason , L as they were at work, calling, ook out, here comes another, showing the loose way in which the stones

e a were plac d in position . He asked how it w s possible to think that a wall could be constructed of uniform thickness and character with such an assortment of stones as they had found in the wall— massive cornices o f s many patterns, rounded copings , pilaster , and ﬂat

a tombstones . He could assure them that, in ddition to these, much of the wall was built of rough, unsquared stones , that never had a chisel mark on them ; they were simply layers or ﬂags of sandstone as they were got out w of the quarries, ith a layer of earth on top and then ” s r another layer of rough stone , and co nices and copings followed .

a hr The Rev. Chairm n here intimated to Mr. S ubso le that he had exceeded his limit of time, and he at once gave way and resumed his seat .

. was Mr I . Matthews Jones (city surveyor) , who next

O ff o o r invited to er an opinion , said he was glad of the pp tunit of y corroborating in some measure all that Mr. Brock W W 8 M R M A TTH E S O E VIE . . 1. N S S 7

f had stated in re erence to the wall , and also to state publicly that he had corresponded with , and personally conducted over the excavations , many whose names stood high on the rolls of arche ological science ; and none of those gentle men had expressed opinions adverse to the Roman origin or building of the walls . On the other hand , he had made diligent enqui ry and research in regard to the Opinions o f those gentlemen , who were claimed as authorities as taking . O an pposite view ; but he had not , as yet, been able to

ﬁnd any published record of such opinions, or in support

e of the assertions that had b en made. Anonymous con tributo rs had been plentiful ; and certain critics now and then during the progress of the work, at the time the wall

s was, as it were, partially di embowelled , reminded him of

the wise men of Gothan , who, having had removed the

o f internal works a clock, proceeded to compare it unfairly f with a timepiece per ect in all its parts . He might say that the local Society had reason to congratulate itself upon

having had the evidence of gentlemen to bear on the wall , whose professional and practical training enabled them to distinguish and appreciate a wall when they saw it ; also that the ir professional s ta tus was such that they had no

need to distort facts, to extenuate or set down aught in malice ” in regard to the monuments of ancient cities and

r their past histo y . G f o Mr . John ri ﬁths asked the survey r to give a more

’ hr bs o direct answer to Mr . S u le s expressed opinion in regard to the construction of the inner face of the wall as

represented on the diagram . The Chairman : The point as to the irregularity of the

— h b ol wall inside the assertion of Mr. S ru s e was that the

wall in its present state is not in a tolerably straight line, but “ jagged in very much ? Although he might say that

was . being jagged in one of the arguments of Mr Brock, 88 TH E A GE F TH E WA LLS F E O O CH STER . who had told them it was necessary for the support of the

hrubsol wall yet Mr. S e had asserted that it was jagged in very much more than was represented on the diagram two feet he said it was on the south face . The City Surveyor said the diagram showing the work was prepared and laid down to dimensions , and was absolutely correct, as far as a draughtsman could make it,

s . at the various points where the section wa taken . Mr Shrubso le had spoken of an acquaintance of thirty years with the subject of the walls, but he (the speaker) might be allowed to point out that Mr . Thompson Watkin had

hrub l referred to Mr. S so e as not having entered into any 1 8 study of the walls even so late as the year 74. Now,

h t . t at was only thirteen years since, and not thir y

‘ Professor M K e nny Hughes said he had been down the

his holes, and had attention drawn to the nature of the

he t work, and cer ainly must say that, after examination , his opinion agreed very much with what had fallen from

Shrubsole . Mr. f . 0 . o . Mr. A Walker was the same opinion

he co nﬁrma Mr. E . W. Cox said could give very general

hrubsole tion to all that had been advanced both by Mr. S and Mr. Thompson Watkin .

Mr. T . Hodgkin , said that he was not sure whether this was not rather a question for architects than if for antiquaries . He would be glad a jury of architects

e m annelled tr f could be p to y the question . He often elt that there was a danger of persons like himself, who were only antiquaries , talking nonsense when they were dis h h cussing arc itectural questions ; and , on the other and, he always remembered with pleasure a visit which he paid to

s Cilurnu m Chester (not Chester), the Roman camp of , in

- in - company with his brother law, Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, who, as an architect, was able at once to explain things

0 TH E A GE OF TH E WA LL H 9 S OF C E STE R .

a wall built up in great haste in tumultuary times , probably

e in the third or fourth c ntury, to repel the attacks of the — Alamanni . And what a wall it is a conglomerate of the most heterogeneous materials ; here the Shaft o f a

e e column , there a piece of a pediment, all toss d in higgl dy — piggledy anything to get s ome sort of rampart to shelter

s the soldiers from the on et of the barbarians . Let them

s compare that wall with the solid , regular ma onry of the

Ro odee north wall , or the structure ﬂanking the , and he thought they would see grave reason to doubt the theory ” of the tumultuary erection of the latter . The diffe rence between the disputants in this contro ve rsy was perhaps not so wide as some persons sup

e . pos d No one would deny, on the one hand , that far

e e the larger part of the walls of Ch ster, as we see th m in

is walking round the city, Edwardian , or even of a later

date . And , on the other hand , neither Mr. Watkin nor

hrubsole e Mr. S d nied that many of the stones in the particular parts of the wall to which attention has been

Roodee called (north wall , Kaleyards , ) had been fashioned

into their present shape by Roman hands . But were they rea red into tbeir present pos ition by Roman hands ?

That is the gist of the present controversy. In this

S e point of view the tones described this ev ning, which add so largely to the wealth of the Chester Museum in

Roman remains, do not at ﬁrst sight help, but rather hinder,

of r the advocates the Roman theo y. For these stones must

have belonged to Roman Deva, and what was the northern rampart of that city while these stones stood in it ? And if l that rampart were only rebuilt, how cou d we imagine these sepulchral stones placed in its very foundations when the rebuilding was going on ? The rebuilde rs would thus seem to have given themselves a great deal of unnecessary

trouble to very little purpose. The theory advanced by ’ R K R PL 1 M R . B OC S E Y. 9

h Mr. Brock , t at the line of the city might have been pushed further northward in the interval between the carving of these stones and their inclusion in the wall , would no doubt meet this difficulty ; but some further evidence seemed f necessary to raise it rom a conjecture into a fact . He con w fessed that hat he had seen that day, and especially the

fo r continuation of the plinth so considerable a distance, did seem to him strong arguments in favour of the Roman

origin of that part of the wall . The general character of

the Roodee this portion , and of structure at the , did certainly remind him very strongly of the undoubtedly Roman

remains in Northumberland . Especially he invited com parison between the Roodee masonry and the equally ﬁne

Bo r ovi u and massive work under the northern gateway at c c s . He hoped that the antiquaries of Chester would come over

Cilurnu m Borcovicus in a body to survey and , and to the best o f his ability he would be happy to ofﬁ ciate as their

guide .

hr bsole . S u Great credit, he thought, was due to Mr and

. fo r Mr Watkin having raised this question , and caused the different portions of the wall to be thoroughly scru

ini d t se . Should the ﬁnal decision be pronounced , on fﬁ su cient grounds, in favour of the Roman origin of some

part of the present walls of Deva, he believed no one would

be more highly pleased than those gentlemen . Even so

Mr . Gardner had raised a most interesting and important L discussion on the authenticity of the Paston etters , and h after at ﬁrst throwing doubt upon t em , had ended by

of declaring himself perfectly satisﬁed their authenticity . Perhaps a similar result would be arrived at in the case of

their still sceptical friends .

Mr . Brock, in reply, said he would ﬁrst take Mr . Thompson Watkin ’s objection as to the impossibility of

M r any stone in the wall being durable enough to last. [ . TH E E E WA LL H TE A G OF TH S OF C ES R .

Watkin : Red sandstone ] The instances he had cited

could be seen and examined by all . With regard to these t Roman stones being found, he took it hat the chances were far more likely that they would be found in later

fo r Roman times, the simple reason that then they would be

abandoned, and at still later times covered with earth . For instance, if any one now wanted Norman stones to build ? into a wall , what chances would there be of ﬁnding them . r Ve y few would be found lying about. Yet we were as near to Norman times as that people were to Roman . And

r . o if they wanted Tudor Jacobean stones even , where t would they ﬁnd hem, except in some old building erected f when they were obtainable, and no later There ore, he t had took it, the probabili y was that these Roman stones

been found by some later Romans and used by them .

a With reg rd to what Mr. Watkin said respecting the cornice at the Northgate being built into the wall in the ” time of Queen Anne, when the adornments were put

on , he (the speaker) knew of cases where adornments

n e about that time mea t simply to whitewash, and h thought ’ it certain that the adornments spoken of on Pemberton s

a Parlour related to new ﬂagging, the new p rapets, and so

on . He said, with all the assurance of his architectural t knowledge, hat they could trace the work that was done

when that 15 was spent ; if they wanted to build

the walls, even excepting where the large stones were

found , they would have to spend many thousands . Mr. f Watkin said no altars had been ound , and that his opinion would have been changed if altars had been found !

: Mr. Watkin I know that ; I said it would have been ff ff di erent, and that a di erent wall would have been built if

altars had been used instead of tombstones . ! Mr. Brock : Altars were not so plentiful He spoke of

s e the plinth . He need not trespa s on their tim with regard

TH E A GE OF TH E F H E T 94 WA LLS O C S E R . the whole of the wall from the large unmortared stones to the parapet was Edwardian to a large extent, and if they examined it they would see that it was so, although they might trace work of the thirteenth and ﬁfteenth centuries

- . re as well In the north wall one of the worked stones ,

’ probably Roman originally, has a very distinct mason s mark, apparently of Edwardian date. But if the wall was not built till the time of Queen Anne, they would not be likely to ﬁnd any medie val wall there at all . How did the holders of such opinion account fo r the ex istence of any medie val work ? Another speaker referred to the rough irregular nature of the wall , and that there was no indication of its Roman origin, but the wall was as he (the speaker) had sketched it (on the blackboard) . The confessedly Roman stones, even supposing for argument sake that they had all been brought from elsewhere, must have always formed just such a wall as at present . Their unmortared beds showed that conclusively. Objectors to the belief that the stones

in s itu were must be bound to admit that, wherever else they were originally, they must have formed part of walling

hrubsole similar to what they now see . Mr. S had objected

’ to Mr. Jones section , and some of his friends also, but he (the speaker) went about with a powerful argument in its — favour a foot rule . He could assure them that he had measured the wall irrespective of Mr. Jones, he had made a rough diagram, and he asserted that his drawing was correct in every respect . Mr. Jones had had the good sense (in anticipation of remarks of that kind being made) to draw his sketch so that a child might test it by going to the actual spot . The drawing was correct. He said it on the authority of having measured it. He said it on the

’ hr l . ubso e authority of knowing Mr Jones accuracy. Mr. S had kindly told them that those were not bullet marks on ’ M R B R L Y. . R OCK S EP 95

was the wall . It true he had not noticed them until that . n n day, but his atte tio had been called to them by an old inhabitant . He had seen similar marks elsewhere which were known to be bullet marks , and he ventured to say

’ M r hrubso l s . S e geological knowledge notwithstanding that those were bullet marks . It would be noticed in regard to the excavations

' at the Roodee wall that what was no w shown to be the actual face of the work really correspon ded with the north wall , and he would ask them carefully to consider whether it was at all possible for any medi e val builders to have found anywhere such an enormous number of what were

r confessedly Roman stones, with faces so rema kably per fect ? Had they been so found , would it not have become

re - necessary to face them , and not to leave them with the tool - marks which the Romans had worked so many hundred of years before ? He took it that that was no small

’ hrubso l s n . S e argume t . Then, as to Mr stricture on the coin said to have been found . He (the speaker) thought those present would do him the justice of saying that he had laid as little stress as possible on that incident. He had completed his address before he brought the coin under their notice, and after he had sat down . He had

“ ” known too much , however, of kindly turns like that being done, where a question of antiquity was in dispute, h to take much notice of such ﬁnds . But e believed this coin to be genuin e ; he believed it was really f ound by the workman who said he had found it. However, he had not

laid stress upon it, but if it were queried as a mere matter

of positive certainty, he thought one might very well do so .

’ hrubsole s Adverting to Mr. S reﬂection on the crumbling

nature of the wall when interfered with by the workmen, f ’ the speaker said he could not, of course, re er to Mr. Jones workmen at that juncture ; but he thought the incident of 6 E F TH E WA LLS OF TE R 9 TH E A G O CH E S .

falling stones was reasonably to be accounted for ; he must

’ hr b o l s accept Mr. S u s e statement observing only that it

was what he (Mr. Brock) did not see . The speaker here pointed out by means of the diagram how likely it was that stones would be liable to fall from the later loose wall work of the upper wall when any excavation was being

s carried on below. Some peakers had referred to Roman

tiles being used in connection with Roman wall building,

r r but it did not necessa ily follow eve ywhere, and many other questions might be raised as to other modes of

building. Tiles were not always necessarily used in such

n constructions . Referring to the supposed sa ctity of tombs

he - h in Roman times, mentioned the well known fact t at the sepulchres of the ancient Etruscans were not respected

by the later Romans , who riﬂed them for the sake of getting

the then fashionab le vases which they contained . It was

very much the case at the present day with ourselves ,

Christians as we were. When a graveyard was to be

altered or extended, or some addition made to a church , it

would be found that they were not over particular, despite ” h the reverence for the dead , whic we were supposed to

possess . Many a cartload had been sold by builders and

used as mere paving stones .

The Mayor said, however late the hour might be, he was

r sure the audience would not depa t without thanking Mr.

Brock for his eminently useful and instructive lecture, and

fo r a the other gentlemen , the inform tion and light they had throw on a subject of so much interest as the dis coveries recently made in Chester. They had reason to feel greatly gratiﬁed at the honour those gentlemen had done them in coming there and expressing their opinions that evening ; and he was sure they would all agree with him and join in wishing them their cordial thanks . His Honour J udge Wynne Ffoulkes formally seconded

T H E I N S C R I B E D R O M A N S T O N E S L RECENT Y FOUND AT CHESTER, DURING TH E SECOND SERIES OF REPAIRS TO

THE NORTH WALL .

BY WA LTER DE GRAY BIRCH , F. S. A .

A !R ead otb pr il ,

H E city of Chester has always been fertile in Roman

i e rema ns, and the pages of our many arch ological Journals and Transactions contain numerous notices of discoveries, which have been made from time to time in or

- about the city in which we are assembled to night, to con sider some of the newest discoveries that are to be added

- n to the ever increasi g list . The total sum of these yields a record which gives a good place to Chester in the front rank of English cities , if they are arranged in order of the numbers and importance of their antiquities . The recent visit of the British Arche ological Association has stimu lated research ; the controversies which have subsequently arisen respecting the walls has aroused attention ; and at the present moment the epigraphical relics which have been recovered in the course of your investigations into the con struction of the north wall of the city may justly be said to have given a culminating point to the in terest which

attaches to Roman Chester.

Of the city walls so much has been said, and so much

’ O ro m ul written , so many conﬂicting pinions have been p

u fo r gated, that (altho gh I , one, have a ﬁrm belief in their I E D R OM A N S TO E F O D A T CH E S T R I NSCR B N S UN E . 99

Roman origin , and character) it is not my intention to make more than incidental mention of them on this

“ so - i occasion . With regard to the called ecclesiast cal ” stone, about which I read a paper to the Society of Anti 1 uarie s 8 q on the th December last, I would , with your

' m so 1 . per ission , say that lately as the 5th of February Mr k— E . P . Broc whose lecture in this room on the Chester walls I had the great privilege of hearing— exhibited before the British Arche ological Association three curious

statuettes of terra cotta , of small size, found in Asia Minor,

of Greek workmanship, representing female ﬁgures, one of

S - which has ingular stole like bands hanging down in front, the general appearance being very similar to that of the larger ﬁgure of the two on the Chester stone . One of these

’ n w I o lay before you with the owner s permission . Major l . . Ce s no a A P di , during the course of his systematic

excavation of various sites in the island of Cyprus, dis

covered several statuettes bearing, among other details of

r n drape y, stoles identical with that seen on this very sto e . Those of my hearers who happened to be in London last

month found Messrs . Sotheby and Wilkinson , the ﬁne art auctioneers, engaged in a sale of some of these Cypriote 8 1 antiquities, and among them lot 3 is described in the V sale catalogue as a Fine Statuette of enus, archaic

- f style, draped , wearing stole like bands down the ront of ”

&c. Lot 8 1 the dress with fringed ends, 4 in the same catalogue is another statuette of a muse with a lyre “ with ” - peculiar stole like bands in front of the dress .

r The repairs to the north wall , which revealed this e markable stone, have yielded also no less than twenty seven inscribed slabs of various dates and of considerable importance . Thirteen of these were described by your city surveyor last October, and they have been discussed

Pr nte o n . 2 o i d pp 5 t 39. 100 TH E INSCRIB ED R OM A N S TONES

and explained by Mr. W. Thompson Watkin and others It is to the fourteen recently found inscriptions that I desire

n - to direct your atte tion to night, and I trust to be able to point out some peculiarities in them which will repay

e your examination and consideration . The Arch ological Society of Chester is indeed fortunate in being the posses sor of these vestiges of the Romans in the midst of them they will be a welcome and important addition to the

' collections already deposited in the Grosvenor Museum , where the evident bestowal of much care has brought together a highly instructive and attractive assemblage of similar relics.

I . The monument dedicated to the shades of Publius

Rustius n must have been of an imposi g character, judging from the remains of it which are included in this series .

u All that is now left is the rectang lar slab, bearing the . whole of the inscription, surmounted by the feet only of the original efﬁ gy of the departed personage which for merly adorned it. This slab measures two feet ten inches f wide, two eet three inches high, and nine inches thick . The edge of the stone is decorated with a broad ﬁ at border

- or frame, enclosing a narrow semi circular moulding, which in turn bounds the depressed ﬁeld containing the inscrip n tion of six lines, in ﬁne bold Roma capital letters , as I I follows (see Plate V . )

v T D M . P . R s o PARA CRESCEN BRx

M IL . LEG . xx . v . v

' ‘

A N . S IP xxx . . x .

G ROM A . H EREs FA C CVR

There are several points of epigraphical interest in the

TL Y F A 1 1 RE CEN OUND T CH ESTER . 0

- u . inscription . The stops are delta shaped or triang lar In

r R us tio Fa bia B ria I the th ee words, , , and ; the is placed

M rom over the preceding consonant . The A in G a and the

re li ulate s n : H E in lte s are g . The meani g is To the Divine

Shades . Fabia Crescentia of Brescia, his heir, caused [this

Rustius monument] to be erected to the memory of Publius ,

L V Vic a soldier of the Twentieth egion , the alerian , the to rio us , a stipendiary for thirty years , a surveyor of the camp for ten years . I believe it has been suggested that

Groma is to be read as the name of the heir, but it does not seem probable, nor can the inscription be interpreted on this supposition without difﬁ culty as to the grammar and sense at the same time the position of the numerals is peculiar. The name of the deceased l s qui te new to Roman in s cri tio ns Ru stius p in Britain , but is found on no less than

’ M u rato ri s eleven inscriptions in collection .

. . be a n H iibn r . B . 0 ta lla sata e describes (I R , No 7 4) a , which

I 8 I Cheste rho lm Vindolana was found in the year 3 , at or , the ” lineam L statio per valli nona, also called ittle Chesters , and now preserved in the Museum at Chesters, on which is the following illustrative inscription : Jovi Optimo Maxi mo ceterisque Diis im m ortalibus e t Genio Prae to rii Q . r f u oh is F bia rbicus e ect s c o rt IV . Petronius Q . f. a U p Gal lorum ex Italia domo B rix ia votum so lvit pro se ac ” - suis . This clue connects the well born Fabia Crescentia,

Cresce ntilla Crescentina, or (for all these forms are found), with the Fabian tribe of Brixia or Brescia in the district of

1 Ro m ah Brix ellum Venice . There was also a , a town on

he P0 . t right bank of the River , in the same province At ﬁrst I was inclined to accept for this word E ri c the s ign i h ﬁ catio n which as been attributed to it by the late Dr.

Br x a as a eo ra ca term a e to a nam e occurs t rteen t mes i i , g g phi l ppli d , hi i ’ in M uratori o r Fa a is n ersa foun in the Ro man or . s w k . bi u iv lly d w ld 102 TH E IN S CRI BE D R OM A N STON E S

n r nes Edwin Guest, in his learned dissertations , e titled O igi

ic elt ae i 26 . C . . . : , vol , p This profound writer states Juba

Ludo i L informs us that, by the or ydians, a freeman is

B rix called He , doubtless, meant that the phrase was current in the district which once formed the Lydian Em

B r s pire. ig , there can be little doubt, was a Phrygian or

c Celti ; word . It may, I think , be traced even in modern

times, both in the Celtic and in the Teutonic languages, for I do not hesitate to consider it to be merely a variant form

o ur of own word Frack or Frank .

roma The word g , which is found for the ﬁrst time, I

a believe, throughout the whole range of Rom n epigraphy

- in this newly discovered slab, seems to be a contraction for

roma ticus roma rius g (unless there be a word g , now lost) .

roma ru ma The g or g (for each form is found) was , according

“ ’ ” rod to Festus , a surveyor s pole, or measuring , and by

metaphor it was applied to the centre of a camp, where the

rom a ticus measuring rod was planted . G was the adjective

r oma tica formed from the above word ; and g , the art of

roma tics ﬁeld- castram eta g , the art , that is, of surveying or m . s r tion In this case the term signiﬁes ilitary u veyor .

Facciolati n Lex icon and Forcelli i, in their celebrated , are

r r oma ru ma ve y explicit as to g or g , which they derive

’ ’ vas wv vus as index norma enus from y p , y pm, and describe , , g

mac/zin ulae cu usda m n j , teste Festo, qua regio es agri cujus

co nosci ossu nt ﬂe x ae que g p , vel mensura quaedam qua

linea m diri untur u t a rim e nsoru m a rae cis viae ad g , est g g

lla i castris ru ma locus medius vocibus a t s . In quoque g erat , ubi gromae organum a m etato re ponebatur u t quatuor

facere t n e t divideret a a gulos normales, ita castr in quatuor

uarum ru m ae co n ven b n partes q viae in g loco ie a t . Erat ” ”

. castris prope praetorium In , says an ancient writer,

“ ” roma o nitur tetra ntem ve lut co n e ni ur g p in qua ad forum v t .

s As far as the Roman city of Chester is concerned , thi

104 TH E INSCRIB E D R OM A N STONES

- feet nine inches long, and eight and three quarter inches

c thick . The upper half contains a ountersunk subject in

an arched or vaulted recess . The deceased is represented as reclining on a couch with head and footboards splayed

outwards at the top, much after the style of some old

f . ashioned sofas He is resting on the left elbow, the head

and upper part of the trunk being raised . In his left hand

ff . he grasps a sta or baton In his right hand , which is

- raised aloft, is a cup. On the left hand side of the sculp

ture is the upper part of a woman , apparently also reclining

n on the couch . In the front or foregrou d there is a tripod ff table with o erings placed upon it.

The inscription is as follows (see Plate V III . ) D M CECILIVS DO NATVS B ESSVS N A TIONE M ILI TAVIT A NN

OS . XXVI A S The concluding words of the inscription ' are imperfect

and indistinct, but there can be little doubt that it reads

“ iis M anibus thus : D . Cecilius Donatus Be ss us n atione m ilitavit anno s xxvi vi[x it] The form of the lettering

the is good , but arrangement is very peculiar. There is a

D o natu gap between and s . The division B less as is un

a welcome. There is large space after N a on the third

tione line, and the remainder of the word is inscribed with plenty of room to spare on the left- hand side of the fourth

line . There would have been room for the sculptor to add to A nn on the ﬁfth line the os which he preferred to place

cu in the sixth . It would seem that the inscription was t

u by someone who did not understand the lang age, or at least by one who was unaccustomed to the practice of

epigraphy . PLA TE VIII .

T M T I WA LL F O BS O NE O F C EC LIUS DO NA T US , FO UND IN T H E NO RTH O

T H E IT F H E TER IN 18 8 . C Y O C S , 7

106 TH E I NSCRI B E D R OM A N STONE S

— ment was in all probability the son Romanized , as is

f — o f s evident rom his name a subdued Be ssu . The warlike nature of his race probably led him into the congenial ff occupation which the Roman army o ered , unless, indeed , im he served under compulsion , as being one of those pressed into the military ranks on the conquest of his fatherland . Whether he ever was enabled to exercise his national abilities of mining in the neighbourhood of Chester and North Wales we shall not very easily

r asce tain .

ins cri Muratori , in his valuable collection of Roman p tions , mentions several which illustrate this monument . “ 1 ” For example : A e lius Bassus natio ne Be ssu s (774

u s Be ssus . The phrase, in fact, generally runs tione

H iibne r 1 6 : 1 inscri records (No. 33 45) the interesting p

“ ” tion BESSVS F Bessus fecit on a ﬁ ctile vase found at

lle x f n m . Po e Camulodunu or Colchester, by Mr , and now preserved in the British Museum . The term had there fore passed from the original tribal designation into the secondary stage of an eponymic at the time when this piece of Roman pottery was fabricated . We may thus catch a passing glimpse of the transplanting system of the

Roman empire, which conveyed Cecilius Donatus , the

’ es Thracian , to Chester s legionary camp , in the w t , and led ” Bessus a r ex cellence , or the Thracian p , to the Samian

l o f ki ns Colchester, in the east of Britain .

III . A slab of much importance is that dedicated to Quintus

L . onginus It is rectangular, and measures three feet in

‘ Bassus w c m a er a s be co nnecte in some wa t Bessus occurs , hi h y p h p d y wi h , in severa Br t s Ro man nscr t o ns recor e H iibner C . R. Sm t and l i i h i ip i d d by , i h , o t ers on m on ments ases and ot er ant u t es. h , u , v , h iq i i RE E Y A T R 10 C NTL F OUND CH ES TE . 7

two length, feet two inches in height, and ten inches in

o f thickness . The border is ornamented with a moulding three parts ; first a flat outer framing, left from the original face of the stone ; then a semi - circular roll ; and inside this another at a less height . The inscription , in five lines, is

II O V . 100 as follows (see Plate , pposite p . )

L N NV Q . O G l S POM ENTNA LAETVS c o

sTP . xv .

CORN EL SEVER.

The i is suprascript over the preceding consonants in

P omentina S ti Corne i everi , p, l , S , and may be compared with

ius . . ust the same practice in the monument o f P . R

o f L Po m e ntina This is the monument Quintus onginus ,

laetus L ucus a , or tenant, in the , or grove, dedicated to some deity in the neighbourhood . He was a stipendiary

o f or soldier serving for his pay, in the century Cornelius

Severus the centurion .

laetus f The , under the later Roman empire, was a oreign bondman, who received a piece of land to cultivate, for which he paid a tribute or rent to his master. The lands

laeta laeticae terrae. so cultivated were called , or Forcellini

“ deﬁnes laetus as ita appellatus fuit sequiori Latinitatis tempore ille qui ex barbaris gentibus potio ris erat condi tio nis r inﬁmi re dium ali uod quam se vus ordinis, cui p q in ” co lendum dabatur u tribu um e nso l eret t t domino p v . The name S everus may possibly point to that of the 1 Emperor Severus, who is declared by the historians Hero dian and Dion Cassius to have, while resident in Britain , divided the island into two portions, named Britannia

Superior and Britannia Inferior.

’ See M r. T om o a n s Roma ites/tire . 1 . h ps n W tki n C , p 3 108 TH E INS CRIB E D R OM A N STONE S

Quintus Longinus Po m e ntina is a name new not only to L Chester but to all Britain , but the single name onginus t is not a stranger to the ci y, for it occurs on the ﬁne Roman altar in your museum , depicted by Mr. T . Watkin (in his valuable work, p . who gives also the history of its

H ii n B . b e r . . wanderings ; and recorded by Professor (I R ,

No .

IV . One of the largest inscribed stones recently exhumed is

L . that dedicated to Aurelius ucius It has a rounded top, f and measures four feet six inches high, by two eet four inches wide . The subject is in low relief, countersunk, and contained in a narrow side border, indicating the height of

o f the original face the stone . In the upper part is a d Roman soldier of rank, appropriately attire , and reclining, with knees bent up, on a couch , which is furnished with a thick mattress . His body is supported on the left elbow .

r His hair is indicated in rolls . In his ight hand he holds

- e ocu um up high an elegantly shap d p l or cup for libations , after the conventional manner seen upon sepulchral stones of this class . In the background, on the left hand , directly f over the legs of this e ﬁgy, the sculptor has introduced two l important emb ems, which indicate the profession of the

m ucro deceased. The ﬁrst is a short dagger ( ) or sword

ladius o ff (g ) , with broad blade (the point broken by a frac ture in the slab), short shoulder bar, and spherical knob .

o f To the left this is a helmet turned to the right , showing

- s - a fo r the hinged cheek piece, hourgla s sh ped oriﬁce the t ear, and bold cresting, commencing wi h a bunch or pan

o n ache the forehead , running down the back of the head ,

ff n the like a sti mane, and e ding at the nape of neck with

- a horn shaped projection . A very ﬁne bronze Roman f equestrian ﬁgure, recently ound in the district of Castor,

RE L Y F O D T H 1 CENT UN A C ES TER . 09

1 near Peterborough , shows on the helmet of the rider a somewhat similar crest, but the topping and the ending f details do not altogether correspond , and the orm of the ff helmet itself is di erent . f f The slab is un ortunately imper ect beneath the couch . In the middle o f this part of the design is a full - length w ﬁgure, of hich only the head , neck, and legs remain ; on

f O the le t a mask, and above it an almost destroyed bject, the nature of which I am unable to ascertain ; on the right

o f ff a tripod table o erings, according to the conventional pattern . This probably represents an attendant slave f serving at the funeral east, but it is hard to say why the mask has been introduced, unless it is to point out that the funeral ceremonies of this military personage were cele brated with some especial features in the way o f a dramatic performance . f The inscription is as ollows (see Plate IX . )

AVRELI . c 1 EQVITIS H F c

o f L the - The heir or heirs Aurelius ucius, horse soldier, ” ins r caused this [monument] to be made. Below the c ip tion a height of ﬁfteen inches of the lower part of the stone has been left roughly worked , as if it were intended for insertion into the ground, a practice not at all uncommon in Roman cemeteries, and one indeed which we ourselves f have derived without interruption rom the Romans .

x f The inscription e plains itself. From the act that this e ues g had two names only, we cannot look upon him

s t of as po sessed of higher social rank han that a freedman . The true Roman patrician would have had three to his

F re in the ou rnal tbc B ritisb A rche olo ical A ssociation 1888 igu d j qf g , , p. 1 I 3 . 1 10 TH E J N S CRI B E D R OM A N S ToN E S

e t i record . But from the imperf c condit on of the slab at the part where the ﬁrst name would have been placed, it is impossible to say whether an initial letter of such a name or a contracted form of it may or may not have existed there . Yet I see no traces of such a name . It is not unlikely that the deceased owed his name— if he were a freedman— to a desire on the part o f his master to ﬂatter

A D 6 1— 1 . . 1 8 the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 0 ;

as and , if this be so, we are enabled to arrive at some idea to l the date of this important piece of Roman funeral scu pture.

Mr . Thompson Watkin , in his exhaustive work on

n /tir 1 2 R oma ites e . C , states at p that during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus historians are silent as to t t o f n his par Britain , and nothi g can be gathered from inscriptions . This one, then , may help to ﬁll the historical lacuna, as far as Chester is concerned . It is remarkable that the name A u relius was a favourite in Britain during the Roman times . The word occurs as forming part of a name no less than thirty- nine times in

’ H iibne r s I nscri tiones B rita nn iae Roma nao Professor p , and the corresponding feminine name Aurelia, thirteen times .

The combination Marcus Aurelius, which clearly points to its imperial conception , is found seven times in the same work . Then , again , Marcus Aurelius Nepos, a centurion of

’ Le io Vicesim a V V t the the g aleria ic rix, occurs on inscribed

’ 2 stone No. 4 of Mr. Matthews Jones report o f the 26th 1 88 October, 7 (see p . We get, also, Marcus Aurelius

le io n Alexander, a Prefect of the same g , on the i

1 of scribed stone No . 4 the same report (see p. This

e r prefect was, perhaps, a cont mpora y of Marcus Aurelius — A . D . 222 2 for a Alexander Severus, the Emperor, 35 , n mes

e such as thes were , doubtless, attached to persons con temporary with this emperor, just as in our own days the

V x ictorias, Ale andras, Alberts, Beatrices, and so forth,

1 1 2 TH E I NSCRI B ED R OM A N STONES

The name of Titianus recalls to mind that of Ulpius

Titianu s f B e tas ii , pre ect of the First Cohort of the , sculp

tu red H iibner on a stone at Maryport, and described by , N 1 . O . No . 39 The name again occurs in the same work, L 395 . An altar found at ancaster, and now preserved in

L a IEscu Durham Cathedral ibrary, be rs the inscription

T FL Titianus Tribunus V S L L M lapio . Another

0 H iibner f example (No. 44 , ) of the same name was ound f within the ancient ortiﬁcation .

V I .

A very ﬁne and solid sepulchral stone tablet is that of

E ciminu s Lucius , which belongs to this series . It is three f eet six inches wide, four feet four inches high , and eight

o f inches thick . The inscription is contained in six lines

so - rus tic large bold capital lettering, inclining to the called

T L ita li s L se l. form in some places, as the and in V , the in p , enclosed in a broad band or border conterminous with the

he upper and side edges of t stone, but the lower part is wider and left rough, being evidently left for insertion into the ground . X The inscription is as follows (see Plate . )

DIS M L ECIM INVS D EL LICIAAIVS VITA LIS VLFR LEG XX V V H IC SEPL

fﬁ The di culty with this inscription , which is perfectly

r legible in eve y part, lies in the number of the names of the deceased . The last word on the fourth line is

for vex illi er evidently an abbreviation f , standard bearer,

vex illia rius not f synonymous with , but ound in classical P LA TE X.

ROM A N IN PTI N F UND IN TH E NORTH WA LL O F TH E C IT O F SC RI O , O Y

C H ESTER, IN 18 8 7 .

1 14 TH E I NSCRIB ED ROM A N S TONES supplies several personages who possessed more names than the usual three, and Mr. Thompson Watkin, in his

/tire 1 the Roma n ites . C , p 7 3 , notices an altar, now in British

Museum , dedicated by the freedmen and family of Titus Po mpo nius M ax ilianus Rufus A ntistianus Funisulanus

Vetto nianus L , a egate rejoicing in no less than seven

u names . Deli s is known as a name in classical times , and the term D elius or Deliacus signiﬁed a man of Delos in

D lli D l atus Del hicus . e us e ic Greece Delius , , , and p occur

’ in M urato ri s great collection as names found on inscrip

Licinulus u r tions . occ rs on a piece of Roman potte y

’ L Gentlema n s found in ondon , and described in the

M zine 1 8 2 A rc/ o o 1 1 a a l ia 8 8 . . m 1 g , 44 , p 37 ; in the g , 3 , p 5 , by

. e C Roach Smith, the veteran arch ologist, who has from the ﬁrst maintained the Roman character of your

the Cor us H iibn r e . 1 6 walls ; and in p of Professor , No 33

Licin ius f f 1 , too, is o ten ound, but there is more than

L icinius the if in the reading on the slab, and names, I

e . have read them aright, are new to arch ology

V u italis is by no means an uncommon name . J lius

V t t ar of Le i Vices im a V i alis, a s ipendi y soldier the g o alens

V r ictrix , the ve y legion mentioned on this stone now f under consideration , occurs on a monumental slab ound at

H iibner Bath, and recorded by , No. 49. It is curious to remark also that among the few frag ments of Roman ﬁctilia which were thrown out from the

’ excavation in the Dean s ﬁeld , when these inscribed slabs

h f - were met wit , an imper ect bowl ofthe well known Samian

ware occurs, bearing the inscription

In M ra r H ner &c. u to i, ub , R TL Y F O D A T CH T R ECEN UN ES E . 1 1 5

o cind Vitalis of V or ﬁ , from the manufactory italis ,

u stamped in a rectang lar panel in the middle of the vase. This adds a ne w name to the extensive list of Chester potters which has been prepared by Mr. Frank H . Williams , in his val uable Sy nops is of tbe Roma n I nscriptions of

Ches ter 1 886 . 6 . , , pp 7 , 77

f M anibus L The reading there ore will be Dis . ucius E ciminus Deli us Licinulus Vitalis Ve x illifer Legio n is ” im a e ictricis s e e litur Vices e Valeri V hic p .

itali s This name of V is of more than ordinary interest . Muratori records several examples of it among the names of Christians on inscribed stones of the early centuries . It is not improbable that it had a figurative or spiritual ffi w signification , which is not di cult to understand hen specifically adopted by adherents to the new faith that promised eternal “ life to those who were faithful unto ”

. a death In l ter times it was also a favourite appellation .

’ r There is a ve y ancient pillar at St. Clement s, near Truro ,

: ISN IOG VITA LI FILI T RRI I in Cornwall , inscribed O C

f. which has on the top a circular cross in relie This , we are told by a recent writer on the early Chris tian

“ monuments of Cornwall , is altogether a very remarkable monument, especially if it could be established that the

of date the inscription and the cross were the same.

in As a general rule, however, the earliest crosses are i c sed f. and not in relie The stone, which is now used as V n a gatepost at the entrance of the icarage Garden, is ni e f ” eet high .

Muratori supplies numerous names, many of them of

r : . V V Ch istian use, which are cognate with this viz , ita, ita lianus V Vitalinus V Vitaliss im us , italio, , italis Sema, , all

V Vitalinia V Vitalinius V Christian ; italia, , italina, , italio,

Vitalius i alis i , V t s mus . Vitalis is a name of an abbot of Westminster in I 16 TH E I NSCRIB E D R OM A N S TONES

A D 10 6 - the . 7 , recorded in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, and cognate form Vitalia n was adopted by a Roman pontiff of the seventh century. It is thus abundantly evident that the name Vitalis had a charm which recommended it to Christian ears . Can it

desi be that, in the present example, the personage thus g nated was a Christian member of the church militant in England during the Roman occupancy of the city of Chester ?

I V I . The next stone to which I am to ask your attention is a fﬁ mere fragment, but it presents some di culty as to its tw f interpretation . It measures o eet seven inches in width and eight inches in thickness . The height cannot be accu

l a rate y determined . All that rem ins of the inscription is in three lines

N XXV VRM A VIII X FRATER FEC

of a The form the ch racters is good and bold, and the two

of stops in the second line take the shape ivy leaves , as is commonly the cas e in great numbers of examples of Roman inscriptions that have been found in Britain and other con

nt of s titue provinces the Roman empire . This is apparently portion of a sepulchral slab set up by one whose name is lost, to the memory of a now nameless

t - ﬁve brother, who may have lived for twen y years, unless the numerals xxv in the ﬁrst remaining line be taken as ” L Vicesima V representing the Devan egion aleria V ictrix . But the absence of the second V usually employed in this

s s . combination seem . to preclude thi idea In the second

V has e line the an oblique stroke, ither by chance or design,

1 18 TH E I NS CRIB E D R OM A N S TONE S

of accident, but design . In that case we have to consider

n what is sig iﬁed by the mark . Here valuable assistance is

ff i r a orded by the indefat gable Mu atori , who has recorded f i. 2 o f . . Rh (vol , p 9) the text an inscription ound at odi V gium , the modern Rovigo in enetian parts, and now (in his day) preserved in the Museum of Count Camillo f Silvestri . This reads as ollows

CE RERI AVG II EDOM ACVS PVB I IVIR M AG OB H ON LIBTA T R ET H ERCVL AVG

“ The above- mentioned author explains this Ce re ri et

H e rculi H edom acus s ive H e dom achus u , , serv s publicus ” duu mviralis libertatis e Magistratus ob honorem recept .

There were, we are told , public slaves attached to public

ru - magistrates and colleges . G ter indexes some of these

ublici p , and notices of them and their position may be

’ bretti s f a . ound also in F work It may, therefore, be that we have on this imperfect Chester slab some such phrase

I R IIVIR e duum iralis I VI I M A i . . v as or , , Magistratus, li triu mvira s f . magistratus, or so orth The exact numeral

XI f r vir before the R ( o ) cannot now be ascertained . I am inclined to accept the second alternate which I have

u of s ggested, that, namely, the addition of the stroke to V the by design rather than by chance . But even so, I advance the reading duu mvirali s magi stra tus with a con

s ide rable o f difﬁ de nce for amount , when an inscription is

so fragmentary as this is, it would be extremely rash to

assert with conﬁdence any reading as absolutely correct. Perhaps some future Operations on the wall at this spot

a s of may reveal dditional piece this and other slabs, and

of then the true readings will be recovered . This recovery Of other portions is not by any means to be despaired .

PL ATE X I .

- D IN TH E TOM BSTONE OF DIOGENES , TH E STA NDA RD BEA RER, FOUN

N RTH WA LL F T H E C IT F C H E TER IN 18 8 7 . O O Y O S ,

1 20 TH E I N S CRIB E D R OM A N S TONE S

r The inscription is very fragmenta y . It reads

D . M

IVS . DIOGEN I FEC

Diogenes is a name not unknown to arche ologists of

- as 1 Romano British research. As long ago 579 a stone

f of sarcophagus was ound , west of York walls, a quarter a

fe f mile or less, measuring six et long by nearly three eet

“ : Verecundius e wide, inscribed (at length) Marcus Diogen s u nu vir colo niae Eborace nsis ite mque m un icipii ortu cives ” Bi u x ubus u fe t ri C hoc sibi viv s cit . It is discussed by

b r . 2 8 H ii ne . in his great work, No 4 Perhaps the imperfect name before Diogenes is Vere

cundius . , but it is a matter of pure conjecture The con clusion of the inscription is probably some such well - known f formula as hoc sibi ecit, not unfrequently contracted into H S F

IX .

I now come to a stone which bears parts of two standing f ﬁgures . It measures two eet ﬁve inches high by twenty

- one inches wide, and seven inches thick. The left hand f side is per ect, and contains the body, arms, and legs as far

as the knees, of a man clad in a tunic which reaches to the thigh. Under his left arm is an indistinct object which

- a looks like a wine skin or a b gpipe, there is a bent pipe or tube which comes out from under the arm and is grasped

’ at the extremity by the man s hands held together, the

f . right over the le t, in front of him This subject, with the

r f of - u ve y ragmentary part the right hand ﬁg re, has been h enclosed and countersunk, as is usual with most of t ese

sculptures, in a recess of which the top is wanting, but the moulding on the left-hand side is very good and consists

P LA TE X II .

F TOM BSTO NE OF H ERM A GO RAS , O UND IN TH E NO RT H WA LL OF TH E

IT F C H E T ER IN 18 8 7 . C Y O S ,

1 22 TH E I N S CRI BE D R OM A N STONES

In this case also H e rm agoras is the sole name of the

d H e rm a oras efunct, and it is not improbable that the g of the Chester slab and the H erm ago ras of Rie chester both belonged to no very high social rank in the Roman cities

which contain their ashes.

X .

The next inscription is contained on a bordered slab ,

which was formerly of ﬁne bold dimensions, and from the character of the letteri ng exhibited on the fragment of the

- right hand side, which alone has been recovered , may be adjudged to have belonged to a good period and to have

r recorded the memo y of an important personage . The fragment measures sixteen inches wide and fourteen inches

high . The breadth of the border is two and a quarter

inches . The inscription is as below

M ISSICI

VA 1> B >TR<1

X X D III D VIXIT

V .

The reading of the ﬁrst line is conjectural . In the second

“ BTR line , with a horizontal bar through the last two letters,

B itu rix is a contraction which may stand for , a native of

Bourges in France . But perhaps we shall be more justiﬁed

B ene cia rius tribun i in rendering this by ﬁ , the pensioner or

dependent of a tribune. Carey states that, according to

Li s ius bene p , a writer on Roman antiquities, such titles as

cia rii cons ulu m raetoru m cera rii f ﬁ , p , , and so forth , are ound

’ M urato ri s on inscribed stones . great work gives many

be neﬁciaru bene cia rii instances of , and among them a ﬁ

Tu rm e , an expression which may perhaps throw consider

u able light o this passage . T 12 RECENTL Y F OUND A CH ES TER . 3

. 111 The numerals in the third line, xx , represent,

of according to this view, the number years during which

oc the deceased, whose name can only be guessed at, cupied

f vix it the dignity of beneﬁciary. A ter the years of his

o f V age are wanting, but there are indications a which

of f goes to make up the span his li e.

I X . The Twentieth Legion is commemorated on another f sepulchral slab, of which only a small ragment of the right hand upper corner has been unearthed . This, like several t f o hers already described, is urnished with a border or band , so distinctive a detail of Roman inscribed stones . The only letters that remain are

We can say nothing more of this very fragmentary inscrip tion than that it probably records the name and years of a

Le i o Vices ima Va leria Victrix soldier of the g , which has left its name and title inseparably connected with the

r primordial histo y of this ancient city.

II X . Among the fragments of inscribed slabs we must include the left- hand upper corner of a rectangular stone measuring

ﬁfteen inches in height, eighteen inches in length, and ﬁve f inches in thickness . The inscription is as ollows

D M C PVBLII FR M I 1 24 TH E I NSCRI B E D R OM A N STON ES

e DII r of It is, therefore, dedicat d to the Manes in memo y

r Caius Publius, probably a legiona y soldier, if the imperfect

M 1 militis m ilita vit. be a part of the word , or The ﬁeld

s which carrie the lettering is countersunk, and enclosed in a broad ﬂat border or frame enriched with an elegant Roman

moulding on the inside . The fragmentary condition of this sepulchral monument precludes any possibility of R throwing further light on its origin . The letter in the E F third line is preceded by an or , but nothing can be deﬁnitely deduced from it.

X III .

Yet another fragmentary stone commemorates a soldier L of the Twentieth egion ; but here, as in other examples , ff the national or racial designation has been e aced by time, the devourer of all things . It has a broad band or border still remaining on the left-hand margin and along the f bottom . The oot, for several inches in depth, has been

fo r h left unworked by the sculptor, , like ot er stones in this

e series, it was intend d to be ﬁxed in the soil . The top and

- but the right hand side are wanting, if we may judge from

is the missing parts of the inscription , not very much wanted to complete the stone . It may have been roughly mutilated into its present form, in order to ﬁt a particular space in the wall . Certainly some of these stones appear to have been purposely cut down at the time of being utilised in the construction of the wall . The legend is

VS M AN . XXX . I

I NS TH E ?LMﬂ HH B E DMR OMMA’ S TQMES

X I V .

There is one stone which from its unique appearance

may possibly have belonged to a building, although I am not at all certain that it does not form part of a sepulchral

tablet . It is a narrow stone, with three lines of inscription

f f r too ragmentary o interpretation .

M ET A CRA FA

in s acra s i The word the second line may have been , m u

la cra la vacra . , , or some such word That in the third line is perhaps the beginning of the constantly occurring

' e u h f : aciuna m cu ra vit s p lc ral ormula f u . As there is nothing f F c be ore the , it would seem that the ins ription ﬁnished

f - with these words. Below is the le t hand horn of an

- elliptical or shell shaped top of a niche, with a small

in portion of the sunken ﬁeld beneath it, which, no doubt,

fﬁ r an e gy was ca ved in relief. But if it be contended that

f o f t this stone ormed part a building, hen this curved band f or border ormed the limit of a panel , doorway, or other

of detail, all knowledge which is now destroyed .

X V .

I must not omit to include in this ex tensive collection of

s inscribed stones a lab which belongs to the class, although

it bears no inscription . It is a square stone, measuring

f six seven inches in thickness, and three eet inches along

- the side. There is a deeply cut . chase seven inches wide

in the in the slab, leaving a raised square middle, and a raised border about six inches wide at the edge of the stone. This has probably formed the base or lid (most

of sa u of arallelo i edal f m likely the base) a rcophag s p p p or ,

PLATE X III .

B T E F A R TA - A TED TO M S O N O O M A N S NDA RD B E RER, M UC H M UTILA F U D IN T H E RT H W H E IT F H E T E I O N NO A LL F T C O R N 1 . O Y C S , 8 8 7

128 TH E I N SCRIB E D R OM A N STONE S

Roman work deserve a special notice . The base being absent we cannot tell what mouldings may have been em

ployed in it, but the moulding which runs up the right hand side of the stone consists of a narrow strip or ribbon

- between two semi circular headings . Inside this is a second

- order, consisting of a partially sunken shaft channelled or

the f ﬂuted with one groove down middle of its ront face, and ﬁnished off with a carved capital just at the level

- where the round headed arch springs. But this arch or

f for vault does not rest on the sha t in any part, it is, in

fact, a continuation of the outer moulding, and shows the

’ of f as n original height the stone s ace, just the mouldi g

s s itself does , wherea the shaft is sunk at lea t an inch in

depth, and stands inside the niche as it were.

This is an important relic indeed , and deserves a place

of honour in your museum of Roman antiquities, whenever

its contents are properly displayed . The same operations which yielded these inscribed stones revealed a large number of mas sive stones with a variety of

Roman mouldings and carvings . Among them are portions

r s of moulded co nices, copings , and part of bases and other architectural fragments . The evidence of these tends to s how that two or three distinctly different buildings have contributed their ruins to the number. One of thes e build

was t ings designed wi h more or less rectangular plan, and on a massive scale ; another had a curvilinear outline in n a plan . One was e riched with pil sters or columns , having the capitals decorated after the well -known Corinthian type ; another had the intercolumnar slab carved with

e - a e reed d or ﬂuted countersunk bands, semi circul r in s ction,

the f alternating with strips. Of ormer kind there is one

x r f very good e ample, a solid block measu ing two eet two

e and inches long, nin teen inches high, ﬁfteen inches thick

of - ned s e It is the capital a boldly desig pila ter, carv d on TL Y F T T R RECEN OUND A CH E S E . 129 one wide and two narrow faces with conventional foliage of a not uncommon type seen in Roman ediﬁces in Britain and elsewhere . Of the latter kind there is one stone

- f twenty our inches thick, eighteen inches along the face, and twelve and a half inches high, with a rough cast base, which was let into the foundation of the building to which it

- belonged . Along the face are the semi circular endings

- or bases of three of the above mentioned reedings. The breadth of the reeds is two and a half inches each , that of the intervening strips three inches . A second stone, which

I have no hesitation in attributing to the same building,

s - mea ures twenty four inches thick , two feet eight inches along the face, and twelve inches high . It will be observed that the thickness and height correspond very closely to the stone already described . The face of this carved stone is ornamented with fine flutings or reedings alternately with six flat strips, the width of the former being two and a half

o f inches, and the latter three inches , precisely the same dimensions, in fact, as are indicated on the stone to which

I have drawn your attention . Some of these building stones have the Roman lewis

r holes and cramp holes ve y well preserved .

I now come to an important point in my remarks . If the repairs of a comparatively small portion of the north wall has yielded so many valuable inscribed slabs (not to

mention the architectural fragments of ancient buildings) , what treasures might not be revealed to the delight of Romano- British antiquaries if a systematic exploration on a more comprehensive scale could be put in hand by a committee who were furnished with funds sufﬁ cient to carry out their commission in a thoroughly exhaustive

manner. Accidental excavation , for various purposes of rebuildin s a g and alter tions, have frequently disclosed an cient vestiges of the highest importance. Here at one 130 TH E I NS CRIBED R OM A N STON E S

’ time the farmer s ploughshare lays bare long stretches of

s mosaic pavement (as at Bignor in Sussex , and Brading,

Isle of Wight) , but slightly covered by the soil, which has protected them for nearly twenty centuries from destruction

e h and decay, nay, and almost miraculously preserv d t em to be the delight of an age which has at length become sufﬁ ciently intelligent to appreciate them at their true worth , and to enjoy them as pictures in stone, which fascinated the artists of the early middle ages . There, at

t i founda ano her t me, the excavator employed in digging tions or tunnels meets with richly-sculptured fragments of

as temples, at Bath and Silchester, and public buildings

’ with the details as fresh as when they left the mas on s chisel . Again and again accident has revealed city walls,

s cemeteries crowded with inscribed slabs, hypocaust , baths, v the ediﬁciar the illas , and whole y apparatus of Roman

h e i citizen occupier. But if ever t ere wer indicat ons of future success vouchsafed to the explorer of ancient sites, e they are plainly manifest d in Chester at the north wall .

n e f The ﬁ ger of Arch ology beckons you orward , and you cannot be content to remain inactive when a little trouble and a small cost may yield the most important results . I

e say this not to the Chester Arch ological Society alone,

n but to the Corporation and the city ge erally. Canon

Raine, of York, in a letter published early in October last year, wrote these words

I express the earnest desire of many in wishing that the excavations at the walls of Chester should be

r . continued, and eve y Roman inscription extricated There can be no harm in reDuilding a wall of a com

arativel - p y late date, provided that old face stones are

s . v u ed in the work The andalism, in my idea, would be in suffering the inscribed stones to remain where

T H E CI TY WA LLS O F C H E ST E R I S A NY PART OF T H E M RO M AN >

BY GEORG E W. SH RUBSOLE, F. G . S.

r r ( A summa y J the o igina l paper read December 3 rd,

T t o ne o f the I is somewhat strange, hat most noticeable f in of t the eatures the antiquities our ci y, namely,

has walls, which are unique so far as England is concerned , hitherto received so little attention from the members of

re this Society. A passing notice, here and there, is all the

’

ournal. cord that I ﬁnd in the Society s j Indeed , as is often m the case, strangers have had ore to say respecting their

r past histo y than the citizens themselves . While so little

be has been written respecting them, yet how much might said ! For four hundred y ears the walls resounded to the tramp of the Roman soldiery. Then succeeded another four hundred years of desolation , neglect, and decay .

Inhabited by no settled people, the place was overrun from — time to time by savage hordes of northern tribes Saxons , — f &c. Danes, who seem to have ound a peculiar pleasure in the destruction of all traces of Roman civilisation .

Without pursuing further the history of the walls in .

o or later times, I may mention that recently the rare pp tunit ff the y was a orded, of thoroughly investigating con

of of struction at least ﬁfty yards, what is reputed to be

of the e o f one old st portions the walls. It happened in TH E CI TY WA LLS OF CH ES TER. 133

f . 1 88 ew this way Early in the spring of 3, a yards from

the Northgate, on the west side, the pavement and inner

face of the wall fell in , and had to be rebuilt . During the

o f progress the work, an opening was made in the walls

for a gateway . The section thus exposed presents several features of

u interest, showing two distinct periods of constr ction , an inner and older wall, and an outer and newer wall . The

- former was wide jointed ashlar work, decayed and weather

u worn on the front edge, and ﬁlled in with loose r bble ; the

latter was formed of massive stones of all sizes , in good condition, and without mortar. Nor were the two walls bonded together in any way ; the arm could readily be passed between them . At a glance the facts might be

read . The inner and older wall had become dilapidated

and needed repair. Instead of taking it down, massive stones (of which more anon) were piled against it, and by their solidity gave substantial support to the tottering old wall . The massive stones forming the outside portion of the walls were found on examination to be, with scarcely an exception , of undoubted Roman material . Among them were portions of friezes, bases, cornices, coping stones, and (to place their origin beyond doubt) a Roman inscribed 1 h monumental stone. T is was an unexpected discovery ; for while the north wall had been spoken of as a unique

- specimen of high class Roman masonry, no one had sus

Of t ese ten ave een e eme ort a ace in the M se m nc in h , h b d d w hy pl u u , i lud g m T i a the inscribed onumental stone . his s a squ re block of sandstone of about ua h nscr e fa a eighteen inches sq re . T e i ib d ce re ds

D M . M A P R O M F F A

This is extended as follows : Diis M anibus M arcus A pronius M arci Filius

Fa a tr . T at is To the D ne S a es M arc s A ronius bi ( ibu) h , ivi h d u p the Son of M arcus of the tribe Fabia 134 TH E CI T Y WA LLS OF CH ES TE R :

pected that old materials from Roman buildings and ceme

teries ru had been used in its const ction .

of ff us The value the discovery is, that it a ords some data upon which to form an opinion as to the age of the t north wall , and so assis us in solving the problem, as to whether we have in our existing city walls any actual

in s it h u . t e Roman work At the onset, I may state, that question narrows itself down to the north wall, which is the only portion having any pretention to the claim . Fragments here and there of an old wall displaying a

u - do ble splayed plinth at the base, with nothing else characteristic of Roman work, may be dismissed at once f f rom the discussion , as introducing too novel a eature in

Roman castrametation to be seriously entertained . Before passing on to consider the features of the wall in t detail , I cannot too strongly insist upon the identi y in age

S the of the work on both ides of the wall, taking Northgate as the centre ; there is nothing on the east that we have

f . not ound on the west The massive blocks of stone, the

n u moulded cor ice so conspic ous on the . one side, are both present on the other. In the one the cornice is to the

m ; f . ront, in the other turned inside The work is the sa e

o f They are both part and parcel the same wall . If, then , the portion on the east side of the Northgate is Roman

in s itu work , so also is that on the west. It is all one, and ends here as an outer casing. This reasoning would

of make the casing large stones Roman work too . Then arises the question , what would be the age of the inner and older wall ? Number two wall can scarcely be older than 1 ollecta ne A i a . C a nt u number one Mr. Roach Smith , in his g ,

x fo rtiﬁ says of the north wall, that it is an e ample of civic

t e cation , not exceeded in antiquity by that of any mural

1 Collectanea A nti ua vol. . . g , vi p. 34

1 36 TH E CI T Y WA LLS OF CH E STER :

n the same wall , we see there the same massive sto es ,

I . rregular in size, with earth ﬁlling up the vacant spaces

Tier upon tier this rises for the height of nineteen feet ,

without any bonding element, and is only held together

by the solid weight of the big stones, and its ample base.

From what I have seen of Roman masonry in the city, observing, as I have done, the profusion of mortar used both in the walls and concrete foundations , I cannot consider a pile of stones , however large, without mortar,

ca rt/I and with ﬁlling the interstices, as characteristic

in s itu h as Roman work , but rat er the work of a much later

date, and of another race of builders We will examine some of these novelties more in

detail . To take one feature of the walls , the absence of mortar in the work from the foundations for nineteen feet ? upwards, as in the case of the north wall . What of it It is an occurrence unknown in the walls of the castra of

s England . No similar ca e can be quoted . In the case of t Deva it is inexplicable, with its proximi y to the limestone

. t country , with good and direct roads Nearly twen y feet f of walling without mortar, ourteen feet of it for support

bu ried in the soil, which is true of the north wall . We

prefer not to believe, that a wall of this sort would be built L at the headquarters of the Twentieth egion . Examples of their wall building yet remain on and about the great

wall between England and Scotland . This substitution

of earth for mortar, throughout the several courses of the

wall for a distance of four hundred yards, is in itself fatal

R o n wo in i to any claim for the wall being ma rk s tu . Or

t the to take another peculiari y, supposed secondary use of f stones rom Roman buildings by Roman builders . This practice is an unheard -of feature in Roman castra

m i n etat o . There is, however, a similar instance in the case

of a part of the London wall . There stones from Roman I S A N Y PA R T OF TH E M R OM A N? 137 buildings were found superimposed upon genuine Roman A P . . . . S walling. Mr. J E Price, who was deputed by the L Corporation of ondon to investigate the circumstance , has

e stated , and proved , that it was the work of medi val , not 1 Roman builders .

Again , to pass over the folly of dismantling a large

fo r building the sake of the stones, with an unlimited supply of rock beneath their feet, bearing in mind the reverence in which the Romans held the memory of the departed, not less sincere than the feelings inspired by

Christianity, we cannot fancy them robbing their ceme teries of the monuments to the memory of the leading

fﬁ L . o cers of the egion , for the purpose of building a wall

It is past belief. Saxons or Normans might have done it . fﬁ Romans never. Nor do the di culties end here . To in some measure account for the novel features in the north wall , Mr. Roach Smith speaks of it, in the quotation we have given , as an example of civic fortiﬁcation of the

Let . highest antiquity. us see what this statement involves f Among the stones in the wall , we have ound the monu

A ronius mental stone to Marcus p already referred to, t belonging to the second or third century, toge her with cornices and friezes of classic type, and of like age . Now

A D . the Romans invaded Britain in 43, and Tacitus tells us

8 . that Agricola, in 7 or 79, erected fortresses in this locality

According to Mr. Roach Smith, Roman fortiﬁcations of t the highest antiqui y would be prior to this later date, and

r of the ﬁrst centu y. Yet we have seen material of the second or third century in the composition of the wall .

There is a further dilemma. If the north wall is of the highest antiquity, then it is the oldest wall ; now as fragments of temples and sepulchral stones are found in

On a Bast on of Lon on Wa 1880 i d ll , . 138 TH E CI TY WA LLS OF CH ES TER :

e e s the structur , then these go to show that D va had ma sive

of f buildings and other elements a city, be ore this ﬁrst wall

- o f was built, thus reversing the well known Roman plan

o f procedure, ﬁrst securing the position of a castrum by a wall and ditch .

Again , no good reason can be shown why, in the case of Deva, the usual system of castrametation , that is with small stones, should have been departed from . It is the plan followed in all the adjoining stations built by detach

s ments of the Twentieth Legion . There exist in all Roman constructive works such a uniformity of design d and arrangement, that there needs to be goo evidence

r h to the contra y fort coming, before we can credit the idea that the Devan castrum was built unlike any other castra in Britain . That Deva was no exception to the rule, and the wall o f the Roman castrum one o f th e ordinary con struction , we have some evidence in the shape of the centurial stones, which appear as witnesses as to the size and character of the stones used in the construction of the wall . These stones once occupied a place in the wall, and indicated the portions built by the men under the

are several centurions . The centurial stones only ﬁve inches high, and nothing so small is seen in the north wall . They only weigh a few pounds as against two or

e three hundredweight. For a stone that was intend d to be

r if used as a bounda y mark, not the largest, at least one of average size would be selected . These centurial stones

rima acie the are, therefore, p f evidence that Romans m constructed a wall here of si ilar small stones, and seeing that at least one of them was taken out of the modern east wall , it would seem to point out that the original source of the stone in question was the Roman wall . . This evidence brings the construction of the Devan castrum into harmony with Roman camps in general, and shows

140 TH E CI T Y WA LLS OF CH E STE R :

quite exceptional , that nothing like it is to be found among

n e the castra in Engla d , while of medi val work there are

n several instances of an a alogous character, leading to the conclusion that the work is much later than is reputed . It is satisfactory to know that the few scraps of local history we possess, bearing on the subject, point to the same conclusion . In an swering the question as to whether any part of the existing walls is Roman , I have shown that the idea is too novel to be seriously entertain ed ; that the view of the older writers of the modern age of the walls is the more correct .

’ n Further, I may add , that duri g thirty years observation of

r n the st ucture of them at various poi ts , I have not seen there any Roman work, such as I am familiar with in walls and foundations in various parts of the city of Chester.

In the discussion which followed the reading of Mr.

’ hrubsole s r S paper, of which the above is a summa y, the

Mayor (Mr. Charles Brown) pointed out , that at the meet ings of the Arche ological Association in Chester in 1 849

e 1 8 6 and of the Arch ological Institute in 5 , it was generally conceded that there were portions of the Roman wall

n plai ly visible . This was especially the case as regards the

n and large sto es at the end of Gray Friars at the Kaleyards . t “ ” He thought hat the bonding referred to by Mr. Shrubsole would be un n ecessary on account of the size of

n - the stones . Mr. Harriso , the well known Cheshire archi

e te t , who was familiar with Roman work at Rome and in

in the east , considered there was evidence of Roman work

’ s itu . When his (the mayor s) ﬁrm rebuilt their premises in s itu they found a number of Roman bricks , but he thought that when the walls of Chesterwere built they did

not need tiles . I S A N Y PA R T OF TH EM R OM A N? 14:

Dean Howson said he was well acquain ted with the great Roman wall from the Solway to the Tyne, and he could say in regard to it, both west and east of the well known Roman station called Chesters, that there was most certainly not the slightest trace of brick ever met with there .

hr s He felt very strongly what Mr. S ub ole had said about the

r customa y tiles in the Roman walls elsewhere, but still it t was impor ant to note the above exception . He had also always looked upon the stones in the wall near the Kale

h n Roodee n yards and t ose faci g the as bei g Roman stones .

Mr. T . Hughes , said that he disagreed entirely

hrubso le with what Mr. S had stated about the age of the city walls . At the Wishing Steps , in forming some drains

Brid e ate from g g to Park Street a few years ago, a large

- n portion of stone work was uncovered , whe some beautifully

u r reg lar mason y was found , which was then pronounced to

i n s itu be undoubted Roman work , and there were no bonding tiles there . In reply to the assertions that the

Romans always used tiles, he would direct attention to

‘ t the remains of the Roman ba h in Bridge Street, where the pillars now in the Water Tower Grounds rested on the bare rock . How was it that no tiles were used here when every other Roman bath found in Britain was so con structed ? How was it that at Chester these hypocaust pillars were built o f stone and not of tiles ?

The discussion was then adjourned .

the th u r At adjourned meeting, held on the 4 Febr a y,

1 88 e o f 4, ther was a large attendance members . The

City Surveyor (Mr. I . Matthews Jones) exhibited several

&c. diagrams, sections, , of the city wall, including the H e cornice near the Northgate. stated that the wall

and commenced with batter ran to a certain height, as F 142 TH E CI T Y WA LLS O CH ES TE R .

- f shown on the section , seventy four eet from the centre of

the Northgate, and the cornice full sized commenced at eighty- two feet from the centre of the Northgate ; and the batter wall and the remains of a cornice extended eastward

one hundred and fourteen feet six inches . Then came a

ﬁft - break of y seven feet of vertical wall, popularly known

r se as a Civil War breach, ve y much weathered but compo d

h . of stones wit mortar joints, but without the cornice Then came one hundred and thirty- eight feet with distinct t e

o f for - f mains a cornice, running forty eight feet our inches ,

and including buttresses and a vertical face wall . That brought them to the larger breach made in the upper part

the the and of the wall at time of Civil War, one hundred ﬁfty - eight feet without any distinctive cornice to King

’ Charles Tower, gradually dying away to a vertical face . Calculations showed that three hundred and nine feet alto th ge er of cornice remained , or one hundred and three yards , a very extraordinary length to be brought from anywhere

else to be placed in such a position . Then wherever excava

tions had been made to the foundation as at the Northgate,

the h - underneath breach, at the extreme nort west and at

’ the extreme distance named , near King Charles Tower,

not a vestige of mortar was found in the batter wall .

The stones were regular in size and courses, some, so f far as could be judged, very large ones, three eet w f thick ; in some cases they ere very good on the ace, others on the joint parts near the face were decayed t and weathered , but hose where the earth was newly

x taken away in e cavating were in splendid condition .

hrubsole Mr . S had referred to the absence of mortar as n te ding to prove that the wall was not Roman , but he (the s peaker) pointed out that the best acknowledged authorities mentioned that one of the distinctive features of Roman masonry showed that the stones were laid in horizontal

1 TH E CI T Y WA LL OF CH S R : , 44 S E TE

anything like evidence. That wall had many qualities

which belonged exclusively to Roman times . The wall

itself, he maintained, was of Roman construction , and had

of not an atom mortar in it. It was constructed of stones

a of peculiar character, and of decidedly Roman work

manship, and they must not be deceived because having t been covered up during all these centuries, some por ions ,

e when uncovered , appear d fresh . He also thought that the

plinth , which was found to run along the greater part of

w e the wall herever excavations had been made, was anoth r f distinctive Roman eature . With regard to bonding tiles, he thought it ought to be understood that that was not an

exclusively Roman characteristic. There was no attempt at bonding tiles to be met with in any portion o f any old

buildings that had been met with in Chester, except only

at one point in the Castle. At least, he had seen none . He was prepared to say that bonding tiles were absent from

the Roman architecture of Chester.

’ Mr. W. Shone, said that the city surveyor s

drawings of the mouldings, the wall , and the plinth, were

f f x per ectly accurate, as he had that day care ully e amined w and compared the wall with the dra ings exhibited . He was much puzzled to ﬁnd that the plinth was composed of b such small stones, which were also evelled on the upper

founda edge, while the stones supposed to be the Roman

tions o f the walls opposite the Cathedral , and also by the

oode e w . R , ere much larger, and not bevelled , but squared

With regard to the stone of which the wall was built, he proceeded to show by evidence which proved beyond

of f question or doubt, that it was built the stone rom the

Bunter Pebble beds, upon which Chester stands , and not

o f from the Lower Keuper sandstone Runcorn or Manley ,

from which the characteristic pebbles, so conspicuous i n e e . i n the stones used the city walls, w r entirely absent I S A N Y PA R T OF TH E M R OM A N? 145

He had further compared the stone of the wall with the and h stone from the canal cutting below, these (which e exhibited) were so exactly similar in lithological character as to defy the most practised eye to distinguish the slightes t

ff c di eren e between them , either in structure or colour.

the Dean Howson said that with regard to bonding tiles, ff he imagined the Romans built in di erent ways , according to

a a circumstances , and th t it was a most unlikely thing that people like the Romans, who were essentially a building f people, should etter themselves by any conventional rules . He was well acquainted with some part of the Roman

a wall between the Solway and C rlisle, and there was no

' f trace o any bonding tiles there. He confessed that the argu ment weighed with him very much that the mason ry o f which they were talking was found to be very carefully

of r put together, and gave evidence being the work of ve y f careful builders, so that he was orced to say they must

o f look upon this piece masonry with very great respect, far more than on a congeries of stones that might have

e v been used to strengthen the work of a medi al wall. In f if the act, wall in question were not Roman work, he would like to know where they would ﬁnd it ?

as The discussion w then again adjourned .

n l oth r At the adjour ed meeting held on the Februa y,

1 88 of 4, there was again a large attendance members . V The ery Rev. Dean Howson read a short paper, entitled ” of a ai Notes recent visit to Caerleon on Usk . He s d

s the wall at Caerleon, which was a Roman fortre s , similar

o f to Deva, was built small stones without mortar in the e int rstices, although there was plenty in the middle of the

The ns f r wall . tur in the o tiﬁcations were rounded and not

n f rr r x a angular. He the re e ed to the ecent e c vations in K 146 TH E CI TY WA LLS OF CH E STER : the Dean ’s Field (at Chester) made by the Lancashire and d Cheshire Antiquarian Society, and said that the foun ations o f the inner wall there exposed were miserably bad, just as the Norman foundations were in the Cathedral , hardly worthy o f being called a foundation at all . He then read f . o L a letter from Mr Thompson Watkin , iverpool , wherein he expressed the Opinion that a portion of the wall east o f

e the Northgate was compos d of Roman stones, but that

in s itu they were not Roman work , and also that the lower f portion o the wall at the Kaleyards was distinctly Roman .

This opinion he strictly adhered to. The absence of bonding tiles, he said, proved nothing, as in many Roman walls , especially at Chichester, there were no traces of tiles .

Then as to the absence of mortar. In the great Roman wall no mortar was detected , except at the stations . The

a f d plinth, as an rchitectural eature, could not be considere

o f hrubso le as a test age. Mr. S argu ed that because of the h plint , the wall at the Kaleyards could not be Roman , but the plinth was visible at many stations, although there were numerous instances of Roman walls without a plinth . The

e cornice, Mr. Watkin add d , began to be fashionable in

z the reigns of Eli abeth and James, and no doubt the cor d nice, taken from some temple or other building, was ma e th available at e Northgate.

The Dean then called upon Mr. I . M . Jones, the city surveyor, to furnish the meeting with the result of his

se ob rvations in regard to recent explorations o f the wall .

: Mr. Jones said Since the last meeting I have, by the au thority o f the Improvement Committee and his Worship the Mayor, opened the ground by the low stone wall in the

H o o le Roodee pp Paddock, near the Kaleyards ; on the , by the sallyport steps near Black Friars ; and also have further investigated the walls at the Northgate I submit

drawings showing the excavations and walls found . I

148 TH E CI TY WA LLS OF CH ES TER :

an other places, were crowned with ornamental coping, ’ above which, perhaps , rose battlements . And if our Roman gateway and its surroundings had anything like the

the e ornamentation displayed on Roman gateway at Tr ves,

hrubsole then Mr. S should blame the Emperor Constantine for putting up much more ornamental work than this v cornice, to be battered by the enemy. I have already gi en — the len gth of cornice the depth is enormous ; and with

’ z hrubsole s these facts it will still pu zle Mr. S ingenuity to

ﬁnd a place for the same, other than where it is found .

’ hr bsol f . S u e s Then as to Mr our standard points, named A — by him A, B, C, D . Taking the absence of bonding — — tiles this point he concedes . Then B and C the absence of mortar in the joints and concrete from the body. As to

o f o f this, Parker says that The walls the later kings are more regular character and simultaneously with these in other districts where the material is a hard stone that will not split we ﬁnd a different construc

’ tion and closely ﬁtted together without cement. This construction being the easiest and cheapest with these

materials, is also continued at all periods, even to our day. w Then follo ed the invention of lime mortar. When men u its e in f nderstood advantages it was us d pro usion, and

c and f f a even to ex ess, rom that time a terw rds the body of

u o f n &c . a Roman wall was almost universally b ilt co crete, ’ f r In the ourth century , Parke continues, stone walls

continued to be used , and these are frequently built of large

r stones, like the walls of the kings, and they have eithe

r are morta (and please note this), or wedged together with

’ o n of wo de wedges , or clamped with metal . In the arcade t e h Aqueduct of Claudius, the large stones are well cut and

’ held together by wooden tenons . Please also note this The buildings of the eleventh century in France and

are en s nd England g erally very ma sive, a built of large I S AN Y PA R T OF TH EM ROM A N ? 149

e t of ston s where hey could be had , with wide joints mortar, ’ o f which are generally characteristic this period . Wright also says In some parts of the Roman walls in Britain we observe inequalities which seem to have arisen from the

’ accidental deﬁciency of particular kinds of materials . These extracts prove that Roman work without mortar was done simultaneously in other districts with w mortar ork, and that anyone knowing anything o f

o f orth ate the massive construction the N g wall , where

s and we ﬁnd single tones more than one ton weight, it f being a wall of one ace only, it would not require any

r o f body or inne ﬁlling concrete, more especially seeing

. f that, according to Mr Shone the stones for acing and

’ rubble backing were under the builders feet. Then what

’ ’ f hrubsole s becomes o Mr. S theory in the face of Parker s authority as to wide joints of mortar being characteristic of the eleventh - century work ? Then again the latest authority

. We stro on early and imperial Rome, Mr Hodder M . pp, referring to the regular horizontal mason ry (which the

o rth ate the N g wall illustrates), states that stones are put together without cement ; and lastly, the Roman gateway e at Tr ves, built by Constantine, should settle the question . so far as the use of mortar is concerned outside Rome .

blo ckS ' of f f Built of enormous sandstone , our to ﬁve eet in

n le gth, some measure eight or nine feet, while their depth varies from two to three feet (see the stones in the North

W denbach gate wall) . y refers to the skillful way they are

o f &c . joined together without mortar or cement any kind, You will perhaps remember how the conquerors of the Romans were deceived as to not ﬁnding metal clamps in

a the work. So that we have not to go lone to Rome to

hrubsole do as Rome did or did not do, as Mr. S wishes us on the mortar question .

hrubsole The last fatal objection made by Mr. S TH E CI T Y WA LLS OF CH ES TE R

— — a recoils on himself that this is only half a wall sham .

of I have already given a fair idea the construction , and

’ but few words should be necess ary to convince our town s

an a folk that a town of this size, in y but the Rom n

o f period , building a wall this expensive nature from the

Northgate to the Kaleyards, would have been over

- weighed in a ﬁnancial sense, even we to day would have felt the tax oppressive. Now as to the local stone

r — and its lasting properties , W ight says That even where the facings of these walls have been exposed to the air so many centuries , if not injured by the hand of man , they

v preser e a remarkable freshness of appearance . But when b ever they have een buried , when the earth is removed , the masonry appears as fresh as if it had been the work of

s yesterday . This certainly is the ca e with the Northgate wall . The face also of the rock from which the stone has

S H andbrid e been got shows no ign of wear, and the rock at g

s ff stand , with the sculpture of Minerva thereon , a ording a striking contradiction to the assertion that some of our local stone is unequal to the wear of ﬁfteen centuries . The example of the Roman tower at Dover Castle proves the

the b rounded slope and batter, and at Richmond evel of

— In base. As additional proof, Wright says some instances

o ff the second course was bevelled into a moulding. The L drawings exhibited show the wall of Romulus, the ondon

Roodee o rth ate wall , the Kaleyards, the , and the N g wall ; if their similarity on comparison does not convince Mr.

hrubsole S , he would even doubt the wall of Romulus, if it could be transferred to the Northgate . Everyone will admit that the subject deserves serious consideration , and

I hope, if the Town Council see the propriety of repairing

. Shrubsole t the walls, to give Mr the opportuni y of examining them more closely than he could possibly have done previous to making his heroic charge against them ,

15 2 TH E CI TY WA LLS OF CH ES TER

r f features of Roman cast a, and in all airness the comparison f should be drawn rom places in England, in which work of

be this kind is to be seen . It then must noted that strictly speaking no evidence has been brought forward from existing remains in Britain , which can in the least justify the idea of the anomalous character of the masonry seen in the Northgate wall as being Roman work . On the other

- hand , the typical Roman wall , small roughly squared

e be stones, back d by concrete , is to found in nearly every castrum in England . t The great wall of Hadrian , seven y miles in length, b the f etween the Solway and Tyne, has been re erred to as affording an instance o f similar massive masonry to o ur f own wall . Even here some of our riends are under a 1 86 a mistake, for in 4 the present Bishop of Calcutt read a paper before our Society on the subject of the Roman wall b etween the Tyne and Solway. The Bishop, I need scarcely say, was long resident in the vicinity of the wall , and therefore competent to speak about it. The wall itself he describes as a double facing of rough but regular courses o f r i w mason y, ﬁlled n bet een with concrete ; the stones, t about nine inches by eight inches, being placed leng hways into the wall . Notice here the mention of mortar or con f crete, and stones not a oot square, pigmies in comparison

orth f f with our giants at the N gate o ﬁve eet by three feet. There may have been other styles of masonry in different

’ of parts the wall , but I fail to see anything in the Bishop s account of it that militates against the views I have pro

. it pounded Indeed, substantiates what I have insisted f upon rom the ﬁrst, that the Romans did use mortar to con

r struct their walls . More than once the cont ary opinion has b e een expr ssed during the discussion, and the great wall i cited as a case in point. Now, in addit on to what the Bishop of a t a in o n C lcut a has st ted, I am a p sitio to give this I S A N Y P A R T OF TH E M R OM A N? 15 3

as - of statement to the non use mortar, an emphatic contra diction , since I have it on most competent authority, that

. . r of the Rev Dr Collingwood B uce, that the Romans never constructed a wall without the use of mortar ; it was used in the building of the great wall . There have been instances in which from exposure to atmospheric inﬂuences

r the mortar has been removed from Roman mason y, and

O v the superﬁcial bser er in consequence deceived . The

o f u S application this r le is fatal , as we hall presently see, to the idea that the wall at the Northgate is of Roman origin .

It is admitted that, prior to the Christian era, the Romans did in some cases erect structures with stones of cyclopean proportions , and with joints ﬁtting so accurately

a as to dispense with mortar. This cl ss of work was never

o f applied to the walls a castrum , and to hint a comparison

of between work this kind and our north wall , with its open joints , and random stones , is to compare things which

of admit no comparison . No admitted example of a castrum in England can be found without mortar in its construction . Another point to be noticed is that the advocates of the Roman idea failing to get any help or corroboration of their views from existing Roman remains, seek to overwhelm me with the opinions which have been held on this subject during the last ﬁfty years by the fathers of the Arche o logical Association , men whom I delight to honour, and hold in respect . I believe that had they seen the discoveries which have been made in and on the walls in 1 883 and

1 88 u 4, they would have considerably modiﬁed their j dg

r ment, and the world would have heard ve y little of the

Roman walls of Chester.

fo r This claim the wall being Roman , I do not ﬁnd to

r be a ve y old one . The parties in the best position for 1 I LL F H T R 54 TH E C TY WA S O C ES E .

judging say least about it. Camden in his day in describing Chester makes no allusion to the walls b eing

r Roman . Randle Higden , in the fourteenth centu y, tells us of the Roman pavements and inscribed stones to be see n

in his day, but says nothing of the walls being Roman . L While the ysons, who are worthy of some credit, say, No

part of the Roman wall of Chester now exists, though the

’ present wall stands no doubt on the same foundation .

Br hﬁ Mr. us e ld in his paper on Roman Remains in Chester

o f tells us that the late Rev. W. H . Massie respected memory was the ﬁrst to point out this part of the city

’ - ﬁ ve wall as being Roman . If so the idea is only thirty

1 862 . years old . Mr. Roach Smith published his opinion in

The position that I take up on this question is this . I once believed as I was told that the walls were Roman . As time went on I found certain things absent from the walls, and other things present which, on the supposition that they were Roman , gave rise to doubt and ultimately to conviction that the common opinion was an erroneous one. It has chanced that I have had evidence presented to

me which has not been presented to my predecessors, since it has only been available during the past twelve months .

O After disposing of these bjections, I consider that we have now arrived at that stage of the inquiry when it is possible for us to come to some deﬁnite conclusion as to

- the Roman , or non Roman origin of the wall . Nothing has occurred during this discussion to in the least degree invalidate the opinion I expressed at the ﬁrst, that there is no precedent in this country of a wall similar in construe tion and built by the Romans . While there are many instances of a wall identical in character and composition , built as we know both in Saxon and later times . For this among many other reasons I still maintain that the wall ” in question was not built by the Romans .

D VA : I TS WA LL R E S A ND S T EETS,

u o f its existence it would be sq are, and made up a wide

du f trench, the earth g out from which ormed at the side a

u rampart, f rther protected by brushwood or stakes planted on the top . In time, as the advantages of the position

was were realised , it determined to make Deva a permanent

— a legionary station depot to furnish the men and arms , to

- conquer and hold the north and north western provinces,

r for Imperial Rome. When this took place, the tempora y camp would soon give way to one o f a more solid character .

f fam art The fosse might indeed remain, but in ront of the p o f earth would arise a solid stone wall, ten or ﬁfteen feet

f . in height, with towers, or orts , or gates as required The streets became an ample paved way, both in and outside of the camp . Inside, the streets intersected it at right

r angles, dividing it into four unequal qua ters , which in turn were divided and subdivided . That Deva was a

Roman station is a matter of history . That it became in time encircled with a stone wall is , I think, equally certain , for apart from the circumstances to which I have referred ,

a x we re d in Sa on times of the existence of a wall , which originally could only have been the work of Roman hands . Then again we have the evidence of the ﬁve centurial

— a stones from the wall itself record of work done, which f could only re er to the wall of the Roman castra . In speaking o f Deva as a Roman Station we scarcely do it justice . It was more, both as to size and importance, than f a mere station . It was the ortiﬁed camp of one of the four Roman Legions then in Britain, the Twentieth, the f V alerian and Victorious Legion . A military ortress of the

ﬁrst importance, it, with Eboracum (York), the capital of the province, served to consolidate the Roman power in this part of Britain . While admirably placed for keeping watch

u and guard pon North Wales , it equally served as a point from which to advance against the northern tribes . It was O R I N T E OF T R N R CH ES TE H TI M E H E OM A S. from Deva that Agricola marched against them with the L Second as well as the Twentieth egion , taking the direction of the line of stations along the north-west side of the i province up to the great wall , along which at various stat ons w e ﬁnd , on inscribed stones and tiles , the record of their

o f doings . If any proof is required the Roman origin of the l present wa ls of Chester, we have it in the shape, position , and dimensions of the pres ent circumvallation : all these details , within certain restrictions , are essentially Roman . The present streets of Chester run mainly inan east and

u west, and north and so th direction , and are a survival from

via m ilita ri s s Roman times . The , as we shall see, pa sed through the camp very much on the line of the present

u of main thoro ghfare Boughton and Foregate Street . The

orta rinci alis o f p p p was on the site the present Eastgate, and the via principa lis the Eastgate Street and Bridge

- Street of to day. The striking parallelism , which we shall show to exist between the Roman streets of Deva and the

city walls of Chester, is of so marked a character, as to

indicate clearly the Roman origin of the latter. It will help us in working out the limits of the Roman

c camp and its encircling wall , if we ﬁrst of all get the dir e

via milita ris out of tion of the in and Chester. These

Roman roads, we know quite well, ran in tolerably straight

. e f lines from one point to another Such b ing the act, it

if of comes to this , that in a stretch reputed Roman road , we ﬁnd at distant points certain portions all tending in the

same direction , and we draw a straight line between these h points, we get the Roman road restored . T ese Roman

-ﬁve roads, we may remark, were paved ways some twenty f f eet broad , and raised some three eet above the surrounding

o f ground . We recently, in the month September last, b roke through some s ix hundred yards of the Roman street

he of on the Eccleston Road , on t occasion laying water DE VA : I TS WA LL A ND TR E T 1 58 S S E S,

pipes . We may take it that the presence of the Roman road under the present Eccleston Road is established beyond if doubt. Now we turn to the ordnance map we notice that the road now, with one slight deviation , is in a very good north and south line, and further that it is pointing to the old ford (Aldford), near the Iron Bridge. We leave this spot for the present, and take our station in Upper North

a gate Street, mile distant, which was the road out of Deva, on the line of the present Parkgate Road , to the Roman

‘ c w olony at Meols , the remains of which have been so ell cared for, at the hands of the late Canon Hume. With the map before us, and having in view the Roman road

H andbrid e through g , we draw a line between it and where we have found the Roman street in Upper Northgate

Street . This line is the north and south street, which passed through Deva, across the Dee , and along the f Eccleston Road to Eaton , and rom there branching in one

U rico niu m direction to (Wroxeter), and in the other for

w e o ntium r w North ales and S g (Ca narvon) . We ill take the width of the street as eighty feet in its passage through the camp. The course it took was as follows . After leaving the Northgate, it rapidly encroached on the west side o f f the street, until hal way down it left the present roadway, and passed some yards inside the present Town Hall and

Market, the Town Hall steps being the centre of the

’ Ro w Roman street, thence behind Shoemakers , the

’

of . r churchyard St Pete s Church , the whole of which it

’ included . Bridge Street from the Cross to St. Michael s

Church is almost identical with the Roman street, with the f exception , on the west side of some ﬁfteen eet between the h ll L o mmon a . Cross and C Street In ower Bridge Street, f to Castle Street, it is forty eet west of the roadway. From this point the present roadway turns sharply to the east, and is the Norman approach to the bridge . The Roman

160 DE VA : I TS WA LLS A ND R S T EE TS,

o f few r line the last miles of the Ta vin Road, without doubt

of a branch the Northern Watling Street. The direction of this street at this point is identical with the one through

of the city . The bend the river at Boughton Church inter

fered with its course, and necessitated its divergence at

Boughton, but in Foregate Street we have its course again

how indicated . Now, does the present Eastgate Street agree with the Roman street ? The south side is found to

u be very tr e to the old lines , while on the north side at either end the encroachment is as much as twenty or

f uff thirty eet. It is Watergate Street that s ers most by

the comparison . Both sides of it, near the Cross, encroach t f some twenty or thir y eet upon the Roman way. We have now by the help of the Roman streets outside Deva

a restored the le ding ways through the castra. Having thus ascertained from existing data the course o f the

fﬁ u streets, we shall have no di c lty in tracing the lines of the camp wall , since I think we may act upon the principle that the streets and walls would be arranged

- on parallel lines, in accordance with the well known

of Roman custom . A very cursory glance at a plan the present walls is strikingly suggestive of the existence of old lines of fortiﬁcations with modern ex tensions . Nor is it

we difﬁ cult to separate the one from the other. In one h o see a deﬁnite plan , whic in the other is conspicu usly

absent. o f f us With the plan the camp be ore , and its streets

o u marked t, we take in at once the idea of the square camp o f n Roma Deva, and what is very much to the point, ﬁnd that no part of the present walls is more than ﬁfty feet out o f

n u a line draw thro gh them , parallel with the streets, while to a considerable extent they occupy what we believe to be the original lines . The distance between this restored eas t and west wall is one thousand nine hundred and OR CH E TE R IN TH E TI M OF TH E R OM A N S E S.

thirty feet . Having straightened the north wall , we pro ceed to run a line one thousand nine hundred and thirty feet distant to obtain the square of the camp. The result

as . is follows It commences with the curve at the Newgate, f of which the wall is a continuation , at a point some few eet only from the Newgate, thence through the north side of

’ ’ St . Michael s Church to St. Martin s Church, and ending at a

’ spot twenty feet north of the Black Friars steps leading to

Roode e . f a n the We ﬁrst ound the streets of Dev , and the

e the streets have given us the walls . With regard to thre

e sides of the walls , the east, north , and west, we need hav no shadow of doubt as to their identiﬁcation . The south

ff e wall , it is admitted , is in a di erent position , and yet ther is corroborative evidence in favour of its taking the direction

Sin u ar I have mentioned . It is g l that the present curve in

’ rr r s the east wall near Mr. Sto a house Should agree with the

- line of the square . This round corner at the south east

- are angle is similar to the north east angle, and both

the strongly indicative of Roman fortiﬁcations , and of

n w existence origi ally of a Roman to er on the spot, as in the case of Eboracum . Then , again , the existing walls beyond m the square ca p are crooked , irregular, and unshapely, and

. a evidently the production of a much later time Further, strong reason for believing that the south wall of Deva did

a o not extend beyond this point is , that some years g

was evidence came to light, that near the Black Friars there

n in in or about Roman times an i let of the river, which ran the direction midway between the Militia Barracks and St .

’ in Bridget s Rectory . In cutting the intercepting sewer

1 8 6 o ne 7 , the bed of this stream was seen extending for

the hundred yards . This naturally enough determined boundaries of the southern wall of Deva. We will now start from the Newgate and survey the east

s side . Taken as a whole, it is the nearest of the three wall L D VA : I TS WA LLS A ND TRE T 1 62 E S E S,

to the original lines . At either extremity the line is nearly c e orrect, and at no point of divergence does it exceed twelv

o r f f . ourteen eet, and often only a few feet The principal departure is from near the Eastgate to the Cathedral

- Churchyard . We pass round the north east angle, and

e . a s xamine the north wall Here, too, the ﬁrst p rt of thi s ide is tolerably true to the original lines until we come to

’ he f t Northgate, and rom this point to Morgan s Mount the f h present wall runs at least twenty eet in advance, w ile

’ from Morgan s Mount to the north- west angle it is the like distance inside of the Roman wall . At the Water Tower c om er we ﬁnd that the medie val builders have extended the walls outwards nearly forty feet . The silting up of the r iver rendered it desirable to push forward the fortiﬁcation , a nd determined the construction of the additional outwork .

Now we proceed with the west side of the wall which , soon a fter leaving the Water Tower, recovers its normal c a f har cter, and is well on the Roman oundation , and the s ame may be said of the ending near Black Friars . It is

Ro odee worthy of note here that the large stones on the , w S hich, on account of their ize, are presumed to be part of the f ra Roman wall , are forty eet outside the Roman cast , a nd o o f altogether out f the direction of either line wall .

of and We have now gone over three sides the walls , indicated what I believe to have been the original lines of

the castra. I know of no circumstance to militate against

t . . his view On the contrary, there is much to support it

For o f instance, outside the wall there should have been a f nd s h a as . osse, if of Roman origin , a fo se been found On t he western side the camp was protected by the rive r and

n eeded no fosse , while on the north and east front the

former existence of it has from time to time come to light . The fact so far strengthens the case that no reasonable doubt need be entertained that we have ascertained the

S 164 D E VA I TS WA L LS A ND S TREET ,

In the a wide Open space through the camp . our case ge could be no through communication in a line with Eastgate

e Street, owing to the Westgate terminating with half a mil

f n f of the river in ront. Some modiﬁcation was eed ul, and the via P rincipalis followed the main line of trafﬁ c from

u s Eastgate Street, thro gh Bridge Street, to the Fords acros

D e the e . It will be noticed in the camp, as described by

s the Polybius, that the smaller divi ion , upper camp , is

fo r fﬁ the set apart the o cial residences, and contained i m e ue stor u &c. x e Pr torium , Q , and Forum , , e tended in lin

e with the Pr torium in the centre . This arrangement was not possible in our case. What was done under the circumstances is best shown by what we have found as relics . The only place in the city in which we have found the remains of public buildings has been on either side of e Bridge Stre t . There, of late years , we have found the

in s itu remains of two or more public buildings, each one hundred feet long. Bases , columns , capitals , friezes , mould ings, cornices, have all come to light to witness to the former existence of buildings of noble proportions on the site.

of The character these buildings has for long been a puzzle . If we take Polybius as our guide the mystery is at an f end . The erections ound in Bridge Street would be the

e ff Pr torium , the residence of the general and his sta ; the

ue s to rium e fﬁ Q , or Public Revenu O ce, the Forum , or

Market, as well as the seat of justice. These are some of the public buildings essential to the head quarter’s camp

u o f a Roman Legion . We have been acc stomed for years ’ to regard St . Peter s Church as on the site of the Roman

e Pr torium . There is no evidence to support this from

. o anything that has been found According to P lybius , the Pre torium was in the smaller and upper division of the

’ h wr n via . t o camp St. Peter s Church is on e g side of the

P rinci is pal . Some years ago a considerable number of IM O T M OR CH ESTE R I N TH E T E F H E R O A N S.

S Roman coins were found in Bridge Street, on the ite of l these buildings . It was the argest ﬁnd of which we have

e a ny record . Could this have be n any part of the Roman Treasury on the site o f the Que sto riu m We are now a ble for the ﬁrst time to name the several gates of the

c . e astra The gate in the rear of the Pr torium , or South

e gate, will be the Porta Pr toria, and the Northgate the

Porta Decumana, and the Eastgate the Porta Principalis . This sketch of Deva would be incomplete without some n otice of the appearance of the walls and their fortiﬁcations .

It is true that we have no fragment of the wall remaining, to which we can point in illustration , yet we have material

n to guide us , including undoubted sto es from the original

the wall . These will give us a general idea of the size of s tones . Then we may fall back upon York , as the counter

r o f pa t our castra, for other details, and avail ourselves of

- r the well known similarity of Roman mason y. In this way the restoration will not be wholly imaginary on our part . The material of the wall was our own local red

s . andstone . This point has been ascertained beyond dispute

- It was built of small rudely shaped stones , set in mortar, but open jointed . In height the wall was some ten or fi ffi fteen feet, and in width about six feet, su cient to allow two soldiers to walk abreast . The fosse we know was of a unusual depth, and this leads me to think that on th t a ccount the wall was not so high as usual . On the top of the wall there would be the breastwork three or four feet in height . In the depth of the wall there would be two layers of four or five courses of bonding tiles . The strength o f it was mainly due to the concrete interior, which filled up the space of five feet between the single layer of stone on the outer and inner face of the wall . The effect being with the aid o f the bonding courses to consolidate the whole into a rigid mass , firm as a rock . As a rule we find E VA : I TS WA LL A ND TR T 166 D S S EE S, that this interior filling o f the wall is often more durable

: fo r L than the outside stone at York , Manchester, eicester,

r s Old o and many other places, there are pa t of the wall f

o f which nothing remains but the interior core concrete .

This does not hold good in Chester, for the concrete formed o f sandstone fragments is an inferior article. The mortar

its is good , but the sandstone has , in many instances , lost w cohesiveness , and may be crushed bet een the ﬁngers . This is the reason why we have none of the Roman wall

a visible to day . They seem to have been aw re o f the nature of the stone . Hence in important foundations , such

h P orta P re toria as t at of the Southern Gate ( ) , which we found quite recently covering an area of fourteen feet under

’

of . the steps St Michael s Church, the concrete was com

o f po sed small boulder stones bedded in the usual mortar. It was so unyielding that it was not possible to procure a specimen of it for the museum . This explanation will go far towards accounting for

in s itu e n the fact, that there is no Roman work to be se abo ve ground in the walls. As to the claim of the city wall between the Phoenix Tower and the Northgate to

Brushﬁe ld be so considered , Dr. tells us that Mr. Massie was the ﬁrst to point out that it was Roman . This is not forty years ago . I have good reasons for believing the work to be of Edwardian age. There only remain

Roode e the large stones on the to be considered . There is really no case here to answer ; the stones in ques

few tion are no part of a wall . A big stones placed terrace fashion on a sloping clay bank do not constitute

a a wall . They are supplement ry to the real wall, which has always been on the top of the bank . Their purpose has f been to keep the clay bank rom slipping, and bringing

of he down the wall from above. The age t stones is not

u e of the Roodee two h ndr d years older than the enclosure ,

D V ' E T 1 68 E A : I TS WA LLS A N D STRE S.

t he . walls of Deva were protected, or armed At York we

have towers projecting from the angles of the walls, and f s ff urni hed with loopholes , to e ectually command the walls

o n . w s either side Similar to er , I have no doubt, were e s xistent in Deva, while the gate were similarly protected ,

n and smaller towers were prese t at intermediate points .

T he h eart en ramparts , which backed up on the inner side

th e So outer stone wall , are not well seen in Chester as in

York . In our case the six or eight feet of earth ha s long

S ince been covered over with a like amount of soil , and the

s urrounding ground has, from a variety of causes common t o S an enclosed inhabited pot, been raised in time to the s ame level , so that now in Chester, Roman roads and remains are found at depths varying from eight to fourteen

feet . It may be interesting to give some of these recently i a L scertained depths. At White Friars, under the ady

’ Chapel , and Eastgate, nine feet, the King s School yard ten

’ Sancto Ce nturiae feet, Dean s ﬁeld twelve feet, Genio Altar t hirteen feet. In this sketch of the walls of Deva, it must be understood that while I have taken the latest extension o f the circumvallation by the Romans for elucidation , I am n ot forgetting that there is evidence of a much earlier camp i n which each gate stood in the centre of its o wn line of w all . This I leave for the present . T H E C H E S T E R A R C H IE O L O G I C A L AN D H I S TO R I C S OCI ETY’ S S PEC IAL V M M E X CA AT I O N CO I TT E E .

T a meeting of the Council of the Chester Arche o

logical and Historic Society, held at the Grosvenor M 1 th useum , on the 5 October, a discussion took place as to the desirability of making further excavations in the

north wall , with the view of bringing to light as many of

the &c. . Roman stones, , as could be recovered A special

ub - S Committee, consisting of the following persons , was f V . ormed : The ery Rev the Dean of Chester (chairman),

Mr . Alderman C . Brown , Mr. Isaac M . Jones , Mr . Alexander

L . . . . . amont, Rev S Cooper Scott, M A ; H Beswick (honorary

s r C fo i ecreta y), who issued a ircular in the llow ng terms, inviting subscriptions towards the above object In consequence of the recent discoveries in Chester of

many sculptured stones , both monumental and decorative, o f the Roman period , the Council have appointed a small Sub- Committee for the purpose of continuing the excava tions and receiving the necessary funds to do the work .

1 0 200 As the Council ﬁnd that a sum of £ 5 or £ , at the l east, is required even to secure the adequate recovery and w possession of what is already in sight, hich is of great

historic interest, they are compelled to ask the public for f unds .

“ - The Sub Committee, in fulﬁlment of their instructions , X A VA TI N M M I T 1 70 SPECIA L E C O CO TEE. appeal therefore for support to enable the Council to bring the undertaking to a successful issue, which is not merely

e of local but national inter st, as the inscriptions already found throw light on the Roman occupation of the

r count y. This Sub- Committee were successful in raising nearly

ff he £ 100 in subscriptions, and it is to their e orts that t f d valuable series of Roman tombstones , described as oun ” e is during th second series of repairs to the north wall,

d . . entirely due. The Committee engage Mr W de Gray

r t e Birch, of the B itish Museum , to describe hes

l the t the re mains at a specia meeting of Socie y, held on ’

1 888 . . f o n 9th April, Mr Birch s Report is given in ull

8 1 1 t s . pp. 9 to 3 of hi volume

- - The balance sheet of the Sub Committee is here given .

I N D E X .

Names of P ersons are rinted in ordinar t p y ype . N ames of Places are ri nte d in ital p ics.

Re erences to sub ects &c. of im ortance or on f j , , p were read are rinted in IIALL I p s CAP TALS.

A LTARS ROMAN found at Cheste r 159 B rown Charles 140 143 A ueduct of u q Cla dius 148 B ruce Dr. 32 66 70

A xi us Ri ver 105 B ruce v. Dr w Re . Co lling ood 153

Bm shﬂeld Dr. 135 166

Bab lonia n T r - y e ra cotta tablets in th e M r. 154 B ritish M us eum 119 Bu nter P ebble beds the 144 Bagillt 13 B urgh Castle 41 5 2 5 7 Bath Fra gments of Temple at 130 Bath Roma n the 141 Caerleon 35 36 B ebington Church 43 Roman altar at 70 2 Belgium 5 Caer Llian 36 n . Bignor in Sussex M osaic Pavements at Caerleon on Us]: Visit to 145 130 Cacrwent 41 5 2 5 7

irch W de G 3 80 Calcutta Bish o of 1 2 B . ray p 5 N otes on Sculptured Camden 36 154 Sto ne by 25 -87 Camp Roman of Cilurnum Visit to 88 Walter do Gray Paper by 98 131 Carey 122

Blair M r. 32 Carlis le 145

Blashill Th omas 55 11. Cam aroon ( Segontium ) 139 158 Bordea ux Walls of 39 Castor near P eterborough B ronze Roman Boughton Chu rch 160 ﬁgure found in th e district of 108 Bou rges i n F rance 122 Catacombs th e 34 M o Brad ing I sle of Wight M osaic Pavements Caumont ns . de 5 1

at 130 Cesnola Major A . P . di 99 ’ B RASS COINs ROMAN 66 84 Charles King Kitchen 61 B rita in I nvasi on of by th e Romans 137 Tower Ki ng 142 143 r h M Area in 114 CH E TER Cm WALL P r r d B itis useum S S ape ea by G . - W lonian Te . Sh ru F . . on Baby rra cotta bsole G S . tablets in th e 119 132-154

. u - 6 - B rock E P . Loft s Paper by 406 WALLS Age of 40 97

M r. 39 66 91 m rm: Tu m or m s Rom s Bromborough 44 155 -168 ’ B roster s M ap of Chester 75 ROMAN ALTARS FOUND AT 159 X I NDE . 1 73

’ H od ki n T 88 Chester B roster s Map of 75 g . Earli est M ap of 74 H olt Castle 36 H oll ar’s M ap of 75 Siege of 1645 -6 1 26 62 H orsley 121 Chester P otte rs 115 H oveden 36

hdeacon ow 141 The Very Rev. the Arc H son Dean 145 of 66 H iibner P rofessor 108 113 114 117 H u h esso T M ‘K enn Chichester 43 5 7 g es P rof r . y 79 88

Roman Walls at 146 T. 141 143

Cilurnum Visit to Roman Camp of 88 Claudius Aqu educt of 148 I NSCRIBED ROMAN STONES found at th e poet 105 Ch este r P aper by Walte r De G ray - Cloaca M axi ma at Rome 135 Birch E. S . A . on the 98 131 00l B RASS ROMAN 66 84 I NSCRIPTIONS ROMAN discovered at ROMAN ound in Ch ester 165 P a Th om son f Chester per by W. p Colchester 41 63 Watkin on th e 11-24

Tombstones at 16

M atth ews ﬁ cial Re rt b J ones I . O po y Conway Fortiﬂcation of 79 1-10

Co x E . W. Lette r by 30 86 141 146 73 88 Cyprus excavations in 99 Kaleyards the 27 60 61 69 78 9093 140 141 146 147 150 167

’ Dean s Field the 2 26 27 81 82 114 146 Keuper Lower Sandstone 144 ’ DEVA : ITS WALLS AND STREETS 155 -168 Ki ng Charles Kitchen 61 Dover Castle Roman Tower at 150 Dryden Sir H enry 32 46 Lancaster Altar found at 112 Du rha m Cathedral Library 121 Leicester 166 A ltar in 112 Lincoln Tombstones at 16 Lower Keup er Sandstone 144 E astham Chu rch 44

’ Edgar s P alace 63 1 Eurysaces Tomb of 89 Lysons The M essrs . 54

u M n r 166 Ferg s on r. 66 M a cheste Ffoulkes J udge Wynne 96 M ufaley 144 FIGURE of Roman Soldi er 131 M AP E arliest of Cheste r 74 FORTRESSES ROMAN 167 M aryport Scul ptured stone at 112 W H 15 4 1 FORUM th e 164 M as sie Rev. . . 66 ’ FOSSE OLD from King Charles Tower M eals Roman Colony at 158 J ’ 1 to St. oh n s Church 43 M esop otamia I nscribed stones from 119 i ite M r M ckl ethwa . 39 rdner M r 91 M in cul ture of 1 Ga . erva S p 50 Griﬁ ths J oh n 87 M o ore Stuart 39 M organ Th omas 39 W 52 H adrian Great all of 1 M owat M . 19

H aemus M ou nt 105 M uratori 113 115 118 122

H arris on M r. 140 M useum British A ltar in 114 H eidenmauer at Wiesbaden 89 Babylonian Terra-cotta H oming the mon]: 103 tablets in the 119 H emingway 5 4 76 M USEUM of Count Camillo Silvestri 118 H engrave H all Suf olk M oulding at 147 M ysia or Thrace 105 H exham Altar found at 19

Randl e 154 N orthumberland Roman Remains in 91 I DE X I 74 N .

’ P ala ce Edgar s 63 Parker 148 P asto n Lette rs th e 91 ROMANS CHESTER IN TH E TIME OF TII E ’ P emberton s P arlou r 59 69 92 155 -168 P eterborough Castor near B ronze Roman Rome Cloaca M axima at 135 ﬁgure found in district of 108 P hwnix Tower the 11 26 27 50 166 Chi usa 58 Pi ir J ames A 40 61 65 72 cton S . Rovigo Inscription at 118 Paper read by 27 Runcorn 144 P olybius the Roman writer 168 164 P 0 River 101 SAMIAN WARE found 114 Sarcophagus foun d near York 120

Scarth M r. 66 SCULPTURED STONE foun d at Ch ester N otes on 25 -39

Shon W e . 144 Sal ara Tomb of Sulpicius Maxi Shrubsole George W. Papers by 132 mus in 89 154 15 5 -168 P otters Chester 115 W G . . 43 n . 82 146 151 P RE TORI UM th e 164 SIEGE or CH ESTER 1645 -6 1 26 62

P rice E . 5 2

J . E . 137 Fra gments of Temple at 130 P rudenti us 113 Silvestri Co unt Camillo M useum of 118

Smith C. Roa ch letters by 31 32 39 RIUM th e 164 165 Qum TO 41 43 5 1 54 65 114 134 135 137 154 Ra ine Canon 130 ’ Clement s near Truro A n ent il St. ci p lar REPORT OFFICIAL on th e discoveries of at 115 , ’ Roman Remains at Ch ester by M r. St. J ohn s Chu rch 143 - 1. Matth ews J ones 1 10

Bh odi i u m I n scri ti on at 118 g p STONE SCULPTURED foun d at Chester Richborou h 5 2 5 7 g N otes on 25 -39 STONES ROMAN Description of 5 -10 Riechester or H igh Rochester M onument Strymon Ri ver 105 u u at 121 d g p 2 Stukeley Dr. 5 4 5 8 7

Rimmer M r. 84 Sul picius M aximus Tomb of 89 Rochester 42 Syria Commagene in 19 Rochester H igh or Riechester M onument dug up at 121 ROMAN A LTARS found at Chester 159 Roman Ba th the 141 TOM HS of Sul picius Maximus and Eury ROMAN B RASS COINS 84 sa ces 89 COINS ound in Chester 165 f ’ Tower Ki ng Charles 142 143 FORTRESSES 167 P hoenix the 11 26 27 50166 I NSCRIPTIONS discovered at Water the 162 Chester 11-24 Traces Ga teway 143 148 149 15 1 REMA INS at Chester Omani Re Traces P orta N igra 55 n. ort on th e Dis coveries of p ’ n Truro A ncient pillar at St. Cleme t s 1-10 nea r 115 RE MAINS in North umberland 91 SOLDIER Figure of 131 Ven ice 101 STONES De scription of 5 -10 Inscri ti on at 113 IN CRIBED ound at Verona p n S f ChesterPaper read by 88 Walter de Gray B irch Walker A . O.

- W ller M r. 39 F . S. A . on the 98 131 a