CATARACTONIVM. Catteric.
Brough, on the south banks of the Swale, was a castle: much Roman coins and antiquities found thereabouts. The town Catteric, which so evidently retains the name, is a mile off.
——sic toties versa est fortuna locorum. Ovid. Met.
Thornborough, the old city, stands a little above the bridge and road: it is a farm-house only, on a high ground, and on the edge of the river, being steep. Foundations of the old walls left, and much antiquity dug up.
The Hermen-street continues southward by the British name of Leming-lane, all composed of stone, and paved with large coggles, which the neighbouring inhabitants take away to build withal, and pave their yards, &c. This is a ridge of ground that was originally down: on both sides lie the most delightful plains of Yorkshire, bounded by distant hills both ways: it is a rich country, admirably watered, and well planted with wood, thronged with towns, and Roman antiquities; for that people knew how to set a just value on it. Mr. Gale showed me, at his pleasant seat of Scruton, his admirable library, where are no fewer than 430 choice manuscripts, collected by his father, many finely illuminated; many ancient classics of great value; a Priscian, wrote by a disciple of his.
ISVRIVM. Boroughbridge.
We travelled along the Roman road, strait and perfect, till we turned out to Rippon. The market-place is a square, spacious enough: in the middle of it an obelisk is erected: had it been of large stones, of a good kind, and of a good proportion, it would have been a real ornament to the place. The cathedral here is a large strong building, handsome enough: there is an entrance from the west part of the great tower within, to go under ground, exactly like that we saw at Hexham, and made for the same intent: here is a chapel to St. Wilfrid, where I suppose his bones lie; and a place called his Needle, a passage the vulgar amuse themselves with. Hence we went by Newby, a new seat of Sir Edward Blackett’s, in a rich country. So we fell into the Roman road again at Boroughbridge. We visited Aldborough, a mile off, the Isurium Brigantum. Here was a great city walled about: the church and present town, which is a borough by prescription, is inclosed within it. We saw the foundation of the Wall, where they have long been digging it up, as the common quarry for stone, when they want it: it was curious to observe their method of laying the foundation of it in clay: above that the stones are laid in mortar. This same manner I found used at the Picts wall, where I saw the foundation of it, by Chester. We saw and heard of many antiquities at this place: coins of Antoninus, Constantine, Tetricus, and many more; some of which I purchased: intaglia’s are very frequent here; for such, together with coins, are commonly taken up after rain; and the people customarily look for them as they walk through the town. There has been some very great building in the street before the church; for many stones were taken up there, many remain. We saw some at the church-yard gate, and at people’s doors; among which, two pieces of pillars; the hypotrachelion on one; and several foundations of a gate, in which were the iron hinges. I saw the stones; they were of a large size. Many square stones, with a square hole in the middle, lie at the ale-house door over-against the church, all manifestly of a Roman cut; and the whole town abounds with them. The man at the ale-house says the earth all about is exceeding rich, quite black, is never manured; that coins rusted together are found perpetually, and pavements, &c. In his sisters house, west of the church, we were highly delighted with a great part of a Mosaic pavement, perfectly preserved, and covered with a roof: the remainder is now under the causeway of the street: it was laid with stones, red, blue, and white, of excellent colour: some part is also under the adjacent barn-floor. The late Rev. Mr. Morris, minister here, collected much: Mr. Wilkinson, the duke of Newcastle’s steward, collects now. Slates are sometimes ploughed up, (none such near;) many silver coins, some of which were bought by Sir James Dalrymple. In the church wall are many Gothic remains of basso relievo’s, figures of animals, much like lord Winchelsea’s Sark antiquities. A figure of Pan in the vestry-wall of Aldborough: an intagliate cornelian was found there; an eagle, a signum militare, a cornucopia cut on it.
Rippon monastery was founded by Wilfrid, the Saxon bishop, about anno Dom. 670, the same who founded St. Leonard’s priory by Stamford; and likewise that at Hexam, which afterwards became a bishoprick. Wilfrid died at Oundle, and was buried at Rippon.
The stones,[TAB. XC.] as much famed by the name of the Devil’s Arrows, as misrepresented by writers, stand in some fields, half a mile west of the Roman road south of Boroughbridge. Some think them Roman, though they regard not any Roman work hereabouts: some say they are factitious, though plain stone as possible. They are stones of very large dimensions, and have been hewn pretty square, much as those at Stonehenge; but silly people have knocked off the edges: their height is very great: they were very taper and well-shaped, and much of an obelisk form; but the tops are decayed, and long furrows worn down on all sides along the tenderest part of the grain of the stone. I remarked, that they all lean somewhat southward. The stone is entirely composed of small white crystals, unperishable by weather: they are certainly natural, and brought about ten miles off, from the west, where more such lie above ground in great plenty. Three now stand; one was taken away, as all report, to make a bridge over the bec a little eastward. The cross near the church is of the same stone. These stones stood 200 foot asunder, pretty near in a line north and south: the first stone westward is not so high as the other, but broader much, and stands square, or perpendicular to the line of direction; it is 8½ foot broad, 4½ thick, 23 foot about: the second in the next pasture is square each side, but not precisely; it is 5 foot broad, 4 foot thick, 18 foot square: the next is twice as far distant, and beyond the road, of a figure much like the former, but rather higher, as that is higher than the first; this is 5 foot by 4: the two last are very beautiful obelisks, and their height about 25 foot, as I guess. The ground this fine monument stands on is high, and declines every way a little from it: the great river, the brook, and some low ground to the south, hem it in as it were. Mr. Gale, and the beforementioned clergyman, some time since dug under one to the foundation, and found that it was about five foot under ground, and fastened into its seat by stones laid in clay, quite around it, as a wall: they put four half-pence, in a leaden box underneath, of queen Anne, Vigo, &c. and filled it up again. I could not commend them for it, as it could only tend to mislead the curious of future times.
IMP. CÆS. DOMITIANO. AVG. COS. VII.