THE QUARRIES USED.
The quarries from which the stone has been procured can in many instances be precisely ascertained. At Fallowfield, not far from Cilurnum, is an ancient quarry on the face of which the words,
[P]ETRA FLAVI CARANTINI,
the rock of Flavius Carantinus—are still to be traced. The vignette at the close of this part represents its present condition. On opening out, in the year 1837, some old quarries on the high, brown hill of Borcum, near Thorngrafton, a small copper vessel was found, containing a large number of coins, all of the upper empire. Another Roman quarry existed on Haltwhistle Fell. In a paper recently read before the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Mr. John Clayton says—
In riding over Haltwhistle Fell, before its enclosure, in the summer of 1844, I came upon some workmen employed in re-opening an old quarry. They told me they had met with a ‘written stone’; I dismounted, and climbed the face of the rock, when I found inscribed in letters clear and fresh
LEG. VI. V.
From its position on a wide waste, far removed from any abode, but in the immediate vicinity of the Roman Wall, this quarry could not possibly have been used for any other purpose than to supply stones for the building of the Wall; and from the freshness of the letters of the inscription, it must have been filled up with earth soon after the soldiers ceased to use it. The workmen promised to spare the ‘written rock,’ but the next time I rode that way it had been shivered to atoms.
Drawn & Lithographedby John Storey
WRITTEN ROCK ON THE RIVER GELT.
INSCRIPTIONS ON THE QUARRIES.