Worth Gate (a Roman Work) Canterbury
6. Oct. 1722.
Newport Gate at Lincoln
Sept. 3. 1722.
The Arch of Roman Work
Stukeley delin. & Amicissimo Conterraneo Mauritio Johnson Ar. Interioris Templi J.C. offert.
3.
But this city being happily seated for navigation of the river, and the chief thoroughfare to the north, soon increased to that degree, that the Romans were obliged to add another to it as big as the former: this they did southward upon the declivity of the hill, and so tallied it to the other, that the new side-walls answered in a parallel to the old, and the most southern lay upon the river. Eastward the ditch without is turned into a broad street called the Beast-market, and there below Claskgate a great part of the old Roman wall is left, made of stones piled sideways, first with one direction, then with another, as was a common method with them: one piece of it is now eighty foot long, eighteen high; a little bit of it lower down is twelve foot long, as much high: between that gate upwards and the old city-wall, by the Greestone stairs, is the old ditch to be seen, much talked of, but not understood: it is called Weredyke. The people have a notion that the river came up here, and that these stairs were a landing-place from the water-side, and denominated from I know not what Grecian traders: but this is utterly impossible in nature. To the west the ditch and foundation of the wall is still left, though many times repaired and demolished in the frequent sieges this town has sustained, especially in the wars of Maud the empress: at the bottom of it, towards the water, is a round tower called Lucy tower, and famous in her history. This then was the state of this place in Roman times: the Foss and Hermen-street entered the city at Stanbow, or the stoney arch; there they parted: the Hermen-street went directly up the hill, and so full north through Newport; the Foss, according to its natural direction, ascended it obliquely on the eastern side without the ancient city, and so proceeded to the sea coast north-east.
4.
But still here were two more great additions to the length of this city, and which stretched it out to an enormous bulk; the first northwards above the hill: it is called Newport, or the new city, 500 paces long. This I apprehend to have been done in the reign of the Saxon kings: it lies on both sides the Hermen-street, and was fenced with a wall and ditch hewn out of the rock: at the two farther corners were round towers and a gate, the foundations of which remain: there were several churches and religious houses in this place; and I suppose it was chiefly inhabited by Jews, who had settled here in great numbers, and grown rich by trade: there is a well still called Grantham’s well, from a child they ludicrously crucified and threw into that well.