Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/547

This page needs to be proofread.

A .P P.E.N D I X. ITER XII. AB AQUIS LONDINIUM USQUE SIC. • • Verlucione ■ CUNETIONE Spinis m.p. 15 Calleba Attrebatum * BlBRACTE * Lgndinio 20 15

  • 5

20 20 Antoninus Iter 14. Verlucione Spinis Calleva

  • 5

Cunetione 20 l 5

  • $

1 This the capital fortrefs of the Attrebates was feated without doubt upon the ^prefent fite of the ruinated caftle at Wallingford. That fite is a good natural eminence very near to the Thames and contiguous to the old ford over it. And at it ft ill remains, amid all the ravages of war and the fancies of innovation, an evident fragment of the ftationary wall of the Romans.. This is immediately on the right-hand fide qf the entrance, as you advance from the bridge.. It is a piece of wall about five yards and a half in height on the inner fide and about fix on the outer. On the inner fide, it has a foundation of large ftones aboutfone.' fourth of a yard in depth, then frruller done; ia little order for two yards and a half in height, then two regular ranges of largifh flat ftones, then five layers of edge- ftones, then another range of flat ftones, and then two layers more of edge-ftones. On the outer fidej the foundation is rather deeper; but that and the diforderly ftones rife* about one yard and a half only from the ground : then the wall prefents nine courfes of edge-ftones and a range of largifh flat ftones above them, and ends in two courfes more of edge-ftones. The breadth of the whole piece is about fix yards within and fix and a half without, and the thicknefs about ttvo yards and a quarter. But about three yards within have loft this original facing of the wall ; and the height was evidently greater, as the wall even now rifes two inches at leaft above the laft layer of edge-ftones within. And as the ground within has evidently been funk below its original level, being now even lower than the foundation of the wall; fo the courfes of edge-ftones are a fufficient evidence of the original conftru&ers of the wall. That ftyle of building appears plainly to have been <ifed by the Romans, being found in the vallum of Severus and in the walls of Silchefter. Weftbury