Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/202

Chap; VI. OF MANCHE5TE R. 173, eeived the current of the Read at the angle, and which rolled dire&ly under the fecond iide; by a large ditch, I fuppofc, croffing along the middle of Scholes's Fields on the third ; and by a narrow hollow, which is ndw formed into a lane, on the* fourth. But, in one of thofe wild floods to which the Merfey is peculiarly fubjeft, the river opened the foft bank of Lancafture, . and now flows many yards within the county ; having deferted its antient bridge of three arches, and having left its antient channel under the Roman caftrum. Such muft have been the • ike of the little ftation Fines Maxirnse & Flavian, .being about : four Roman miles and a half from the fite of the principal Na- tion, and containing about two ftatute-acres and a half within: its limits. Placed near to the :ford of- the Merfey and nearer to the-cowfe of the road, .amid the large expaofe of thefe level neadows it* was well calculated to guard them both, to fee u re the convoys of provifions that pafled along the one and over the other from> the* neighbouring parts of Chefli ire, and to receive them- into its area when the frequent: floods prevented a paflkge acrofs the. channel 6 . And a Roman road appears advancing to- wards it from the fouth-eaftern limits of the parifhi traverfing the whote breadth of the .parifh on the fbuth, and ftill carrying ; a: confiderable ridge in* feveral parts of its. courfe. It is parti-. cularly conspicuous at Birch, is popularly reprefented asa breait-:- tvork thrown ^ up againft the Danes,, and is popularly denomi*: nated Nieo *(or' Devil's) Ditch. . The* wafteful ravages 06 the Danes in their plundering expeditions through the ifland were fb ftrongly- imprefled upon the feelings and fancies of* our fa- thers, that the memory «of them has generally fuperfeded alLtho other traditions of the ifland, ,and the chronicles o£ the vulgar generally refer evfery- remarkable - monument to the- Danes,. And this road is noticed in a record of 1422 as a&itaUy travelled to that latte ! period*," fome land being deferibed &s abutting upon a certain gate (or antient highway) which led from Gorton -green to Reddifli, quandam portam qu£ itur a Gorton-grehe* ufqW Redich ex parte auftrali t Another 1