It has been possible to reproduce only a limited number of his drawings: in making a selection (no easy task), some preference has been given to those which represent objects no longer existing.
In dealing with the text, variations have been made as seldom as possible, and then where the author might have wished an alteration, in accordance with later discoveries. Thus, the account of the settlement at Langdales has been curtailed, as its great mystery, a bank running from the pre-Roman village across the Roman Way, has been explained by the recent discovery that the bank is modern. Part of the account of Harberwain is left out, as he takes Har, on the authority of a distinguished local antiquary, to be a man's name; and reasons accordingly. It really means high. Some of the quotations from Ossian are left out, as, though appropriately introduced, they divert attention from Mr. Bland's own work. The chapter on the history of Crosby Church, compiled from Charleton's History of Whitby Abbey, is omitted, as a recent account of the church has been published; while in the present book certain limits of size had to be observed. Incomplete sentences, where details of measurements are wanting, have generally been deleted.
This brief memoir attempts nothing more than a record of the life and work of John Salkeld Bland. If he should be forgotten, we should be the poorer for the loss; and yet his work was done so unobtrusively that a studied appreciation seems out of place. The publication of his book may cause his name to be connected in local literature with that of the Lyvennet. Perhaps this is the most fitting memorial for him—to be remembered as the chronicler of the valley he loved so well.
WICKER STREET.
The Roman Road connecting the Stations at Borough Bridge and Kirkby Thore.
The earliest historic record respecting the North of England was made by Tacitus, from whose works we learn that the Roman armies led by Agricola first advanced into this district and conquered the inhabitants then known as the Western Brigantes in the year A.D. 79, in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian.
The base of Agricola's operations was Chester, (Deva), the station occupied by the 20th Legion; with these he advanced northwards by the modern towns of Manchester, Preston and Overborough, and up the vale of Lune to Borough Bridge, at each place forming a station and connecting them by roads cut through the forests; the last station he placed in the only pass by which Westmorland could be conveniently entered from the south-west.[1] From Borough Bridge the road had gone nearly direct to Kirkby Thore, traversing the whole length of the vale of Lyvennet. Many antiquarians supposed it went to Brougham, but the name Wicker Street applied to an extensive hill on the west side of Crosby—a name significant of a Roman way—led to examination a few years ago and a road was found traceable from near Black Dub to Dale Banks, a distance of more than two miles, indisputably in the direction of Kirkby Thore: it is regularly formed and rounded in the middle, about thirty feet across, the ground being generally hard and dry; no trace of paved work is to be found.