SCULPTURE AT NETHERBY.
Some very fine sculptured stones, found in the station, are preserved on the spot. Amongst them is one which is figured on the adjoining page. A youth stands in a niche, a mural crown is on his head, a cornucopia in his left hand, and a patera, from which he pours out a libation on an altar, in his right; it is one of the finest carvings that is to be met with on the line of the Wall. From the grooves which are cut in the lower part of the stone,
we may naturally conclude, that the figure has been formerly set in masonry, perhaps to adorn the approach to some temple. Gordon supposes the figure to be intended for Hadrian; Lysons thinks that it was meant for the ‘Genius of the Wall of Severus’—let us combine the two ideas, and suppose, that the figure is that of Hadrian, representing, as he had the best right to do, ‘the Genius of the Barrier.’
Reference will afterwards be made to the figures of the Deæ Matres which have been found here.
BLATUM BULGIUM.
Netherby is supposed to be the Castra Exploratorum of the second Antonine ‘Iter,’ which was garrisoned by a numerus exploratorum. Its situation is very suitable for an exploratory garrison; and its distance from Carlisle on the one hand, and Middleby on the other, nearly corresponds with the distance at which it is set down in the Itinerary both from Luguvallium and Blatum Bulgium.
CAMP NEAR MIDDLEBY.
MIDDLEBY.—To the south of Middleby Kirk, in the county of Dumfries, is a camp which is called in the district Burns, or Birrens. It occupies a low and sheltered situation, but possesses, notwithstanding, considerable natural capabilities of defence. The water of Mein washes the earthy scar which forms its southern margin, and the Middleby burn, which joins the Mein at the south-east angle of the camp, runs parallel to its eastern rampart. It appears, from the plan given in Roy’s Military Antiquities, to have been protected, in addition to its stone walls, on three sides by four earthen ramparts, with intervening ditches; and on the north, which was at once by nature the weakest, and the quarter most exposed to the attack of the enemy, by not fewer than six. The northern ramparts remain in nearly their original completeness, but the overflowings of the Mein on the south, the construction of a road on the east, and the operations of agriculture on the west, have destroyed the ramparts on these sides. A procestrium, or out-work, protected by its own ramparts, appears to have been appended to the west side of the original camp; or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, the suburban buildings, which were situated in this quarter were embraced by an additional fortification. In so exposed a situation, such a precaution would be highly proper. The field in which the procestrium was, has been brought into cultivation, and a great number of carved stones, which were found in it, taken to Hoddam Castle. The corners of the camp are, as is usually the case, rounded; the four gateways are clearly discernible. The interior area of the station measures three acres and three-quarters. On the south side of the station a large vault, arched with stone, was laid open more than a century ago. Popular credulity has magnified it into an underground passage, which extended all the way to Burnswark; the people in the neighbourhood aver that they have known persons go a considerable way along it.
The altars and sculptures found at this place are engraved and described, apparently with great accuracy, in Stuart’s Caledonia Romana. Amongst them is a stone tablet, bearing the words—