Chapter II: Part 2

The existing remains of Lindum, though unfortunately much defaced by continuous occupation, fully corroborate this view. In the third and fourth centuries it was a kind of twin-city—the original “colonia,” about 37 acres in extent, occupying the brow of the hill, while the lower town, a sort of “annex” to the first, descended its slopes to the banks of the Witham. The original town must have been of great strength. Its northern and southern walls were about a quarter of a mile in length, and were each pierced by a gate—probably a double gate—through which the Ermine Street passed and bisected the city. The eastern and western walls were a little shorter—about 420 yards—and each had a gate in the centre, also probably double, with guard-rooms on each side of the central space. The walls were 10 feet thick and over 20 feet in height. Though obviously repaired at various times, it is likely that they were erected at the foundation of the colony, as the recent destruction of the unwalled Camulodunum would be a stern warning to the first colonists. A few fragments exist, none in a perfect state; but the inner face of the northern (now strangely called “Newport”) gate is still entire, though half buried in the soil, and is a unique monument of Roman rule in Britain. It consists of a central arch about 16 feet wide, which had two posterns, of which the eastern, though built over, still remains; the other was destroyed about a century ago. The gate was formerly supposed to have been single; but it stands 20 feet back from the neighbouring fragments of the wall; and an old engraving, here reproduced,[14] shows the remains of two arches on its northern side. Such double gates are a frequent feature in the stations on Hadrian’s Wall. The south and east gates were still standing at the end of the seventeenth century, at least in part. But the former, which was near the brink of Steep Hill, was pulled down soon after, though its eastern postern can still be seen within a house; while the latter, which stood just east of the Deanery, was only demolished in 1763. The western gate was accidentally discovered in 1836, buried beneath the high mound of the Castle. The arch was uncovered, and found to be of the same age as Newport; but it collapsed a few days later from the weight of the superincumbent earth, though fortunately not till the sketch of it here shown had been taken. From this it appears to have been exposed nearly as low as Newport without discovering posterns, which may have been absent from this gate, because no military road passed through it. Yet there were signs of a return wall, which indicate that the gate was double. The western wall followed the line of the Castle rampart and beyond it to the waterworks reservoir; the eastern passed under the chapter-house and the eastern transepts of the Minster.

The Forum was in the north-western quarter of the town, for the bases (and part of the shafts) of nineteen fine columns were found between 1878 and 1897 in Bailgate, standing in a line north and south, and fronting the course of Ermine Street. Of these five are double and one triple, and the space of 16 feet between two of the double columns—the sixth and seventh from the south—doubtless represents the street between the east and west gates; it is exactly in the line, and the side pavements were found much worn by the foot traffic. The building on the south side of this entrance to the Forum is thought to have been a temple; that on the north was probably a basilica, and a part of its northern wall—now called the Mint Wall—is still standing some 25 feet above-ground. It is 70 feet long and 3½ feet thick, and is formed of stone and of six courses of triple bonding tiles, with intervals of 5 feet between the upper courses. This building is supposed, from the red tint of the columns and the charred remains found at their base, to have been destroyed by fire. Along the centre of the city, parallel with Ermine Street, has been found a large main sewer, with branches running into it from right and left. The city was supplied with water by underground pipes from two springs—one on the hill outside the western wall, the other three-quarters of a mile away, on the Nettleham Road. From the latter the water was conducted, by pipes cemented together, into a neatly bricked well, called the Blind Well, which once existed a few yards north of the Assembly Rooms, but has now been filled up.

But the most interesting discovery in this quarter was that of the milestone dedicated to the Emperor Victorinus (one of the Thirty Tyrants), which was unearthed in 1879, and is now to be seen in the Lincoln Museum. It was found probably on its original site, where the cross street entered the Forum from Ermine Street. Victorinus held the supreme power in Gaul for little more than a year, so that the erection of this stone can be placed with certainty in A.D. 266-7.[15] This discovery confirms the reading “Segelocum” in the _Antonine Itinerary_, and also the distance there given. Some have thought that Carausius, the “Menapian admiral,” who seized the reins of power in Britain twenty years later under Diocletian, resided for some time in Lincoln. For this there is not much evidence. His coins, of which there are 300 known types, are common not in Lincolnshire only, but in all parts of England; and he is more likely to have established himself in London or near the south coast. But it is possible that the northern wall of Lindum, in which some of his coins have been found, was repaired in his time or a little later. Less than half a mile north of Newport Arch are to be seen remains of an earthen rampart, with a fosse on the northern side extending about 350 yards east and west, and with entrenchments running from the corners at right angles towards the city. Stukeley imagined that these were the defences of the British “oppidum”; but their shape and the practical certainty that the Britons would choose the edge of the hill leave little doubt that they are Roman outworks, possibly enclosing a northern suburb.

But the natural direction for the enlargement of the city would be the southern slope of the hill towards the river; and at some period—perhaps in the third or fourth century—the eastern and western walls were prolonged until they met a transverse wall, 50 yards from the river, at about the centre of which is the mediæval gate called the “Stone-bow.” Leaving the south-east corner of the original wall at the Cantilupe Chantry, the prolonged east wall descended the hill between the Vicar’s Court and the Bishop’s Palace (where part of it still exists), through the Temple Gardens, with the “Were Dyke” as its fosse, to the junction of Silver Street and Broadgate, where was a gateway, called Clasket Gate. Thence it was continued to a bastion, once called the Tower Garth, on the south side of St. Swithin’s Square. From this point the southern wall, which was lately uncovered in several places, extended to the “Stone-bow” and along Guildhall Street and Newland to its south-west corner at the (so-called) “Lucy” Tower, whence it ascended Motherby Hill to the western end of the original south wall at the corner of the Castle. This later town would be nearly double the size of the original colony, and the whole twin-city must have covered an area as large as that of Roman Colchester (108 acres). The walling of the lower city points to a sense of insecurity, but whether this arose from native disaffection or from a fear of foreign invasion there is no evidence to show. It probably contained no official buildings, and few important remains have come to light within it, but a hypocaust was found in 1782 near the top of High Street.

Space would fail us in enumerating the many lesser articles of interest discovered in Lincoln. Seven tessellated pavements have been found, all in the upper city; a perfect Roman altar, with inscription, came to light in 1884 on the site of St. Swithin’s Tower; and at least six sepulchral slabs have been unearthed, three of which were in memory of soldiers of the Ninth (Spanish) Legion—perhaps an indication that to this legion, which is not mentioned after Trajan’s reign, lands were assigned at the foundation of the colony. Traces of interments have been found bordering the roads on the north, east, and south of the city; those beyond the east gate seem to be the most numerous, and in one case the remains were enclosed in a large burial-chamber. In the immediate neighbourhood of the city were villas of some size. At Canwick Church there is a tessellated pavement, two feet below the floor-level, extending the whole length of the nave; and at Greetwell, a mile and a half to the east, a substantial residence was discovered, with many rooms and corridors, and with pavements of artistic design.

In the three centuries between Ptolemy, who first mentions the city, and the abandonment of Britain by Rome, Lindum is named but once—in the _Antonine Itinerary_. But it seems likely that Adelfius, one of the three British prelates at the Council of Arles, was its bishop in 314.[16]

With regard to the roads radiating from Lindum, it will be convenient to deal first with those to the north. From Newport Gate, Ermine Street continues to the Humber for thirty miles in a direct line—absolutely straight, indeed, for five-sixths of the distance. Mr. Codrington assumes without reason that this road was earlier than that already mentioned, which crossed the Trent and passed by way of Doncaster and Castleford to York.[17] Present appearances certainly justify his view, for the latter road now seems merely a branch of the former. But this may not always have been the case. Originally the first four miles may have been nearer the edge of the high ground through Burton and North Carlton into Tillbridge Lane; but when the direct Ermine Street was constructed this portion would not be repaired, and therefore would be completely disused, as the increase in distance by the new road would be trifling. It is a curious fact that the only section of Ermine Street between London and the Humber included in the _Antonine Itinerary_ is that between Lincoln and Godmanchester; the route from Lincoln to York in two Iters (V. and VIII.) is by the Doncaster road, which is longer than Ermine Street by several miles if York were the objective, but which rather points directly to Isurium—supposed by some to have been the Brigantian capital.[18] The presumption should surely be that the shorter route, which involved the crossing of a broad estuary, would be a later construction of more settled times. In the parish of Scampton, adjoining the Doncaster road, and about a mile and a half north-west of the point where it branches from Ermine Street, was discovered in 1795 a large Roman villa, with forty rooms and thirteen tessellated pavements—one of a very beautiful design. The whole building covered a space 70 yards square, and included two courtyards, thus differing somewhat in plan from the great villas of the south-west.

Ermine Street from Lincoln to the Humber is one of the finest of Roman highways—clearly traceable to-day for almost the whole distance. In a stretch of thirty miles there must have been a middle station, which was certainly in Hibaldstow; but since remains have been found here on both sides of the great “Way,” its exact site is uncertain. At the farm of Gainsthorpe, about 200 yards to the west, is a remarkable cluster of ruined habitations, which has never been properly explored: excavation here, and in a large camp a little to the north on the east side of Ermine Street, promises to yield fruitful results. From this point there would naturally be a by-road to Caistor, ten miles due east across the Ancholme valley, but no traces of it are on record. A pavement has been found in Hibaldstow, and two more at Storton in Scawby—the next parish to the north. The line of the road passes through Broughton, three miles west of Brigg, where various remains have been discovered; and the country round it, as it approaches the Humber, abounded in rural residences of the better class. At Roxby, a mile and a half to the west, a good pavement was found in 1709; and about forty years later, three more of very superior design were discovered below the Cliff House in Winterton, one of which had a bust of Ceres in the centre. A fourth near the same spot, with a figure of Apollo, was unearthed in 1797; and in a garden at Horkstow, more than three miles east of this site, was found a pavement with three compartments, in which are depicted the Fates, Orpheus playing the lyre to the animals, and a chariot race. Among the remains found at Winterton are many coins, spear-heads, a brass eagle, and a potter’s kiln; while another kiln was found at Santon in Appleby, a few miles to the south. This district—as also the chalk ridges of the Eastern Wolds—seems to have been favourable for the manufacture of the coarse grey and stone-coloured pottery, so common on Roman sites in the county. The Ermine Street ended at a promontory overlooking the Humber in the parish of Winteringham, below which was an ancient haven called Flashmire, now silted up. This point is a little east of the Roman “station” of Brough on the opposite shore, so that boats could make the crossing of under two miles with the inflowing tide. In the dry summer of 1826, when the water was low, a paved causeway or jetty—like that leading to the Trent at Littleborough—was exposed on both the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire banks. Stukeley says that, when the “station” at Winteringham was ploughed up in 1700, extensive remains were found—as of stone foundations, pavements, and streets made of gravel and sea-sand. About four miles south-west of this point, and half-way to the Roman Camp at Barton, lies South Ferriby. Here is an ancient well-spring, near which at various times interesting articles have been found—some, perhaps, votive offerings to the local goddess of the spring. These objects, now principally in the Hull Museum, include cinerary urns of all kinds, fireplaces, coins, and a remarkable collection of bronze _fibulæ_—many harp-shaped (two with the Gaulish maker’s name, “Aucissa”) and others flat, with the disc in the shape of a fish or sandal. From Winteringham there may have been a branch-way to Barton—seven miles to the east. At Alkborough, about four miles westward, there is a strong camp, about one hundred yards square, overlooking the junction of the Trent and the Humber. Its Roman origin is disputed, and the area has never been carefully excavated.

Returning once more to Lincoln, we find at least one road leaving the east gate of the city, which is nearly identical with the present Wragby road. This was in line with the Foss Way, but was of much less importance. At Claybridge, about seven miles from Lincoln, a by-way branches off south-eastwards to the fort at Horncastle; while another, called Horncastle Lane, which is probably Roman, bends westward to the junction of Ermine Street and Tillbridge Lane. The main way continues north-eastward through Ludford and Ludborough to the coast, where it ends at some remains of saltworks in the parish of Grainthorpe. Its easterly part used to be known as “Salters’ Lane,” and it crosses the “High Street” from Horncastle to Caistor at Ludford. It is possible that this route and a branch-way from Ermine Street were the only roads from Lincoln to Caistor; at least no traces of a road, or even of Roman remains, are known to me on the direct line between the east gate and Caistor.

No road of any importance seems to have left Lincoln by the west gate; and the reason for this is to be found in the physical features of the neighbourhood at the time of the Roman occupation. The part of Lincolnshire north of the Witham is still called “Lindsey”—a name which indicates by its final syllable that, when it was given, the district was practically surrounded by water. On all sides but the south it is so to this day—viz. by the sea on the east, by the Humber on the north, and by the Trent on the west. In the Roman period—and indeed for many centuries after—the Witham was tidal as far as the narrow “Gap” between Lincoln and the opposite high land of Kesteven. Geologists tell us that this “Gap,” now intersected by the Witham, was in pre-glacial ages scooped out by the Trent, the course of which from Newark was then north-east instead of north; and that after that river had been “captured” by the Humber (_i.e._ diverted into its present bed by the opening of a longitudinal valley from the north) it would always tend to revert to its original course in time of flood. The result of this constant flooding was the formation of a large mere, extending from the western end of the Gap as far north as Brampton, beyond which the east bank of the Trent was too high for the water to escape. The first syllable of Lindum no doubt represents the Celtic word, which was applied to this large sheet of water. Faint remains of it can still be seen in the small pool of Brayford—just below the south gate of the lower city. The flood-water came through five openings in a low range of sandhills between Spaldford and Brampton; and the first work of the Roman engineers was to build banks across these openings, and so shut out the water of the Trent. The southernmost opening at Spaldford—the most dangerous because the highest up the valley—was closed by a bank from 12 to 15 feet high and a mile and a half in length.

Through the marsh which was left when the water disappeared the Romans constructed a navigable canal, now called the Fossdyke, between the Witham and the Trent. Its original course at the western end was, according to Stukeley, more direct than at present—joining the Trent not, as now, at Torksey, but about two miles farther south. From its bed was dredged up in 1774 a small bronze statue of Mars, with a Latin inscription. At Lincoln itself the Sincil Dyke, a drain of the “Slaker” type—to ease off the water in time of flood—was constructed connecting the upper and lower ends of the loop which is made by the Witham in order to pass through the Gap. These operations certainly took place at a very early period of the Roman occupation of Lincoln. For until they were made effective, it would be impossible to lay the line of the Foss Way between Lincoln and Leicester; and we know from a milestone discovered on that road three miles north of Leicester, and dedicated to Hadrian in A.D. 120 (when he was in Britain), that the eastern part of the Foss Way—doubtless the earliest made in order to connect Lincoln with Watling Street—was being laid down in the first quarter of the second century. In the valley below Lincoln, Ermine Street and the Foss Way, which were united for the crossing, traversed the marshes of the Gap on a pile-foundation.

But the chief anxiety of a Roman general, who would secure the submission or tranquillity of this part of Britain, must have been the condition of the Fen district along the lower reaches of the Witham, and beyond it to the south. If the Coritani had to be subdued by force of arms, as we have supposed, their subjugation must have been a long business. Moreover, the Romans were experienced agriculturists, and must have guessed the value of the rich fenland east and south-east of their colony. On that side there was doubtless an even larger mere than on the west—caused partly by the flood-water which had overflowed the Gap, partly by streams from the high land of Kesteven; and this sheet of water must have risen considerably in height during the spring-tides. In this mere for many miles the stream of the Witham must have been barely discernible. Below it the district of Holland was a vast morass, liable to inundation both by the sea and by the rivers—then of much larger volume than now—which fell into the Wash. It is not likely that this district was largely settled by the natives before the Romans came, and the British antiquities found are few; but it was a natural refuge for the disaffected—as was shown later during the Danish and Norman invasions. Herodian says[19] of the campaign in Scotland in 209 that the Emperor Severus made passage for his troops over the fens, where, “from the frequent overflowing of the ocean, the inhabitants will swim and walk, though up to their middle in water.”

The engineering skill needed to cope with this situation was very great; and if proof be required that the Romans exercised it, the answer is sufficient that neither before nor for a thousand years after this period was there a central organisation strong enough to carry out such operations. The work had to be of two kinds—draining, to carry off the flood-water and void the rainfall coming from the high land, and embanking, to shut out the sea. In the former the Romans acted upon sound principles, which were often neglected in after times. They used the natural rivers as arterial drains, and led the subsidiary drains into them. History records that they executed similar works in other parts of the Empire. The Pontine marshes and the Lombard valley of the Po were drained under the Republic. The Emperors Claudius and Hadrian began and completed a canal between the Fucine Lake and the Liris. In the Low Countries, Drusus, in 12 B.C., drew a channel connecting Lake Flevo (Zuyder Zee) and the Rhine; and in A.D. 47 Corbulo made a canal, twenty-three miles in length, between the Rhine and the Meuse. Eleven years later a project for uniting the Saone and the Moselle, and thus completing a waterway from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, was only not attempted from fear of the jealousy of Nero. If a full account was ever written of the Roman settlement of Britain, the operations now to be described must have filled a large place in it.

The present channel of the Witham from Lincoln to Boston is much too straight to have ever been the course of a natural stream. From Chapel Hill just below Dogdyke, where there was a tidal creek, the river was canalised to Boston as late as 1761; but there is no record in historical times of such an operation in the twenty miles from Lincoln to Dogdyke. In order to drain the lower mere described above, a channel was cut along the high land for that distance, and the upper waters of the river directed into it. In very early (perhaps in Roman) times there was another branch of the Witham due east from Dogdyke through the upper fen to Wainfleet, where it received the Steeping, and thence into the sea near Gibraltar Point. Very probably it was the draining of the district near Lincoln which hastened the silting up of this ancient channel. But at no time can it have been, as some have fancied,[20] the principal outfall of the river, for it is much farther from the sea, and could not have been tidal, like the other, for the whole distance.

The most remarkable monument of Roman engineering in the Fens is the catchwater drain called the Cardyke (_Brit._ “fen-dyke”), which leaves the Witham at Washingborough about three miles from Lincoln, and then for eighteen miles takes a southerly course parallel to that river at distances varying from two to five miles from it. The primary object may have been to intercept the water of the numerous streams coming from the Kesteven uplands; but it was doubtless intended to be navigable, as its width at the water-level was 50 feet, and at its bottom 30 feet. On both sides was a raised bank, flattened at the top to serve the purpose of a road, and still in some places crowned with a modern road. In the parish of Heckington, nine miles due west of Boston, it makes a sharp turn to the south-west, and then skirts the western border of the Fen for over thirty miles, till, after a course of fifty-six miles, it joins the river Nene, half a mile south-east of Peterborough, and about five miles below the Roman town of Durobrivæ (Castor). In some parts the Cardyke has been obliterated, and in many it is now a mere ditch; but its whole course can be exactly traced, and for a few miles it is still used as a drain. The last eight miles are beyond the borders of our county; but within those borders Roman remains have been found in at least ten parishes through which it passes. No vestiges can be found of the seven forts alleged by Stukeley to have been raised along its course, but there is a camp at North Kyme, within a short distance. Even with the aid of forced labour—partly, perhaps, imported from the Continent—such a work must have taken many years to construct; and it may have been in progress during a great part of the century between Trajan and Severus (A.D. 100-210). Its long course, parallel to the canalised channel of the Witham, suggests that its northern portion was first undertaken to assist in draining the mere south-east of Lincoln. But when this object was accomplished, and the immense work was taken in hand of embanking the shores of the Wash, the canal would gradually be extended southward in order to provide an inland waterway past Lincoln, by the Fossdyke, the Trent, and the Ouse, to the northern capital at York. This measure could hardly have been contemplated until the Holland Fen was sufficiently dry to admit of causeways being made across it into Lindsey on the north and Norfolk on the east.

The seabanks in Holland and East Lindsey, which are now called the “Roman Banks,” extend by a most circuitous route for about a hundred and fifty miles from Wisbech nearly to Grimsby. Tradition ascribes them to the Romans; and as their bases are deeply buried in silt, they are evidently of pre-Norman origin. Mr. Skertchly has estimated that at least eleven million tons of material must have been used in their construction. His collaborator, Mr. Miller,[21] suggests that this stupendous work may have been partly executed before the Roman invasion. But as this idea rests upon two very uncertain conjectures—(1) that the Coritani were Germans from the Low Countries with a knowledge of embanking, and (2) that they may have learnt engineering from the Greek colonies in Gaul, it may be dismissed as improbable. The tribal natives, whatever their state of civilisation, could hardly do more than provide a core of clay, upon which the banks of blown sand could gradually form. It has been well pointed out that the Roman Banks are not works of such a kind as could be carried out in portions, and spread over a number of years.[22] “The enclosure of a large tract covered by the spring-tides is a work that requires great vigour, and must be carried on continuously, or the earth put into the bank during one set of tides will be washed away again.” That is to say, it is a work which would require a strong, and even despotic, central authority. In the fen south of Boston there is a succession of about twenty tumuli, called the Fen Mounds, which are all within about three miles of the ancient banks, and some of which are called “toot” (or “look-out”) hills. They have been supposed to be British,[23] but only one of this southern series is crowned with a circular entrenchment, and it seems much more likely that they were raised to protect the bankmakers from a surprise attack.

The Romans do not seem to have reaped much fruit from their labours, except perhaps in the complete pacification of the district. Holland affords but few traces of their settlement, except in pottery and coins found along the line of the banks, as at Holbeach, Fleet, Heckington, and Swineshead. There was an important oblong camp on the Witham at Redstone Gowt, about a furlong south of Boston, where remains have been found. Its importance was due to the two circumstances that here was a ferry in connection with the road called the Saltway into the Midlands, and that at this point a canal, now called the Old Hammond Beck, took over some of the Witham water due west round the end of Bicker Haven to Swineshead, and thence, taking a sharp curve, after a southerly course of thirteen miles, fell into the river Glen at Pinchbeck. This canal was here parallel to the Cardyke at distances of from four to six miles. It could not have been made until the seabank had been thrown up all round Bicker Haven to keep out the tides. The course of these banks show the enormous amount of land near the Wash—about 64,000 acres—that has since been gained by accretion. The Wash, called by Ptolemy “Metaris Æstuarium,” was a bay with an entrance some two miles narrower than at present, into which fell the waters of four tidal rivers—the Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, and the Witham. The Seabank, starting from Wisbech on the Nene estuary, proceeds north for about ten miles, and then curves round west to the Welland estuary below Spalding. But about eight miles farther south is another westerly bank, parallel to the first, from Cowbit to Tydd St. Mary. This bank, called “Ravenbank,” was probably used as a road from Ermine Street into Norfolk, and south of it, between the Welland and the Nene, are three entrenchments, a few miles apart, where Roman remains have been found. About Spalding, where the Westlode—an ancient drain now filled up—fell into the Welland, the Seabank turns north to Surfleet, and then, running west, north, and east to encircle Bicker Haven, reaches the Witham at Redstone Gowt. From this point it can be traced north to Wainfleet, and thence, with intervals, to beyond the entrance to the Humber opposite Spurn Point. Its character varies considerably in different places. Between Boston and Skegness it often appears too broad to be artificial; but in general it is only a few yards wide, at an elevation of from 10 to 20 feet, and is frequently used as a modern road.

Some of these banks were doubtless used also by the Romans as roads, not for wheeled vehicles, but for pack horses in connection with the salt industry. The Romans were well acquainted with the manufacture of salt by evaporating sea water in pans or reservoirs prepared for the purpose. The flat coasts of Lincolnshire are especially favourable to this industry. Remains of such pans can still be detected on Bicker Haven, which is many miles from the present sea-shore; but the principal saltworks appear to have been at Wainfleet St. Mary, just outside the Roman Bank. If Ptolemy’s “Salinæ” is to be placed in Lincolnshire, as some suppose, no spot is so likely as Wainfleet. There was an ancient road into the Fen called the Saltway, or Bridge End Causeway, which crossed the Cardyke between Swaton and Bridge End. It is found on both sides of Bicker Haven, which must have been crossed by a ferry, and thence it points north-east through Frampton and Wyberton to Redstone Gowt and the Seabank beyond the Witham. If this be a Roman way—and remains found along its course in Kesteven seem to prove the fact—it probably belonged to the late Roman period, after the seabanks round the Wash had been completed. But the Wainfleet saltworks may have been developed much earlier, and the salt conveyed by road through Lindsey to Horncastle and Lincoln. Oysters were another commodity that could be procured from the Boston Deeps, though they were not of so fine a quality as those from the Richborough beds, which delighted the epicures of Rome.

One immediate result of the draining and embanking of the Fens would be the more complete occupation of the forest or heath district of Kesteven. That district was intersected by two branches of Ermine Street, which both start from Castor, and may have united at Lincoln. The eastern branch, which enters the county at West Deeping and runs along the high land parallel to the Cardyke for over twenty miles, is the shorter in actual distance; but it was not the main route, and the branch-ways from it across the Fen indicate that it was the later in date. South of Bourn, where was a camp close to the Cardyke, it is known in parts as Langdyke, High Street, and King Street; between Bourn and Sleaford it is generally called Mareham Lane. There was a by-way from it at Morton, which has been traced to the western branch at Great Ponton; and at Threckingham it is crossed from the east by the Saltway just mentioned. On each side of the latter way, about four miles west of Threckingham, tessellated pavements have been found at Haceby and Aisby; and after crossing the western branch at Cold Harbour,[24] near Grantham, the Saltway passes south-west into Leicestershire. At a ford near Sleaford, where coins and much pottery indicate that there was some kind of station, the eastern branch is within six miles of the western at Ancaster; and there was doubtless a cross-road between them, as interments have been found at Rauceby and coins at Bully Wells.

Ancaster, on the western branch of the Ermine Street, is one of those sites which, from a military camp on a main southern route, rose to be a small town, with a population probably engaged in agriculture. It is now generally identified with Causennæ, the station next to Lincoln in the fifth Iter of the _Itinerary_; but its distance from the colony is only fourteen miles instead of the twenty-six there given. No traces of walls are now visible above-ground, and even Leland, nearly four hundred years ago, spoke doubtfully as to their existence; but since his time their foundations have been met with on the north and west sides. The boundaries of the station, which was nearly square, and was surrounded by a fosse 50 feet wide and 10 feet deep, can still be distinctly seen; and it was defended at the corners by circular towers, the outlines of which on the north-west and south-east are well defined. The area enclosed is about six acres; and the course of Ermine Street, which intersects it, is near the western boundary. This suggests that the town was extended, before the erection of its walls, up the slope towards the east. Its position, on much lower ground than the heights around, was probably chosen partly to provide shelter from the bleak winds of the heath, partly for the sake of two springs which are close to its northern and southern limits. From a description of the place in 1579, it appears that pavements and “arches” had then been discovered within it; but a large part of the area, called the “Castle Close,” has long been under grass. It needs no practised eye to detect that there are foundations beneath the uneven turf, and systematic excavation might yield discoveries of much interest. An immense quantity of coins were found in Stukeley’s time not only within the area but about the surrounding hills. But the most remarkable object—unearthed in the churchyard in 1831—was a small sculptured group of the three _Deæ Matres_, seated in a _sella_ carved upon a plinth, with a column and a little incense altar on the base in front of them. Statues of these “Protecting Mothers”—who were provincial rather than Roman deities—have been found at the Wall stations of Chester and Birdoswald; there, however, the figures are separate, and not ranged in a single _sella_. The cemetery of Causennæ seems to have been just outside the southern gate, while north of the village has been found a potter’s kiln and a small milliary with an inscription to Constantine the Great. The latter was not on its original site, and its base had been broken off.[25] On a high hill in Honington, about two miles south-west of Ancaster, is a small British camp, with a triple vallum almost circular, enclosing about an acre and a quarter. This was doubtless occupied by the Romans, for two urns full of coins have been found within it. There was probably a cross-road west of Ancaster, communicating with the Foss Way at East Bridgford (Margidunum) in Nottinghamshire. Coins and pottery have been found at Foston and Allington along the direct line; and the Sewstern grass lane, locally supposed to be Roman, joins it from the south-east.

The eastern branch of Ermine Street can be traced for about four miles north of Sleaford, but its subsequent course is unknown. At or near Sleaford it threw off a branch-way, which passes through Ewerby and North Kyme (where it crosses the Cardyke), and points towards Tattershall and Horncastle. At North Kyme, where two bronze leaf-shaped swords have been found, is a small camp with a double vallum, and two more are on record in Tattershall Park. These entrenchments are in a position to protect the draining operations in the upper fen. Nine miles to the north is Horncastle (in mediæval documents always written Horncastre), which was a _castellum_, or walled fort, built in the angle (Saxon “Hyrn”) formed by two streams, the Bane and the Waring. The Celtic name of the chief stream is responsible for its identification with the “Banovallum” of the anonymous Ravennas. A few detached portions of the wall can still be seen, showing its area to have been about four and a half acres, with its longer sides (about 200 yards in length) on the north and south. The masonry is rude, but probably only the core remains, the facing-stones having been removed for building purposes in later ages. The only remains known to have been found are coins, pottery, and some leaden coffins outside the walls. This fort may have been built in the first century if coins are any indication of date, for among a large number, covering the whole Roman period, about ten belong to that century. If so, it may have been purely military in origin—built in order to overawe the natives of the Southern Wolds, and so serving the same object as Caistor among those of the north.

But towards the end of the third century, when the Pax Romana had long been established, there arose a new enemy—the Saxon sea-rovers—against whom new measures had to be taken. The first British fleet, which was formed under the leadership of Carausius, had such success against them that its commander seized the supreme power, and for a time maintained the independence of the island. But after the continental Empire resumed its sway in _A.D._ 296, this fleet was allowed to melt away; and a new land organisation was established, described in the _Notitia Imperii_, which split up the military command into three divisions, and placed them under the Prætorian Præfect of Gaul. By this arrangement, which may have originated in Constantine’s jealousy of his subordinates, the military force was chiefly massed in the two districts most exposed to invasion—the northern province, under the Duke of the Britains, whose headquarters were at York, and the south-eastern littoral, under the Count of the Saxon Shore. The central and western parts of the island, being much less exposed to danger, were defended only by a few squadrons of cavalry under the Count of the Britains, who had no legion under his command. It has generally been assumed that the northern province was bounded on the south by the Humber.[26] But if the “Saxon Shore” ended, as seems likely, at the eastern side of the Wash, such a division would result in leaving a long stretch of Lincolnshire Marsh, the flat shores of which were peculiarly exposed to invasion, outside the control of both the commanders, who had to defend the east coast. This district would thus be the “Achilles’ heel” of the whole system. Personally I am convinced that the northern province extended to the Wash, and that its southern boundary, which perhaps was ill-defined, was, roughly, the river Nene and Watling Street from High Cross (Venonæ) to Chester. It was essential for security that both banks of the Humber should be under one command; and it is hardly conceivable that Lincoln and York, whose connection by road and water was so intimate, were in different provinces. But though there was apparently no walled fortress on the hilly shore between the Tyne and the Humber, the exposed coast of Lindsey would naturally need some defence of the kind; and direct communication would, of course, be established between the northern province and the forces on the Saxon Shore.

Such communication, I believe, already existed before the _Notitia_ system was set up. The Peddar’s Way, “one of the best preserved Roman roads in East Anglia,”[27] can be traced to-day for 45 miles from the borders of Suffolk (starting no doubt from Colchester) to Holme-on-Sea, at the eastern headland of the Wash. This spot is four miles west of Brancaster, the northernmost fort on the Saxon Shore, and the presumption therefore is that it was laid down before that fort was built. Pointing from the opposite promontory of the Wash (which would have to be crossed by a boat journey of perhaps ten miles) an undoubted Roman road passes by Burgh into the Wolds, and communicates directly through Caistor with the Humber, and by branch-ways with Lincoln and York. The town of Wainfleet (All Saints), some six miles west of this promontory, is often said to have been the Roman haven for the Lindsey coast; but it is singularly poor in Roman remains, and its supposed name of “Vainona” is an invention of the eighteenth century. The road just mentioned is difficult to follow in the Marsh east of Burgh, but there are signs of it outside the Roman Bank west and south of Skegness. Here, according to tradition related by Leland, stood a walled haven town “with a castle,” which was destroyed by the sea not long before his time; and the shifting sandbanks of “The Knock” now covering it must have been the promontory which gave to Skegness its name. Mediæval documents mention _the site_ of this “castle,” but are silent as to its owner; we may therefore infer that it was the ruins of a Roman _castellum_, which in other instances, both in our county and elsewhere, is called a “castle.” Such a conjecture is incapable of absolute proof; but as Peddar’s Way ends in no walled fort, there would naturally be one on the opposite coast. The coincidence is at least curious that the two _Notitia_ forts of Branodunum (Brancaster) and Præsidium (which has been placed in our county) were both garrisoned by a body of Dalmatian cavalry, whose native shores were marshy tracts indented by deep bays.

Just beyond Burgh—where coins are found, though the station must have been small—the Lindsey road takes to the Wolds, and traverses the high ridge overlooking the Marsh, its straight course for five miles (two only on a modern road) being unmistakable. Coins and pottery have been found in the adjacent parishes of Welton, Willoughby, Well, and Claxby, in the last-named parish chiefly in a well-marked camp overhanging a stream, which here issues from the chalk. At the highest point in the district, where this “way” separates the parishes of Ulceby and Dexthorpe, there was some kind of station or “mansio,” roofed with flanged tiles, in a field where the plough annually turns up many coins and other remains. From South Ormsby the road follows the Blue Stone Heath Road (probably British in origin) along a winding ridge and through a camp, now scarcely traceable, below which, in Worlaby, have been found the walls of a building containing Samian pottery and a quantity of charred corn. Either here or at Ulceby a branch-way may have left this road direct for Horncastle and Tillbridge Lane; its course is not certain, but cinerary urns have been found at Ashby Puerorum, about half-way. At Ludford the main “via” crosses Salters’ Lane from Lincoln, and becomes merged in the “High Street” from Horncastle for nine miles to Caistor, and beyond it for fifteen miles, by Yarborough Camp, to Barton or South Ferriby.[28] Near this road have been found tessellated pavements at Walesby, Claxby, and Bigby. At Barton there are remains of an earthwork called the “Castle Dike,” but much of it has been washed away by the Humber. Another road, long known as Barton “Street,” leaves the first about a mile south of this camp, and passes through or near to Louth; its subsequent course is uncertain, but there are various camps in the Marsh district which may have been connected by it.

Caistor, which stands on a tongue or spur half a mile west of “High Street,” is a very interesting spot. Its position is one of great strength, and suggests a British origin, as it has all the characteristics of a “promontory fortress.” It was surrounded by a wall, strengthened at intervals by turrets or bastions, one of which remains in ruins on the south side of the churchyard; there is also a considerable fragment of the western wall in the garden of Grove Cottage. The exact area of the station is difficult to estimate, as the north and east walls have disappeared; but it was perhaps ten or twelve acres. There are two fine springs issuing from the rock on the south side of the fortress. In the churchyard, which is entirely within the area, Roman coins and pottery are constantly found, but stone foundations seem absent, and the fine ornamental ware is scarce. In early records the site is often termed Than—or Thwang—Castre, probably from the tongue of land on which it stands, and from this name Geoffrey of Monmouth ascribes its building[29] to Hengist, according to the legend by which that mythical chieftain encompassed an area granted him with “thongs” of ox-hide. The same story is told of other “Tong Castles” in Shropshire and Kent, and seems borrowed from Virgil’s account of the foundation of Carthage.

The occupation of our county by the Romans appears to have been more thorough than is sometimes supposed. Only in the north-west corner—the Isle of Axholme—which was then marshy and exposed to the Trent floods, are traces of their presence wanting. Much more doubtless remains to be discovered, for Eastern Lindsey is still comparatively unexplored. The district seems to have been, as now, largely agricultural; and the finding of over twenty villa sites in Kesteven and Lindsey indicates that the wealthier class of landowners resided on their estates. This circumstance points to a long period of peace, which may have lasted more than a century—from about A.D. 170. During that time the road system would be completed, and the industries of potters and saltworkers, so characteristic of our county, gradually developed. But a time came when the Pictish and Saxon marauders must have made great havoc in a district which had a long sea-front, and was but slightly protected by walled towns. In the year 368 these two sources of trouble united to overwhelm the province like an invading flood. The northern tribes broke across the Wall of Hadrian, and in concert with the sea-rovers, who had defeated and slain the Count of the Saxon Shore, advanced their plundering hosts to the very gates of London. By a series of victories, Theodosius, the ablest of the imperial generals, gave the province a short breathing-space. But the weight of taxation imposed by an over-centralised government was gradually crushing the provincials; and discontent gave an opening for the revolt of various usurpers in the last days of the Roman rule. When the legions were finally withdrawn in A.D. 410, the country districts became unsafe. Traces of fire in the ruined villas of Scampton, Worlaby, and other places betray the work of a ruthless, uncivilised foe. The owners may have escaped to the towns, or even, if wealthy, have reached the Continent. But their industry was doomed, and many miles of cultivated land must have passed back into mere prairie. The banks and drains were neglected, and much of the fenland, so laboriously won, returned to its former flooded state. If we could recover the story of one large town, such as Lincoln, in the fifth and sixth centuries, many a dark problem would be solved. In the absence of such records, the withdrawal of the Roman legions and officials is like the ringing down of a thick curtain upon the drama of British history in the ancient world.

SAXON CHURCHES IN LINCOLNSHIRE

BY A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A.

Lincolnshire is more rich than any other English county in churches which, if few are indisputably of a date earlier than the Norman conquest, retain traces of an architecture whose character at any rate is of a distinctly pre-Norman type. The county has nothing to show, it is true, of that early work, associated with the first century of Saxon and Anglian Christianity, which gives so unique an interest to the church architecture of certain districts in Kent and Northumbria. The neighbouring shire of Northampton possesses in Brixworth a monument whose importance overshadows that of Stow, and in Barnack and Earl’s Barton buildings which are, in point of detail, a match for Barton-on-Humber; while many who might hesitate to grant the pre-Conquest origin of Bracebridge, could hardly deny it to the Northamptonshire church of Wittering. The missionary visit of St. Paulinus has left but one trace, in the dedication to St. “Paul” of a church in Lincoln, of the connection of Lindsey with the religious life of Northumbria. That distinction on which Lincolnshire has prided itself, the possession of a Saxon cathedral at Stow, not hidden away in the foundations of a later building, but still in use as a parish church, begins to lose its value as the historical evidence on which it depends is more carefully examined. With the exception of Stow and St. Peter’s at Barton, the Saxon monuments of Lincolnshire are humble and unpretentious in character, without any very definitely architectural features; and he would be a bold man who should assert positively, on the little evidence which we have to show for their date, that they were built in days of Saxon rule. Equally bold was the assertion of Professor Freeman with regard to the two towers in the southern suburb of Lincoln, that native workmen built them while the Minster was rising in the style of the conquerors on the hill above.[30] Such positiveness is rebuked by the discovery that this picturesque statement was founded on evidence referring to churches in a different part of the city.[31] Avoiding either extreme, we may say, in our present state of knowledge, that most of the so-called Saxon churches of Lincolnshire represent a late state of Saxon art, open to Norman influence, but preserving a distinctly national tradition. Some of these monuments are undoubtedly later than the Conquest: of others, and perhaps of the majority, it may be said that, though a post-Conquest date is possible, yet the character of the work is of a kind that might be expected rather before the Conquest than after, and belongs at any rate to a type of art prior to the general spread of Norman influence. Thus the epithet “Saxon” may fairly be given to such buildings, even though, in point of date, they may belong to the Norman period.