Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/227

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ON THE CITY OF ANDEBIDA, OR ANDREDESCEASTER. 209 city can be admissible. And even allowing a Roman station to have been placed at Arundel, it by no means follows, tluit it was Anderida ; on the contrary, the nature of the locality seems but ill adapted for the sort of warfare by which Henry of Huntingdon tells us the siege and defence were carried on ; and most especially the condition of Arundel, when that chronicler wrote, will not agree with his description, because, instead of " lying desolate," it was, and, it is on record, had been for centuries before, in constant occupation. Upon this particular however farther remarks will be made hereafter, applying to Arundel ecpially with other places. It may be added, that no statement of the possession here of any Roman masonry or ruins is advanced in "The Antiquities of Arundel^;" in which work it is expressly observed, p. 2, " the first time we meet with it is in King Alfred's will, 877, in wdiich he gives it to Athelm, his brother's son." 3. The notion of East Bourne having been the site of Andredesceaster is grounded solely, I believe, upon the circum- stance, that, A.D. 1712, the vestiges of Roman building were discovered between the church and the sea. Upon this foundation Dr. Tabor' raised the hypothesis, that Anderida must have stood here. But granting these remains to have been, which appears certain, those of a Roman villa, this, I contend, will by no means prove that a lanje fortified Roman town occupied the immediate vicinity. On the con- trary, judging from the usual custom in such cases, the stronger probability seems to be, that the villa would be erected at some little distance at the least, for a quiet retreat from the commotion of the military city. Be this however as it may, beyond these traces of a villa absolutely no Roman ruins exist at East Bourne ; consequently the true and only safe test in this enquiry fails here, as elsewhere, to throw any light upon the position of the missing Andredecester. 4. Our next subject is Chichester. But as it is now generally considered that the Roman appelhition of this city was Regnum, this place may be dismissed without farther observation. 5. Hastings requires scarcely more notice. The situation being among abrupt hills, it seems that space would have « 8vo. London, 1766. ^ Horsfield's Sussex, vol. i. p. 41, and

  • > East Bourne, 1787, Appendix. Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1844,

> Philos. Transactions, vol. xxx. pp. p. 577. 549, 783.