IN the year 1725, I travelled over the western and northern parts of England, in company of Mr. Roger Gale, a gentleman well known to the learned world; as his father, Dr. Thomas Gale, dean of York. I was requested, by some lovers of antiquity, to transcribe those notes which I wrote day by day during our journey; and though I had visited several of the places, through which we passed, in my former journeys, yet a second view (especially in company of a person so well versed in antiquities) gave me an opportunity of making some farther remarks, which I flatter myself may be of use to those who are fond of studying the antiquities of our own country.
I shall begin with Dunstable, the MAGIOVINIVM of the Romans. Many large brass coins, and many silver, are found in ploughing the fields here, and when digging in the ruins of the old priory by the church: I got a Nero of Corinthian brass, and a Faustina. The downs here are but a rib or narrow ridge of chalk; or northward is sand or clay.
Madan castle is circular, perhaps oval: the space within is a fine plain: the vallum is small, and the ditch much smaller; so that I am persuaded it was made rather for spectacle than defence. Tethill castle is a little further westward, a strong little camp upon one of the many north-west precipices of chalk exceeding steep: a village underneath, and springs of water: it is a double camp, both square; in one a round keep, or large tumulus ditched about, which shows it is a Saxon work.
The prospect all along the steep northern sides of the Chiltern hills is lovely; the Icening-street goes at the bottom; it is corn-field for the most part. These hills are all steep westward and northward.
Brick hill, or more properly Brink hill, stands on a very high sandy hill, steep north-west: the Watling-street, just before it arrives here, winds a little eastward, to avoid a deep valley, and passes above it.
Stone begins beyond Brick hill; and we enter a country of long-extended ridges, with large valleys and rivulets at bottom.
DAVENTRY.
The country here, which is probably the highest in England, is a quarry of reddish stone, in small strata; the uppermost very full of shells, especially belemnites. The air must needs be exceeding good, as in the centre of England; the soil is a reddish clay. This is a neat pleasant town, well situate: two springs of the Avon run close by it. Eastward the great hill whereon is Borough-hill camp: a very pretty spring arises in the inner ditch, probably the highest in England; it is on the north-east side, which way the hill declines. This camp is on that end of the hill which it fills up, and conforms to its shape; double ditched, but toward the entrance the ditches separate, and meet at the entrance obliquely, after a manner I have not seen elsewhere. All round the mid-way of the hill it is boggy and springy: the whole hill is stone. Upon it are many more works of great compass; I suppose, some later camps of the Danes, Saxons, or Britons against them: there seem to have been some entrenchments round that part of Daventry town where the church stands: the inner ditch of the first-mentioned camp is very broad, and the vallum proportionable. Spellwell is the name of the spring on Borough hill; it looks blue: they say it is good for sore eyes, and is a great dryer.
It is a stony and clayey soil all the way from Daventry to Warwick: the country is open and full of corn-fields. The river divides countries of different nature; for on the other side it is a very good sort of large rocks: the country is very woody.