ITER CIMBRICUM. III.
———quid virtus & quid sapientia possit
Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulyssem.
Qui domitor Trojæ, multorum providus urbes
Et mores hominum inspexit——— Hor.
To RICHARD MYDDLETON MASSEY
of Wisbech, M. D.
TO you of right I inscribe this journey, to which your company and my inclination to see somewhat of the world allured me. I had conceived great notions of the old Britons betimes, and longed to hear at least a language spoke soon after the deluge; and I then prided myself as much as Cæsar formerly in making this small inroad into their country. I willingly take this occasion of recognizing how I ought to esteem it a happiness, that you chanced to be seated in a place so near that of my nativity, and presented to me a subject of imitation, in all the commendable qualifications that may conduce to the felicity and ornament of life. Your deep insight into the materia medica, the theory and practice of physic, your great knowledge of antiquities, natural history, and all polite learning, and the excellence of your hand in designing, were as so many spurs to me in my young years, when we are most apt at imitation: and that the latter exercise of the pen is of importance to all the others, is too notorious, and universally allowed by all, to need any solemn proof. Who sees not that the defeats and confusion in anatomy and botany, and every part of philosophy, is owing to the want of drawing? when the innumerable labours of so many ages are either lost to posterity, or imperfectly transmitted, for that reason. How well does this range and distinguish ideas, and imprint them in one’s own mind, as well as make them known to others? It is not to be disputed but a person that understands it, sees much farther into things than others: the beauties of art and nature are open to him. Indeed every body is pleased with perfection and beauty, though they know not why: as suppose that of a fine statue, they are hugely delighted with it, though they understand not that it is owing to the proper disposition and contrast of the limbs, to the attitude, the grace of the posture, the expression of the action, the light and shade, and a thousand other requisites, as well as the particular delicacy and outline of the parts and members: and these things are only to be learnt and gathered from Nature’s self, from copying and observing it; for she is the grand exemplar of all fine strokes in drawing; as Aristotle formed his Art of Poetry from the great genius of Homer, and he from the force of Nature.
Grantham.
Grantham was certainly a Roman town. Burton in his Commentaries on Antoninus’s Itinerary relates, that a great stone trough, covered with a stone, was dug up there, full of Roman coins, p. 216.[38] The street that runs on the east of the church is called Castle-street: between it and the river have been dug up foundations of a castle, as they say.[39] I have a piece of glass with enamel upon it, ground with an engine; which is curious, and I take it for Roman: it was found in the Grange garden. Here is a spacious church and fine spire, much noted: it is a hundred yards high, equalled by another in this county, Louth, besides the tower of Boston: under the south wall of this church are two tomb-stones, said to be of the founders; one in old French, the date only legible, 1362; the other, hic jacent ricard de calceby et margareta vx ejus m ccclxii. On a stone in a wall in Church-lane this inscription (the orate pro anima seems to have been cut out by order of some zealot) Iohis Goldsmyth mercatoris de Grantham, a coat of arms, quarterly; in the sinister upper quarter a mullet. There were many religious houses here, some reliques of them left: in one just by the market-place is a very pretty little chapel, or oratory, adorned with imagery. The Angel inn was once a commandery. Here is a good free-school, erected by Richard Fox bishop of Winchester, where Sir Isaac Newton received the first principles of literature, under the famous William Walker then school-master.[40] Belvoir, the seat of the dukes of Rutland, stands on a high hill with a very fine prospect: you may see Nottingham castle and Lincoln minster, and all around you, below, many towns and lordships the demesnes of this noble family. Here is a perfect pattern of the true old English hospitality. In the fine gallery are many ancient and modern family pictures and others; the original one of king Charles I. as he sat at his trial. This place was the possession of Robert de Totney,[41] a great man who came in with William the Conqueror: he built a priory near it. I imagine originally here was a Roman camp; for coins have been found about it.[42] Upon the edge of Lincolnshire we visited the tombs of the duke of Rutland’s family at Bottesworth, which are worth seeing.
Nottingham.
Nottingham we arrived at after crossing the Roman road called Foss: it is a pleasant and beautiful town. They have a great manufacture here for stockings, which they weave in looms from the invention of a neighbouring clergyman. Their ale is highly valued for softness and pleasant taste: the cellars in the town are hewn out of the rock two or three story deep, to fourscore steps sometimes. The castle is a goodly building on a high perpendicular rock; seems to have been modelled after some of Inigo Jones’s draughts: many good pictures there: it commands a vast prospect. The south side of the rock is altogether inaccessible: a winding stair-case along it to the bottom, which they call Mortimer’s hole: there are vast subterraneous grottos cut underneath. St. Mary’s church is a fine old lightsome building, with a good ring of eight bells. We saw Mr. Hurst’s gardens, late Pierpoint’s, which are very pretty; in the middle a copy of the Dalmatian slave in metal. One may easily guess Nottingham to have been an ancient town of the Britons: as soon as they had proper tools they fell to work upon the rocks, which every where offer themselves so commodiously to make houses in; and I doubt not that here was a considerable collection of colonies of this sort: that which I have described in [Plate 39].TAB. XXXIX. will give us an idea of them; it is in the duke of Newcastle’s park. What is visible at present is not of so old a date as their time; yet I see no doubt but that it is formed upon theirs: this is a ledge of perpendicular rock hewn out into a church, houses, chambers, dove-houses, &c. The church is like those in the rocks at Bethlehem and other places in the Holy Land: the altar is natural rock, and there has been painting upon the wall; a steeple, I suppose, where a bell hung, and regular pillars. The river here winding about makes a fortification to it; for it comes to both ends of the cliff, leaving a plain before the middle. The way to it was by gates cut out of the rock, and with oblique entrance for more safety. Without is a plain with three niches, which I fancy their place of judicature, or the like: there is regularity in it, and seems to resemble that square called the Temple in the Pictish castle, [Plate 38].TAB. XXXVIII. in Scotland. The wild cherry-tree grows upon this place, and many curious plants, liver-worts, lychnis sylvester. 9. clus. ruta muraria, rosa pimpinellæ folio odorata, capillus veneris, umbilicus veneris. Between this and the castle is an hermitage of like workmanship. The butchers shambles is an old edifice built for a granary. Clifton near here is a good seat, with pretty gardens and a noble prospect: in the church are many old brasses of the family of this name. Three miles from Nottingham is Woolaton hall, the seat of my lord Middleton; which is a good piece of old building: there is a pretty summer-house panelled and cieled with looking-glass, which produces a pleasant effect: underneath is a water-house with grotesque work of shells, &c. A little beyond, in the road, upon the brow of the hill, is a high rugged piece of rock, called Hemlock-stone, seen at a good distance: probably it is the remains of a quarry dug from around it. Beyond this we entered Derbyshire. There are some few ruins of Dale abbey seated in a valley, and the east end of the choir over-grown with ivy: the mullions of the windows are knocked out (I suppose for sake of the iron:) it is overlooked by a near and high hill covered with oaks. In the ascent, out of the rock is cut a cell, or little oratory, called the Hermitage:TAB. XIV. on one side the door and windows, at the east end, a square altar and a step up to it of the same quarry, little niches cut in the wall, and a bench to sit on all round.
39
BRYTTISH.
Illus trissimo Principi
Iohi Duci de Novo Castro &c.
Antiquitatis in Vivario Suo
Juxta Nottingham Tabula Sacra.
Rudera Coloniæ Troglodyticæ juxta. Nottingham.
38
Pictish
Caves of Hawthornden, Scotland.
Stukeley delin.
I. Harris sculp.
DerbyDerby. has five churches; the tower of one is very fine. The new-erected silk manufacture is a remarkable curiosity: the house is of a vast bulk, five or six stories high: the whole furniture is one machine turned by a single water-wheel, which communicates its power through the whole, and actuates no less than 97–746 several wheels or motions, and still employs three or four hundred hands to over-look and act in concert with it. Mr. Loom the owner brought the design of it from Italy.[43] The waters that run here, whether from the lead mines or coal, are apt to cause the bronchocele in the fair sex.
Burton.
Beyond Derby, along the Ricning way is Burton upon the Trent, where is a bridge of thirty-seven arches. Here was an old abbey: they are pulling down the ruins to build a new church.
Derventio.
TAB. LXXXVI.
A mile below Derby, upon the river Derwent, stood the old Roman city Derventio, now called Little Chester. I traced the track of the wall quite round, and in some places saw under ground the foundation of it in the pastures, and some vaults along the side of it: they dig it up daily to mend the ways with. Mr. Lord’s cellar is built on one side of the wall three yards thick: it is of a square form, standing between the Roman way called the Ricning street and the river. Within the walls are foundations of houses in all the pastures; and in the fields round the castle (as they call it) you may see the tracks of the streets laid with gravel: in a dry summer the grass over them is very bare. Divers wells are found, some still remaining, square, curbed with good stone. Brass, silver, and gold Roman coins have been found in great abundance; earthen pipes, aqueducts, and all kinds of antiquities. Towards the river they have dug up human bones, brass rings, and the like. There was a bridge over the river, for it was too deep and rapid for a ford: they can feel the foundations of it with a staff. In Mr. Hodgkin’s cellar a stag’s head with horns was dug up; probably a temple thereabouts: a square well in his garden three foot and a half one way, and four another.
Ricning-way.
A little further northward upon the Ricning street,[44] which seems to take its name from the Saxon rige, dorsum, is Horreston castle, whose ruins on a hoary rock are nearly obliterated; and out of it they cut great quantities of rubstones to whet scythes withal. We are now got into the very Peak of Derbyshire, the British Alps, where the odd prospects afford some entertainment to a traveller, and relieve the fatigue of so tedious a road. Now you pass over barren moors, in perpetual danger of slipping into coal-pits and lead-mines; or ride for miles together, on the edge of a steep hill, on solid slippery rock or loose stones, with a valley underneath, where you can scarce discover the bottom with your eye; which brought into my mind that beautiful in Virgil,
Saxa per & scopulos & depressas convalles.
Instead of trees and hedges, they fence in their poor meadow or arable with walls of loose stones picked up from beneath their feet. The extended sides of the mountains are generally powdered over as it were with rocks, streams of water dribbling down every where; and now bolder cataracts diversify the romantic scene.
At the smelting-mills they melt down the lead ore, and run it into a mould, whence it becomes pigs as they call it: the bellows continually are kept in motion by running water. We were complemented to be let down two hundred yards deep into the mines, if we pleased. We came to a monstrous parcel of gigantic rocks, seemingly piled one a-top of another as in the wars of the gods, called the Torr: there were a few inhabitants at bottom, in little cottages, who durst trust themselves under so ruinous a shelter: it was fitly represented by those verses of the poet,
Stabat acuta silex, præcisis undique saxis,
Speluncæ dorso insurgens, altissima visu.
Dirarum nidis domus opportuna volucrum! Virg. viii. Æn.
86
DERVENTIO
31 Sept. 1721.
Simon Degg Ar. Castrum Romanum jam suum d.d. W. Stukeley
I took the pains to clamber on hands and knees almost to the top, and entered another hermit’s cell, who had a mind, if possible, to get quite out of the world: it is hewn in the rock, with a most dreary prospect before it: on one end is a crucifix and a little niche, where I suppose the mistaken zeal of the starved anchorite placed his saint, or such trinket. Over-against it, about half a mile off, is another such cliff; but by the care of a gentleman that lives underneath (Mr. Ashe) it is reduced into a more agreeable form: there is an easy ascent up to it by steps hewn out of the rock, and abundance of alcoves, grots, summer-houses, cellars, pinacles, dials, balustrades, urns, &c. all of the same materials: earth is carried to the top, and fine grassy walks with greens planted along them, upon this hanging terrace, whence you have a free view over many a craggy mountain. I was highly pleased with so elegant a composure, where Art and industry had so well played its part against rugged Nature.
Chatsworth.
We went through Wirksworth, and over the rapid Derwent, whilst on a sudden (like the advantageous change of a scene) we were surprised at the sight of Chatsworth, the famous seat of the duke of Devonshire, deservedly reckoned one of the wonders of the Peak, as remarkable for its situation in so wild a place as its curious fabric and ornaments. The river here for a while puts on a smooth aspect, and glides gently by, as unwilling to leave so glorious a place: between it and the house is a fine venerable walk of trees, retaining the name of that great philosopher Hobbes, who studied frequently under its shade. A noble piece of iron-work gates and balusters exposes the front of the house and court, terminated at the corners next the road with two large stone pedestals of Attic work, curiously adorned with trophies of war, and utensils of all the sciences, cut in basso relievo. This face of the building is Ionic, the whole being a square of a single order, but every side of a different model: a court in the middle, with a piazza of Doric columns of one stone each overlaid with prodigious architraves. The stone is of an excellent sort, veined like marble, hewn out of the neighbouring quarries, and tumbled down the adjacent hill: it is introduced into the work in very large sizes, finely jointed. In the anti-room to the hall are flat stones, of fourteen foot square, laid upon the heads of four pillars, and so throughout: in the hall stairs the landing or resting steps of the same dimension: the doors, chimneys, window-cases, stairs, &c. of marble; the sashes very large, gilt; the squares two foot broad: the cielings and walls of all the apartments charged with rare painting of Varrio and other famous hands: the bath-room all of marble curiously wrought. The chapel is a most ravishing place: the altar-end and floor marble, the seats and gallery cedar, the rest of the wall and cieling painted. The gardens abound with green-houses, summer-houses, walks, wildernesses, orangeries, with all the furniture of statues, urns, greens, &c. with canals, basons and water-works of various forms and contrivance, sea-horses, drakes, dolphins, and other fountains that throw up the water: an artificial willow-tree of copper spouts and drops water from every leaf: a wonderful cascade, where, from a neat house of stone like a temple, out of the mouths of beasts, pipes, urns, &c. a whole river descends the slope of a hill, a quarter of a mile in length, over steps, with a terrible noise and broken appearance, till it is lost under ground. Beyond the garden, upon the hills, is a park, and that overlooked by a very high and rocky mountain: here are some statues and other antiquities.
Buxton.
Hence we went by Bakewel, and left Haddon-house belonging to the duke of Rutland on our left hand, in a pleasant and fruitful valley. We travelled ten miles over a perfect desert to Buxton, encompassed with waste and boggy mountains and naked cliffs: the tops of the hills hereabouts are quagmires, or springs, furnishing numerous rivers running hence all manner of ways. Nature seems to have thrown these precipicious heights into the middle of the island on purpose for her limbeck, to distil the liquid sources of springs by some unknown power. The valleys are the firmest ground, made of the gritty washings of the mountains: we were every moment diverted with the appearance of curious plants, but no tree to be seen. At Buxton are the admirable warm springs, which invite numbers of strangers yearly, especially from the northern countries. The duke of Devonshire has built a large and convenient house for their reception: the bath-room is arched over head, and the whole made handsome, convenient, and delightful. This collection of tepid waters, exceeding clear, will receive twenty people at a time to walk and swim in: the temper thereof, equal to new milk, or that of one’s own blood, procures a moderate perspiration: its effect is remarkable for giving that gentle relaxation of the solids, which takes off the weariness and fatigue of a journey, and refreshes immediately: it is useful physically in many cases, and may be indulged more than the hot baths of Somersetshire, which frequently do harm for that reason, through an imprudent use. Such a one as this was imitated by the sumptuous bagnios of the Roman emperors. Sir Tho. Delves, who received a cure here, gave the pump and a pretty stone alcove over the drinking-spring in the yard: the water may be raised to what height you please. Philosophers have long sought for a solution of the cause of these hot springs: the chymists know many mixtures will produce a flame and effervescence, particularly steel filings and sulphur, when water is poured thereon; but that these could continue the same course and quantity of water, and this regular heat, through all ages and seasons, is worthy of admiration. Indulgent Nature indeed has made some amends to the inhabitants of this barren region by this inestimable gift. We found in one of the rooms these verses, wrote upon the wall by a physician that formerly frequented the place:
Corpore debilior Grani se proluit undis,
Quærit aquas Aponi, quem febris atra necat.
Ut penitus renem purget cur Psaulia tanti,
Vel quæ Lucinæ gaudia, Calderiæ?
Sola mihi Buxtona placet, Buxtona Britannis
Undæ Grani, Aponus, Psaulia, Calderiæ.
About half a mile off is that stupendous cavern called Pool’s Hole, under a great mountain: the entrance at the foot thereof is very low and narrow, so that you must stoop to get in: but immediately it dilates into a wide and lofty concavity, which reaches above a quarter of a mile end-wise and farther, as they tell us: some old women with lighted candles are guides in this Cimmerian obscurity: water drops from the roof every where, and incrusts all the stones with long crystals and fluors: whence a thousand imaginary figures are shown you, by the name of lions, fonts, lanterns, organs, flitch of bacon, &c. At length you come to the Queen of Scots pillar, as a terminus of most people’s curiosity. A stream of water runs along the middle, among the fallen rocks, with a hideous noise, re-echoed from all sides of the horrid concave: on the left hand is a sort of chamber, where they say Pool, a famous robber, lived. We may very well apply these verses to the place:
At specus & Caci detecta apparuit ingens
Regia, & umbrosæ penitus patuere cavernæ:
Non secus ac si qua penitus vi terræ dehiscens
Infernas reseret sedes & regna recludat
Pallida, diis invisa, superque immane barathrum
Cernatur—— Virg. Æn. viii.
Within appears old Pool’s tremendous cave,
With glimmering lights redoubled horror shown;
Yawning, as earth by strong convulsions torn
Opens the caverns of the Stygian king
Dire, hateful to the gods, and the black pit
Discloses wide——
We entered the pleasanter country of Cheshire at Lyme, the seat of Mr. Leigh: here are curious gardens, lakes, cascades, fountains, summer-houses. This is a fine level, woody, and rich county, abounding with lakes of water called meres: the towns stand but thin, and it being mostly inclosure, there are paved causeways for horses along the clayey roads: many ancient seats and parks, but most ruinous and decayed. We were entertained by the worthy Sir Francis Leycester at his seat, Nether Tabley, by Knutsford, upon the Roman way from Mancunium to Deva: this house stands in the midst of a mere: here is a good library completed by the curious possessor, with a vast addition to his ancestors’ store, of all the English history especially. In cleansing this mote some time since they found an old British axe, or some such thing, made of large flint, neatly ground into an edge, with a hole in the middle to fasten into a handle: it would serve for a battle-axe. Rotherston church stands upon a hill, and commands a lovely prospect across a mere, a mile and half in length and a mile over, where amongst great variety of fish are smelts found, properly inhabitants of the sea. There is a floating island, formed from turf, sustained by implication of the roots of alnus nigra baccifera growing on it, which the wind wafts over from one side to the other. On the south side of the steeple is this inscription:
Orate pro anima domini willmi hardwicke vicarii istius ecclesiae
et pro animabus omnium parochianorum qui hoc sculpt.
Out of the church-yard you see to the Yorkshire hills beyond Manchester. By the church-porch were lately dug up three large stone coffins. In the church are abundance of coats of arms. Among other curious plants grow hereabouts calamus aromaticus and ros solis. The Roman road from Manchester to Chester passes the Mersey river at Stretford, through Altringham, to the north of Rotherston mere; then by Chapel in the street, by Winingham, to Northwich; then by Sandy way, the Chamber or Edesbury, it passes the river at Stanford, so called from the stony ford, to Chester.
Condate.
We were at Northwich, which I take to be Condate, as all distances persuade me. It is still, among others hereabouts, famous for brine-springs, whence they make great quantities of finest salt, by boiling the water in large iron pans of small depth: as fast as the salt crystallises, they rake it out and dry it in conic wicker baskets: the duty paid by it amounts to a great sum of money. About thirty years ago on the south side of the town they discovered immense mines of rock salt, which they continually dig up, and send in great lumps to the maritime parts, where it is dissolved and made into eating-salt. We were let down by a bucket a hundred and fifty foot deep to the bottom of the salt quarry, a most pleasant subterraneous prospect: it looks like a large cathedral, supported by rows of pillars and roof of crystal, all of the same rock, transparent and glittering from the numerous candles of the workmen, labouring with their steel pick-axes in digging it away: this rock-work of salt extends to several acres of ground. There is a very good church in the town: the end of the choir is semicircular: the roof of the church is very fine, whereon are carved several of the wicker baskets before mentioned; whence they report it was built out of the profits of the salt works. At Lawton Yates they bore for the salt spring to sixty yards deep; lower down, at Hassal, it is forty seven; at Wheeloc, eighteen; about Middlewich it is less; at Northwich it arises to open day; which seems to intimate that the salt spring runs between layers of the earth in an horizontal line: upon boring, it rises with great impetuosity, so that the workmen have scarce time to get out of the wells. This is all along the side of a brook that comes from a remarkable hill called Mawcop, upon the edge of Staffordshire, so that the ground rises above the true level in the mentioned proportion.
Mancunium.
Manchester, in Lancashire, is the Mancunium of the Romans, the largest, most rich, populous, and busy village in England. There are about two thousand four hundred families. The site of the Roman castrum, between Sir John Bland’s and Manchester, is now called Knock Castle. They have a fabulous report of Turquin a giant living there, killed by Sir Lancelot de Lake, a knight of king Arthur’s: in it was found a Saxon ring, mentioned in Hickes’s Thesaurus, now in possession of Sir Hans Sloan. A Roman altar dug up here, described by Dr. Lister, Philos. Trans. N. 155. p. 457. and a large gold Roman ring. The Castle field, as sometime called, is about as big as Lincoln’s-Inn square, the foundation of the wall and ditch remaining. Some call it Man-castle: its name comes from the British maen, lapis, meaning its rocky soil. The old church, though very large, having three rows of neat pillars, was not capable of containing the people at divine service; whence they raised, by voluntary subscriptions, a new edifice after the London models, finished last year: the choir is alcove-fashion, and the pilasters painted of lapis-lazuli colour. There is a fine new street built to the north. Their trade, which is incredibly large, consists much in fustians, girth-web, tickings, tapes, &c. which is dispersed all over the kingdom, and to foreign parts: they have looms that work twenty-four laces at a time, which was stolen from the Dutch. The college has a good library for public use, endowed with 116l. per ann. to buy more books, and a salary for the librarian. There is a free-school maintained by a mill upon the river, which raises 300l. per annum. On the same river, for the space of three miles upwards, there are no less than sixty water-mills. The town stands chiefly on a rock; and across the river is another large town, called Salthorp. Dr. Yarburgh, son to him late of Newark, showed me a great collection of old Greek, Persian, Tartarian, and Punic coins brought from Asia. About a mile off, at the seat of Sir John Bland, is a Roman altar, lately dug up thereabouts: in the mosses, as they call them in this country, they often find reliques of antiquity, such as arrow-heads, celts, pick-axes, kettles, &c. of brass; many are in the repository of the library: likewise subterraneous fir-trees, as in most other countries in the like sort of ground. French wheat grows commonly hereabouts, much used among the poor people, of very different species from ours: they have likewise wheat with long beards like barley, and barley with four rows of grain on an ear, and great plenty of potatoes.
We passed through Delamere forest, upon the Roman road, in our way to Chester. They say here was formerly an old city, now called the Chamber on the Forest; I suppose, some fort or camp to secure the road. From hence you have a fine prospect to the Welsh mountains, such a noble scene of nature as I never beheld before. Beeston castle is on our left, built upon a rocky precipice.Deva. Chester is a fine old city, and colony of the Romans, the residence some time of the legio vicesima victrix: a hypocaust was lately found, lined with bricks made by that legion. I need not repeat what other authors say of the antiquities at this place. The rows or piazzas are singular, through the whole town giving shelter to foot people. I fancied it a remain of the Roman porticos. Four churches beside the cathedral, which is a pile venerable indeed for age and almost ruin: there are shadows of many pictures on the walls, madonnas, saints, bishops, &c. but defaced. At the west end are some images of the earls Palatine of Chester in niches. The adjoining abbey is quite ruined. The walls round the city are kept in very good repair at the charge of the corporation, and serve for a pleasant airy walk. The Exchange is a neat building, supported by columns, thirteen foot high, of one stone each: over it is the city-hall, a well-contrived court of judicature. The castle was formerly the palace, and where the earls assembled their parliaments, and enacted laws independent of the kings of England, and determined all judicial trials themselves. Abundance of Roman and British antiquities are found hereabouts. At Stretton, Roman coins, and a camp-kettle of copper dug up at Codington: near it divers other antiquities. The old Watling-street way from Dover came originally hither through Stretton and Aldford; though I suppose in after-times of the Romans they turned it off more southward into Wales, for sake of the many towns seated on the Severn.
Wales.
Next we entered Wales, and came to Wrexham in Flintshire. Here is a good church, and the finest tower-steeple I ever saw, except Boston: it is adorned with abundance of images. There is a new town-house built like that at Chester. The common people speak the Welsh. The gentry are well-bred, hospitable, generous and open-hearted: the females are generally handsome. I took a great deal of pleasure in hearing the natives talk in their own language, and remarked a great many words among them still retained in our country of Lincolnshire Holland: it is probable enough that our fens and morasses might be a long security to us against the Saxons, as it had been to them against the Romans. I shall give instances of a few words. When we put oatmeal into water-gruel or milk, we call it lithing the pot: the same is signified by the Welsh word llith. Davis thinks the English slide comes from the British llithro, labi: we call it slither. A bull-beggar, or boggleboe, is manifestly the British bwbach, with all its synonymes. A top we call a whirligig, purely British. We say a whisking fellow, dexterous, ready: British gwisgi, To whyne; British gwynio. Very many such like occur in Dr. Skinner’s Etymologicum, which he would fain persuade us the Welsh learnt from the Saxons, Bonium.but without reason. We passed by the valley upon the river Dee, where was the famous British monastery in early times, whereof Pelagius was abbot, whose British name was Morgan; but no remains discernible. What some talk concerning it, probably the vestiges of the Roman city; for many foundations, coins, and antiquities have been dug up; and not long since two gates of the city were left. We entered Shropshire, passing by Ellsmere and Wem to Newport, where is a noble foundation for a school well endowed by William Adams esq; to the value of 7000l. over the door is this distich, in fundatorem:
Scripsisti heredem patriam tibi quæ dedit ortum,
Scriberis ergo tuæ, jure, pater patriæ.
he gave 550l. towards building the town-house.
Presently entering Staffordshire, we came into the Watling-street, laid very broad and deep with gravel not yet worn out, where it goes over commons and moors. It is raised a good height above the soil, and so strait, that upon an eminence you may see it ten or twenty miles before you, and as much behind, over many hill-tops answering one the other as a visto of trees. Here and there, between one Roman town and another, you meet with the remains of an old fort or guard-place. We lodged at an inn called Ivesey bank, on the borders between Staffordshire and Shropshire. About a mile off, in a large wood, stands Boscobel house, where the Pendrils lived, who preserved king Charles II. after Worcester fight, and famous for the Royal Oak.Royal Oak. The grand-daughter of that William Pendril still lives in the house. The floor of the garret (which is a popish chapel) being matted, prevents any suspicion of a little cavity with a trap-door over the stair-case, where the king was hid: his bed was artfully placed behind some wainscot that shut up very close. A bow-shot from the house, just by a horse-track passing through the wood, stood the Royal Oak into which the king, and his companion colonel Carlos, climbed by means of the hen-roost ladder, when they judged it no longer safe to stay in the house; the family reaching them victuals with the nut-hook. It happened (as they related it to us) that whilst these two were in the tree, a party of the enemy’s horse, sent to search the house, came whistling and talking along this road: when they were just under the tree, an owl flew out of a neighbouring tree, and hovered along the ground as if her wings were broke, which the soldiers merrily pursued without any circumspection. The tree is now inclosed within a brick wall, the inside whereof is covered with laurel; of which we may say, as Ovid did of that before the Augustan palace, mediamque tuebere quercum. The oak is, in the middle, almost cut away by travellers whose curiosity leads them to see it: close by the side grows a young thriving plant from one of its acorns. The king, after the restoration, reviewing the place, carried some of the acorns, and set them in St. James’s park, or garden, and used to water them himself: he gave this Pendril an estate of about 200l. per annum, which still remains among them. Over the door of the inclosure I took this inscription cut in marble.
Felicissimam arborem quam in asylum
potentissimi regis Caroli II. Deus O. M.
per quem reges regnant hic crescere
voluit, tam in perpetuam rei tantæ memoriam,
quam specimen firmæ in reges
fidei, muro cinctam posteris commendant
Basilius & Jana Fitzherbert.
Quercus amica Jovi.
Entering Staffordshire, we went along the Watling-street by Stretton and Water-Eaton: where a brook crosses the road was the Pennocrucium.Pennocrucium of the Romans, as mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus. A little way off is Penkridge, which no doubt retains somewhat of the ancient name.
Litchfield.
Litchfield is a city neat enough. The cathedral is a very handsome pile, with numerous statues in niches at the front, which appears very majestic half a mile off, there being two high spires, and another higher in the middle of the cross. The rebels intirely ruined all the ornament of the inside, with the brass inscriptions, tombs, &c. and were going to pull down the whole fabric for sale. It is built in the middle of a bog for security, and held out some fierce attacks for king Charles I. This was made a metropolitical see by the potent king Offa. St. Ceadda lived an eremitical life here by the spring near Stow church. This town arose from the ruin of the Roman Etocetum.Etocetum, a mile off, where the Rickning and Watling streets cross, now called Chesterfield wall, from some reliques of its fortifications: it stands high: the Rickning street is very visible southward, passing within a mile of Fotherby, and so to a park in Sutton Colfield, Warwickshire; thence to Bromicham. Castle hill, two miles hence above Stone hall, is a camp, the port eastward. A mile and half from Wall is West-wall, a camp; and Knaves-castle, near the Watling-street, probably a guard upon the road: it is a circle of twenty yards diameter, with a square in the middle, three or four yards broad, with a breast-work about it: the whole is inclosed with three ditches: it stands in a large common. This Rickning is all along called by Dr. Plot Icknilway, but injuriously, and tends only to the confusion of things; I suppose, to favour his Iceni in this country; which notion is but chimerical. We passed through Tamworth, pleasantly situated in a plain watered by the river Tame, which divides it into two counties: it was the residence of the Mercian kings, and has been secured by a vallum and ditch quite round. Here died the noble lady Elfleda, daughter of king Alfred, queen of the Mercian kingdom, anno 919. This town, by William the Conqueror, was given to the Marmyons, who built the castle here, hereditary champions to the kings of England; from whom that office descended to the Dymokes of Lincolnshire. We went through Bosworth over the field where Henry VII. won the kingdom by a bold and well-timed battle.
Boston, Dec. 1713.