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VI. Conjectures concerning some undescribed Roman Roads, and other Antiquities in the County of Durham. In a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Kaye (now Dean of Lincoln) from John Cade, Esq. of Durham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

John Cade Esq.
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Extract

Upon the perusal of an Essay on the four great Roman Ways in the sixth volume of Leland's Itinerary, as well as other authors on the subject, I find no satisfactory account has been given of the continuation of the Fosse Way, and Rycknild Street, through the counties of York and Durham; some imagining the former to have terminated at Inverness in Scotland, without describing its course from Lincoln; and we are left in a similar state of uncertainty respecting the latter, which most writers have traced no farther than the borders of Derbyshire; though all seem to agree, that it extended to Tynemouth in Northumberland; where two curious Roman altars have lately been digged up, the drawing of which by my direction have been transmitted to my friend the Rev. Mr. Norris for the inspection of the Society. I shall therefore enter into a discussion of the subject, and submit to you, as concisely as I can, the result of my enquiries, hoping for indulgence wherever your better informed judgement shall differ from me.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 7 , 1785 , pp. 74 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1785

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References

page 77 note [a] Duresme appears to have been a name introduced by the Normans, on account of the fortress built here after the conquest to keep the natives in subjection.

page 77 note [b] A melancholy instance of this depopulation amongst many others is to be met with at Acley or Acliff in this county, which may probably derive its name from Acca, bishop of Hagustald in the beginning of the eighth century, and where Sir Henry Spelman mentions two Saxon councils having been held annis 782 and 789. About a mile from the aforesaid village, after the grass is cut the foundations of a considerable town, with a large church in form of a cross, are very conspicuous.

page 77 note [c] His description is as follows; Iter Boreale, page 70. “Eastward, over the “river Wear, upon another peninsula of high ground I saw a camp, called. “Maiden Castle, which I judge to be Roman. It is almost incompassed too by “a rivulet falling into the river from the east. It is of an oblong form, five “hundred feet long, very steep on three sides; the neck is guarded by a rampart, “and without that at some little distance by a ditch. The prospect is large, “more especially eastward.”

page 79 note [d] This is a conjecture wherein all our historians agree, that Godmanchester or Gormanchester, near Huntingdon, and Gorlston alias Gorman's Town near Yaremouth in Norfolk, were so named from him. And here I would just beg leave to observe, that it appears to me very probable, that king Athelstan fixed his camp near Bradbury in this county, when he went against, and gained that decisive victory over the Danes in the year 937, viz. from Nun Stainton about half a mile northwards, where we meet with some tumuli by the sides of the road, and about two miles distance from the camp at Mainsforth, from which it is separated by a very extensive morass. This situation agrees very well with the accounts that Hollinshed, Speed, and others give us of this battle; and if we substitute what is now called Bradbury for Brimesbury, I believe we shall not be guilty of any capital error. The reasons that induced me to embrace this opinion are; first, we have an account of a combined army of Scots and, Danes besieging the city of Duresme about ten years prior to this, the inhabitants being ready to revolt, only dreading the puissance of king Athelstan. Secondly, there is a large cavity on the summit of the camp at Mainsforth, which is at this day called the Danes hole, where there was lately digged up a pair of mouse deer horns of an extraordinary size, probably brought from Ireland by Anlaf, as they seem peculiar to that kingdom. And lastly, that this county appears to have been the great scene of action between the Saxons, Danes, and Normans in the tenth and eleventh centuries, from the frequent revolts that occurred, and the necessity the English monarchs were under of appearing personally to subdue the turbulent disposition of the inhabitants.