W. Stukeley delin.
E. Kirkall sculp.
a. Old work Spring. b. the Foss c. a Tumulus RR. the Roman City.
From Newark the Foss passes by Queen’s Sconce, one of the great forts erected in the civil wars, and so along the Trent side by Stoke, famous for a battle, and an inn called the Red inn. We arrived, at about six miles distance south of Newark, to the station of the Romans called Ad Pontem.Ad pontem. East Bridgford lies near a mile to the right upon the river Trent:TAB. XC. doubtless there was the bridge over the river, which created the denomination, in the Roman times, as being the passage from the eastern parts to those beyond the Trent: and as to this particular station upon the road, perhaps a bridge was the sign of the inn, that travellers might know where to turn out for that purpose, for I cannot suppose here was a bridge at the road. At Bridgford they told us there were formerly great buildings and cellars on the right as you descend to the Trent, and a quay upon the river for vessels to unlade at.[96] The Roman station upon the Foss I found to be called Boroughfield, west of the road: here a spring arises under the hedge, called Oldwork spring, very quick, running over a fine gravel; the only one hereabouts that falls eastward, not directly into the neighbouring Trent, towards Newton. Hereabouts I saw the Roman foundations of walls, and floors of houses, composed after the manner before spoken, of stones set edgewise in clay, and liquid mortar run upon them: there are likewise short oaken posts or piles at proper intervals, some whereof I pulled up with my own hands. Dr. Batteley tells us of oak very firm, found at Reculver, under the Roman cisterns: the earth all around looks very black: they told us that frequently the stones were laid upon a bed of pease-straw and rush-rope or twisted hay, which remained very perfect. Houses stood all along upon the Foss, whose foundations have been dug up, and carried to the neighbouring villages. They told us too of a most famous pavement near the Foss way: close by, in a pasture, Castle-hill close, has been a great building, which they say was carried all to Newark. John Green of Bridgeford, aged 80, told me that he has taken up large foundations there, much ancient coin, and small earthen pipes for water: his father, aged near 100, took up many pipes fourscore yards off the castle, and much fine free-stone: some well cut and carved: there have been found many urns, pots, and Roman bricks; but the people preserved none of them; and some that had coins would by no means let us see them, for fear we were come from the lord of the manor. About a mile farther is a tumulus upon an eminence of the road beyond Bingham lane, a fine prospect to Belvoir castle, Nottingham, the Trent, &c. whence I took a small sketch of the road we had passed, regretting the oblivion of so many famous antiquities.
In my journey forwards, upon the declension of a stiff clayey hill, near the lodge upon the wolds, an inn under a great wood. The pavement upon the road is very manifest, of great blue flag-stones laid edgewise very carefully: the quarries whence they took them are by the side of the hill: this pavement is a hundred foot broad, or more; but all the way thence it has been intirely paved with red flints, seemingly brought from the sea-coasts: these are laid, with the smoothest face upwards, upon a bed of gravel over the clayey marl, which reaches beyond Margidunum; that we may well say,
O quantæ pariter manus laborant!
Hi cædunt nemus, exuuntque montes.
Hi ferro scopulos trabesque cædunt, &c.Stat. Sylv. iv.
This pavement is very broad, and visible where not covered with dirt, and especially in the frequent breaches thereof. They preserve a report still, that it was thus paved all the way from Newark to Leicester, and that the Foss way went through Leicester shambles: the yard of the lodge in the wold is paved with these same stones plundered from the road. June 15, 1728, Mr. L. Hurst, of Grantham, told me he saw at Mr. Gascoign’s, a goldsmith in Newark, a large gold ring weighing 42s. lately brought him by a countryman, which he found upon the Foss-way. There was a seal upon the gold; a fox (he thought) engraved under a tree. Afterward I bought the seal: it is a wolf under a tree. Perhaps Norman. AD PONTEM.