Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/225

ON THE CITY OP ANDERIUA, OR ANDREDESCEASTKR. 207 lower than when he first knew the place : and therefore no wonder if I found tlicni inuch loicer yet, when I visited this phice. And the plough and the usual deterrations will in time reduce them to a level." This has been partially effected, and much of what is described above is utterly obliterated, changes having been produced even while I frequented the locality ; though sufficient still exists to shew that a fortified place once covered the ground. Now Avhy, it may be asked, should not Andredesceaster have stood here, as Dr. Harris argues that it did? The vicinity might indeed have suited for the peculiar system of warfare, which the Britons are stated to have adopted ; although the adjoining upland seems likely to have been less densely wooded, than were the surrounding districts. But the overwhelming difficulty is, that not a ])article of Roman masonry is to be found here. When the ram})arts, which are now completely levelled, were still dis- tinguishable, as just noticed, about the end of the seventeenth century, they are so mentioned as positively to imply mere earthworks ; and the total absence of every thing betokening stone and lime walls was always remarked by myself and others in om* numerous visits to the spot. If then this forti- fication was constructed with sods merely, it may be pre- sumed that no one will contend for its Roman original ; and if not Roman, it will not answer to the character of the city we are seeking. Another objection might be found in the situation ; which, allowing for every possible alteration in the face of the country, would, formerly even more than now, vastly have resembled that at the bottom of a sack, or of a rat trap : a most unlikely position, it must be acknowledged, for a permanent Roman station. Those marks of Roman inhabitation, which we fail to discover at the " Castle Toll" of Newenden, are equally Avanting, I venture to assert, tlu'oughout the entire remainder of the parish. In and about the buildings of Losenham, where Sir Thomas Alberger's priory stood, not a solitary stone, likely to have belonged to that priory, coidd ever be observed, often as I have looked around for such objects ; far less do the premises contain a single portion of the greatly more endm'ing masonry of the Romans. Indeed, though a native and long a resident of that neighbourhood, I never heard even a rumour of any evidence to prove that an indi- vidual Roman, or any thing Roman, had })enetrated into that