It is 6½ feet square, and 5 feet high. It was descended by steps, and had, at the opposite end to its entrance, a sort of bench, raised on mason work, 2½ feet wide and high, and covered with a slab of stone. The roof consisted of six similar and contiguous arches of stone, each 15 inches broad. It had also one pillar. The floor had on it a great quantity of ashes, was flagged, and on raising one of the stones, a spring gushed out, which converted the vault into a well.
About one hundred and fifty yards south of the station, in a field which has for years been furrowed by the plough, the remains of a building of somewhat rude construction have just been discovered. Its floor, consisting, for the most part, of the usual compost, is nearly a foot thick. Further examination would probably disclose, in its vicinity, the foundations of numerous suburban buildings.
An ancient road leads from the southern gateway of the station to the great military way which ran from Cilurnum to Magna.
ÆSICA.
The station of Æsica, according to the Notitia, was about the year 430, garrisoned by the cohors prima Astorum.[[115]] Horsley (writing in 1731) observes, that no inscriptions had been found here mentioning the first cohort of the Asti, or any other cohort. In 1761, however, an inscription was dug up in this station, which is now deposited in the museum at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, recording that in the reign of Alexander Severus (200 years before the date of the Notitia) the ‘cohors secunda Asturum’ rebuilt a granary here which had fallen into decay from age—‘horreum vetustate conlabsum.’ It is to be observed that the spelling of ‘Asturum’ is similar to that of the inscription at Cilurnum, and we do not find that the second cohort, either of the Asti or Astures, is mentioned elsewhere as part of the Roman auxiliary forces in Britain.
Near the eastern gateway of the station there has been lately dug up a large mural tablet, shewn in the wood-cut, and bearing the following inscription:
IMP. CÆS. TRAI[A]N. HADRIA
NO AVG. P[ATRI] P[ATRIÆ].
To the emperor Cæsar Trajanus Hadria-
nus Augustus, the father of his country.
It is not probable that this slab has been derived from the Vallum, which is upwards of a quarter of a mile from the station.[[116]] Why the upper part of the tablet was left blank does not appear; enough, however, has been inserted to support the theory, that Hadrian built the Wall. Although several of the stations were probably built before the Wall, and were quite independent of it, this can scarcely have been one of them; its position seems to indicate that it was called into existence in order to accommodate the mural garrison.
