Stukeley del.
The Icening-street derives its name not from beginning, but ending, at the Iceni, via ad Icenos. They say hereabouts it was cast up in a night’s time by the devil, referring to a supernatural agent the effect of Roman wisdom and industry. It enters the city of Dorchester by the north of Winterburn at West-gate. In divers places they have mended it where wore out, by a small slip of chalk and flints, with a shameful and degenerate carelessness; so that we may well pronounce the Romans worked with shovels, the moderns with tea-spoons: besides, it is mostly inclosed and obstructed with perpetual gates across it, to the great hindrance of travellers, to whom public ways ought to be laid open and free; and the authors of such nusances may well be declared sacrilegious. An endless fund of Celtic as well as Roman inquiries hereabouts, and no where less regarded.
Durnovaria.
Dorchester, the Roman Durnovaria, meaning the passage over the river, is a good regular town, standing conformable to the four cardinal points, with the river on its north side: TAB. LXXVII.it had four gates in the middle of each side, was encompassed with a strong wall and ditch, if not two; for so it seems, though now levelled into arable, to which the inhabitants hereabout are extremely prone. On the west side great part of the old Roman wall is standing, twelve foot thick, made of rag-stone, laid side by side and obliquely, then covered over with very strong mortar: the next course generally leans the contrary way: now and then three horizontal ones for binding, for much flint is used withal. I saw the foundation of it in a saw-pit laid upon the solid chalk: it is yet twelve foot high, broke through and battered every where, as if the sight of it was obnoxious: this is a strong manner of building, and very expeditious. Much more of this wall remained within memory. It would surprise one to think why the very ruins of it should be pulled down, which must be done with great labour, and frequently a mud wall erected in its place. The foundations appear quite round the town; but eastward a street is built upon it, and the ditch filled up: it is still called The Walls; for that way the town is swelled out into a considerable village, with a church and handsome tower, called Fordington, corruptly Farington. Here are three churches in the town beside it. TAB. LXXVIII.On the south and west side, without the walls, a handsome walk of trees is planted, looking pleasantly into the fields; but the sort of them being common sycamores, are incommodious by harbouring flies. The winding of the river on the north spoils the square of the town that way; and there is an area of a castle, out of the ruins of which the grey friers built their convent: but now all the works are wholly obliterated, religious and military. The banks of the river here are steep, for the town stands on high ground. Beyond the river are meadows and warm sandy lands; on this side, the fine chalky downs, pleasant for riding, and profitable in excellent grain. The air must needs be wholesome and pure, the climate warm, and a sufficient distance from the sea; so that we need not wonder if the Romans were fond of this place. The level of the old city was much lower than the present; for antiquities, which are found in great number, always lie deep. Some farmers were levelling another great barrow; but the people of Fordington rose in arms and prevented them with a laudable animosity. All this land is of the prince’s fee. I took notice of a particularity in the stone they use here: it is fetched from a quarry southward in the way to Weymouth; a flag-stone, rising in large dimensions, but not very thick: the superfice of it is curiously and regularly indented or waved, like a mat made of cables, and that very regularly: it much resembles the face of the sands upon the sea shore, just after the tide is gone off: it is very convenient for paving, and those natural undulations prevent slipperiness, being nevertheless level enough: they make fences for their grounds with it in many places, setting them up edgewise in a pretty method. The Roman money dug up here are called dorn-pennies, or king Dor’s money: the reverend Mr. Place, living here, showed me a great collection of them. Much opus tessellatum has been found. As this town, so Wareham below from its ford derives its name. In Lincolnshire we call them still warths.
From Dorchester many Roman roads disperse themselves, beside the Icening-street, passing directly over the meadows to Walton: one goes by the amphitheatre southward to Weymouth; another by Poundbury, Stretton, to Yeovil and Ischalis; another probably to Wareham.
Poundbury a Ro. Camp.
Poundbury, I am intirely persuaded, was a camp of Vespasian’s, when he was busy hereabouts in the conquest of the Belgæ, therefore ancienter than the adjacent Roman city: the situation, the bulk, and the manner of it, so much resembling that by Ambsbury, engages me into that sentiment: it stands half a mile west of Dorchester, upon the brink of the river, which is very steep, in form square: the rampart high, but the ditch inconsiderable, except at the angle by the river; the reason is, because standing on high ground, they dug the earth clear away before it, and threw it intirely into a vallum; so that its height and steepness, wherein its strength consists, is the same as if a regular ditch was made in level ground. The chief entrance was on the south side: there seems likewise to have been an entrance next the river, but made with great art; for a narrow path is drawn all along between the edge of the precipice and the vallum, so that it was absolutely impossible to force an entry that way: beside, I observe, beyond the camp, for a long way, a small trench is cut upon the said edge, which seems designed to prevent the ascent of cavalry, if they should pass the river: the ground of the camp rises in the middle, as was usual among the Romans in their choice. There is a tumulus too, which I imagine is Celtic, and extant before the camp was made: this levelled a little might serve for the prætorium. A very good prospect from hence all around. The name is taken from its inclosure as a pound; for here they call a circle of stones round a tumulus, a pound.
Maiden Castle. a Ro. Camp.
The other camp, called Maiden Castle, was undoubtedly the Æsiiva of the Durnovarian garrison:[134] it is of a vast extent, and prodigiously strong, apparently of much later date than the foregoing, its manner savouring of inferior times of the empire: it has every where a double ditch of extraordinary depth, and a double rampire, in some places treble or more: it takes in the whole summit of a great hill: within it seems as if two camps, a ditch and vallum running across, with each its entry of very perplexed work; several ditches with cross entries lapping over one another, as we may well express it; especially westward, where their number may be affirmed half a score. Certainly, for healthful air and prospect, a most delightful place;
Heic Veneris vario florentia serta decore,