is preserved amongst the antiquities at Chesters, and is represented in the adjoining cut. This sculpture cannot have been derived from the Vallum, in the construction of which, in the time of Hadrian, the twentieth legion is acknowledged to have been employed; for the Vallum is here distant more than three hundred yards from the Wall. The reader will of course perceive the bearing which this fact has upon the question of the contemporaneous origin of the two structures, and the construction of the Wall, as well as the Vallum, by Hadrian.
While the antiquary is eagerly scrutinizing indentations in stones which were chiselled sixteen centuries ago, his eye will occasionally rest upon the memorials of an antiquity so indefinite as to throw into the shade even his primeval records. Lepidodendra, and other fossils of the mill-stone-grit and coal series, are of occasional occurrence. Who shall tell when these giant plants flourished, how they were enveloped in their sandy bed, and how hardened into the flinty stone made use of by the Roman soldiers? Imagination reels at the questions suggested.
PILGRIMS'-GAP.
We are now arrived at the most perfect mile-castle remaining on the line, generally named, from the farm-house to the north of it, the Cawfields Castle. The gap which it guarded was denominated by the peripatetic party of 1849, in commemoration of their visit, the Pilgrims’-gap, a name which is beginning to be recognised by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.
THE CAWFIELDS CASTELLUM.
Until recently, the castellum was nearly covered with its own ruins. Since the annexed drawing was taken, the rubbish has been entirely removed from the inside, as well as the out.
The building is a parallelogram, but the corners at its lower side are rounded off. It measures, inside, sixty-three feet from east to west, and forty-nine feet from north to south. The great Wall forms its northern side. The stones used in the construction of this building are of the same size and character as those employed in the Wall itself; the mortar has disappeared from between the courses of the facing-stones, but portions of lime are seen in the grout of the interior. In the western wall, nine courses of stones are standing. The side walls of the castle have not been tied to the great Wall, but have been brought close up to it, and the junction cemented with mortar.
H. Burdon Richardson Delt.John Storey, Lith.
MILE-CASTLE NEAR CAW-FIELDS
Printed by W. Monkhouse York.