“The willows that o’erhang thy twilight edge,
Their boughs entangling with the embattled sedge,
Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fringed,
Thy surface with reflected verdure tinged.”
Eight villages round Stratford have been characterised, in some well-known lines, by some old resident who had the talent for rhyme. It is remarkable how familiar these are to the country people, and how invariably they ascribe them to Shakespeare.
“Piping Petworth, Dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillborough, Hungry Grafton,
Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford,
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford.”
Watling Street forms the north-eastern boundary of Warwickshire, separating it from Leicestershire for many miles, and perhaps a word may not be quite out of place here regarding this remarkable Roman Street. It is one of the four great roads with which the Romans intersected the country, and according to Mr. Hirsley, whom Camden quotes, most of our military ways were laid by Julius Agricola, who extended them as he pushed his conquests forward. The others are called Hermin Street, the Fosse, and Ikning Street. Watling Street crosses the kingdom thrice. It goes from Richborough through London (where it retains its name) towards Chester, then crossing again it goes to York, and once more it turns in a westerly direction and extends past Carlisle. Watling Street is the name also given to the road which goes through Wales into Anglesea; a causeway is yet visible going out into the sea towards that island. The three other itinera also have Watling Street for their base.
Hermin Street, or Ermine Street, is the great military road that reaches from London to Lincoln, and so to Wintringham, in a nearly straight line. The Fosse proceeds from Bath to Lincoln, and, Dr. Stukeley thinks, to Seaton. “I am most at a loss,” he says, “about Icknild Street. Some think there were two Roman ways of this name, but I cannot say we are certain of either. It must have been some way that led either to or from the country of the Iceni, and that this is the reason of the name, possibly Icen Elde Street, or old street. It is therefore natural to suppose that Venta Icenorum must have stood on this way, and perhaps been the limit of it. The way, then, according to which the 9th iter is directed, should, I think, be best entitled to the name of any in the Itinerary. This I shall show to be the Roman road that came through Caister near Norwich, by Colchester or Malden, to London. The military road from London by Speen and Marlborough to Bath, or rather that by Silchester and Old Sarum to Dorchester, may be looked upon as the continuation of it. The military way which goes from Silchester to Old Sarum, and so to Dorchester and Pentridge (as Mr. Gale informs me), passes by Gussage St. Michael’s under the name of Ickling Dyke.”... Dr. Plot, however, who was a very learned man, and secretary to the Earl Marshall in the year 1687, argues for an Ickning Street, which passes through Derby and enters Stafford at Stretton near Tretbury, leading by Burton-upon-Trent and Lichfield and Warwickshire, near Handsworth, where it appears near Birmingham.
The treasures that a few feet of soil cover in Roman art are untold; wheat has grown and cattle have grazed for centuries on many a Roman city or villa. The town of Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury, is lying under rich farming lands, totally hidden from human eye. A few hundred pounds was spent in trying to open up some part, and the wealth of Roman remains and Roman ingenuity and civilisation is astounding. I had occasion to go there while writing the present chapter, and probably few persons who have not visited our own Herculaneum would credit the wealth of Roman art that lies buried at our doors. A small space only has been opened up, and baths, villas, public buildings, and tessellated pavements met the astonished eyes of the explorers. A space of probably 300 acres is still covered up, and conceals we know not what. The history of this premature civilisation of the Romans is absolutely lost. On their leaving the island the great roads and bridges, which the sagacious policy of the rulers always supplied to the colonies, fell into disuse. No longer government property, they were pillaged or neglected, and the towns and villas, quite unsuited to the natives of the island, were left to bats and moles. “Had travellers or maps existed at that early period,” says a very able writer, “they would have afforded us a picture of numerous isolated communities, whose continuous homesteads were surrounded with broad patches of rich corn and pasture, and whose arable and meadow land was fenced in by dark rings of forest, or heaths pastured in common by the herds and flocks of the small republic. No ‘wandering merchant bending beneath his load,’ no adventurous stranger smitten with the desire of roaming from land to land, brought his wares or his tidings to these remote villages.” But we must admit our total ignorance of the condition of England under Roman rule. It certainly was not military only, let the villas with tessellated pavements testify to that. The inhabitants were held no doubt under an iron hand. In some lead mine I once saw in Cardigan, the excavations came across Roman workings; these seem to have been chipped out little by little, and they reach to vast depths and to long levels. The Britons whom they employed must have spent their weary lives in a sort of tunnel, in which it was quite impossible even to kneel, far less to stand; yet some parts of Wales are quite burrowed with these terrible holes. The writer already quoted says, “The historian is involved in inextricable perplexities. The few civil inscriptions we possess speak of Triumvirs, Quatruumvirs, and other municipal or fiscal magistrates. As the personal strength of the soldier degenerates, more care and labour are bestowed on material fortifications. Yet how or why did the Cyclopean walls of Chester or Leicester, or many other sturdy encampments, crumble away before tribes unprovided with the rudest artillery? Into what bottomless undiscernible gulf were precipitated the Roman municipia and their institutions? The oracles are dumb; and we know really more of the Britons whom Cæsar invaded and Agricola subdued, than of the Britons whom Honorius left exposed to the savages of the Grampians and to the adventurers from the Elbe and Baltic.” This is true indeed, and, though sufficient margin must be left for the way in which Roman remains were often regarded simply as quarries for materials by the monks, and also for the absolute difference in race, religion, and habits, between the Roman colonists and their British subjects, there is much that is wholly inexplicable. No doubt the classes, like the Cardigan miners, whose terrible lot has been alluded to, would be apt to desire to wipe out every trace of their subordination. “Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!” was doubtless the rallying cry of a large number of Britons when the Romans so suddenly and thoroughly left the island. There seems to be a common error in turning up Roman remains, that we hear of from those who perhaps may be well excused for the supposition,—if a Roman hypocaust is found, it is at once dubbed a bath; but the way the Romans heated their rooms was similar to the way in which Turkish baths are now commonly warmed, except when, in milder weather, braziers were sufficient.
It has justly been observed by Mr. E. J. Willson that “no city in England contains so many interesting specimens of architectural antiquities as York. This observation may be especially applied to the remains of its ancient fortifications, a class of architecture of the greater value, since so very few examples are now left standing in England. Clifford’s tower and the four great gates, or bars, are admirable specimens of the castellated style; while the posterns, or lesser gates, with the towers, turrets, and embattled walls that surround the city, exhibit a delightful variety of curious and picturesque forms. The view of these ancient bulwarks forcibly recalls the mind from present scenes to the contemplation of those stirring times when such safeguards were necessary; and whilst we feel grateful for the security and quiet enjoyed in our days, it is painful to see those monuments of the valour and skill of our ancestors sacrificed to petty considerations of economy or to some trifling improvement. Encircled by walls and towers, York could never be viewed without respect, as the very model of an ancient city.” The view of York from Samson Square is characteristic of the city. There are many of those narrow wynds that have been little altered since they were built, and the Cathedral always forms a conspicuous and delightful background. What would Mr. E. J. Willson, who wrote the above in 1827, have thought if he could have known that the fine old buildings on the lower side of Samson Square were to be destroyed to make room for a new covered market? They are safe yet; a majority of the council saved them for the present. There are some very noble wooden framed structures, one of which has been a royal residence, and this, with the others, it was proposed to sweep away for the market. I met a gentleman in the city, at the hotel, who explained the whole circumstances to me, and expressed his regret that
the narrow-minded prejudices of the majority—only a small one—prevented a great public improvement from being carried out! “What a site for a market!” the spirited burgess remarked,—“drainage all the way to the river, and nothing to do but sweep away some old lumbering property that has been standing in the way for a couple of hundred years or more.” It was rather pleasant to find some one who owned to being so thorough a spoliator, though the remarks in reply were not complimentary. There is another drawing of York which occupies the next place, and represents the west end of the Minster, with a college on the right hand side. This is called St. William’s College. It is a very imposing old building, quadrangular in form, and the interior of the quadrangle is extremely impressive and grand, but now it is let off to cottage tenants. The noble pile was built by Henry VI. for the chantry priests to reside in. In one of the rooms Charles I. set up the royal printing presses in the year 1642. This was the time when York may be said to have been his sole metropolis. And opposite this interesting street is Goodramgate, where another college for the vicars choral was established. This also belonged to the Minster. Of course the grand Cathedral forms no part of the scope of this work; but we all of us know how splendidly it towers above the city, making itself conspicuous everywhere; and the tradition that one hears all round the precincts, that high in the windows the gorgeous glass is principally composed of precious stones, becomes half credible if we look to the clerestory on a bright summer’s day,—indeed I am well informed
