Thomæ Bacon Ar Relliquias Romanas dd. Ws. Stukeley.
Coins found near High-Cross
High Cross. A.D. 1618.
High Cross, 1722.
Bonnonis Sept. 9. 1722.
Watling-street.
TAB. LVI.
Being now got upon the Watling-street, I made this remark of it, that it is the direct road to Rome: for take a ruler, and lay it in a map of Europe from Chester through London and Dover, and it makes a strait line with Rome: so the great founders had this satisfaction when they travelled upon it, that they were ever going upon the line that led to the imperial Capitol. Our antiquarians are much at a loss, after torturing of words and languages, to find out the reason of the name of this street, which is so notorious, that many other by-roads of the Romans, in different parts of the kingdom, have taken the same, and it became almost the common appellative of such roads. My judgment of it is this: it is natural to denominate great roads from the places they tend to, as the Icening-street from the Iceni: the Akeman-street is said to come from Akemancester: in Wiltshire, and other places, the way to Exeter they call the Exeter road, though a hundred mile off: so the London road is every where inquired for as the most remarkable place: thus Watling-street, tending directly to Ireland, no doubt was called the Irish road, that is the Gathelian road, Gathelin-street; whence our present word Wales from Gauls, warden from guardian, &c. Scoti qui & Gaidelii says ogygia extera. Whether there be any thing in the story of Gathelus, as founder of the Irish, I do not concern myself at present; but their language is called Gaothela: so Mr. Camden says the true genuine Scots own not that name, but call themselves gaoithel, gaiothlac, as coming from Ireland; and that they glory in this name: and there is no dispute but this is the ancient appellative of the Irish,[100] which the learned Mr. Edward Lluyd has turned into Gwydhelians: and this name, which has superseded that which the Romans gave it, (whatever it was) seems to show there was such a road in the ancient times of the Britons, as the track of the trade between Ireland and the continent; yet it must be owned nought but Roman hands reduced it to the present form.
Hence-forward we turn our course upon the Gathelin-street directly for London along with the Itinerary. The road is now altogether between hedge-rows, very clayey and bad, full of lakes and mires, through the intolerable negligence of the inhabitants: here and there they have stupidly mended it, by making a ditch in the middle of the road to raise a bank of earth; for which they ought rather to be punished than commended.
I turned out of the road to the west, through some inclosures, to see Cester-over, induced by the name. I found a house in a little square deeply intrenched upon the side of a hill, but the earth rather thrown outward than inward as a vallum, and the level within much lower than the field around it. I perceived it was a religious house; some part of the building left; and without the ditch a fine chapel, built of brick with good stone coins and mullioned windows, converted into a barn: and a-cross a valley hard by I saw dams, or stanks, for fish-ponds. The people within could give me no manner of intelligence, having but lately come thither. I fancied it to have been a nunnery, and that it was called Sister-over, to distinguish it from other neighbouring towns; as Church-over, Browns-over, &c. but afterwards I learnt from other hands that there is a close called Old-town, where they dig up foundations, being very rich land (said to have been a city) lord Brook possessor.
Tripontium.
TAB. XCIV.