Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/322

236 SILCHESTER. On a survey of the direction and bearing of these places pointed out, and on an examination of the flints, we find that each place coincides with the general line and with the parti- cular bearing, whence we conclude that such is the true course of the road, and that it crosses Rook's Down and the turnpike road from Basingstoke to Andover, at Worting, two miles on the west of Basingstoke.* The next line we shall notice is that from Old Sarum (Sorbioduno) to Silchester. Though the general bearing of this line (N. E. by E. 6° E.) runs straight upon Silchester, no trace of it can be seen on the east of Foscot, which is six miles from the place. At this distance it is not easy to say which gate it entered at, but the probability is that it was on the south. ^ Several places were examined where the stunted corn showed the existence of solid materials below ; but as it is common for the gravel, of which the country is composed, to be consoli- dated by the percolation of water through it, containing a portion of iron and clay, there is no confidence to be placed in these indications alone, particularly as the flints were absent. A line of tliis sort w^as pointed out, by the gamekeeper in Pamber Forest,^ where, from the undisturbed state of the surface, some indications would be expected ; but, though vestiges are near the line, they contain no flints, and there- fore cannot be depended on : supposing them to be real traces, the line would have run about 50 ^'^ards north of the bridge which divides the parishes of Pamber and Tadlcy, on the road from Basingstoke to Aldermaston. Pushing on to the westward, to catch the true bearing of the line, we came up to it at about a mile north-west of Hannington, where an old farmer pointed it out across several fields : about this place it is clearly drawn on the Ordnance map. The Portway, which is the name it still ^ " The road from Silchester to Win- porary junction with the Winchester and Chester falls into this " (Popham Lane) Silchester road, somewhere about Rook's " near Kcmpshot turnpike-<;ate, at an Down, along the escarpment of the chalk, angle of incidence of about 40 ." (Anony- ^ A person, named Joseph Watson, took mous Obs. on Rom Roads, &c., p. 29.) some trouble to point out to nie where he '" It is pfKSsible, as this course is not thought the line passed ; through Frame followed in any of the lines given in the Green Copse, and Bentley-Green Copse, Itineraries, that it was never completed aei'oss a drain, diagonally through hifl through the forest of Pamber ; but that cottage meadows, under his barn, and so the way from Foscot may have taken the continuing westward across the road,about course of the upper ground as a tem- fifty yards north of the bridge.