A Letter from Mr Thoresby, F. R. S. to the Publisher, concerning the Vestigia of a Roman Town Lately Discovered Near Leedes in Yorkshire

and at the same time consider the hair of the Skins of Animals we feed on, the Wooll or Down on Herbs and Fruit, the Fibres, Vessels, and Nerves of Plants which are not altered by the Stomach, the same case may very easily happen. I once saw as strange a Distemper, and almost as obstinate and long as I ever met with, proceed from a great quantity of Strawberry Seeds which had lodged in the Guts, and after their discharge the person was eased. And I have heard of many besides those published, who have lost their Lives by swallowing many Cherry-stones. VI. A Letter from Mr Thoresby, F. R. S. to the Publisher, concerning the Vestigia of a Roman Town lately discovered near Leedes in Yorkshire. Sir, In obedience to your Commands, to acquaint the Society with any thing remarkable that occurs in these parts, this brings you notice of the discovery of the Vestigia of a Roman Town, upon the Moor near Adel Mill, 4 miles from Leedes; 'twas found out accidentally by a Tenant of Mr Arthington, who endeavouring to plow part of his Farm, was retarded by a great quantity of Stone, immediately below the surface of the Earth, which he was forced to dig up before he could proceed, and has already out of the Foundations of Houses, which they traced on both sides the Street, got so many Stones as has built above 100 rods of Walling. At a very little distance is a Roman Camp pretty entire, 'tis above 4 Chains broad and 5 long, surrounded with a single Vallum, which from the top of the Agger to the bottom of the Trench is yet 22 foot deep in the place I measured, but the extremity of the weather prevented so particular a Survey as I designed. designed. The Town seems to have been of considerable note by the Inscriptions, and fragments of Statues, Pillars, &c., there dug up, all which are (as Dr * Lister has truly observed, that most of the Roman Monuments in these parts) made of the common sort of course Rag or Millstone grit, of which are also the remains of a large Aqueduct, in Stones of a great length and about $\frac{3}{4}$ of a yard thick, wherein the passage for the Water is about 6 inches broad and as many deep, almost double to those of Clay found in the Roman Burying-place at York, formerly accounted for (No 234. of the Transactions) one of which is in your Repository at Gresham College. Some time ago here was dug up a Statue to the full proportion of a Roman Officer, with an Inscription, both which perished through the brutish ignorance and covetousness of the Labourers, who in a superstitious conceit, bound wythys or wreaths of Straw about the poor Roman Knight, and burnt him, in hopes of (by I know not what Magical Apparition in the Smoke) finding some hid Treasure, and after in anger at their disappointment broke him to pieces, of which only the Head is now forthcoming; but the 2 Inscriptions lately discovered there fell into a more intelligent hand, one John Robinson, whose industry and ingenious contrivance of binding a small Engine to the Wrist of his Arm, to supply the place of his Fingers, which through the carelessness of a Servant were burnt off in his Infancy, pleased me well. Cyril Arthington of Arthington, Esq., who is Lord of the Manor, made me a present of these Inscriptions, the one is but a fragment, yet has enough to discover it to have been sepulchral, by the H S E for Hic situs est, below P I E N T I S S, the other is almost entire, and is evidently a Funeral Monument, it begins as usually with Dijs Manibus Sacrum, and ends Vixit Annos X, as it seems to have been by the vacancy, 'tis one foot thick, 2 broad and 3 high, the Letters are very large, full 3 inches long, some of them interwoven, as AND (AD) and ED (as I apprehend the ED to be) in Candiedian. The form of the Letters, and particularly larly the A may perhaps discover the Age that this Roman Station flourished in, viz. in Severus's Reign (An. Dom. 194) or before, if the observation of the Prince of our English Antiquaries hold good, and I know none of the modern Critics that dissent from it: 'This observation (says he) I have made, that from the Age of Severus to that of Gordian, and after the Letter A in the Inscriptions found in this Island, wants the cross stroke, and is engraved thus Λ. It seems to have perished, and perhaps was burnt down (as by the slag and adust colour in some places may be conjectured) in some of the Insurrections of the Native Brigantes, who were impatient of Restraint. Amongst the ruins were found 2 or 3 Millstones for the grinding of Corn, which by the smallness of the size (20 inches broad) shew that the Romans of those, as well as the Egyptians and Jews of former Ages, made use of their Slaves or Captives for that employ, who were placed post molas, Exod. xi. 5. non precedunt sed sequuntur, brachiis &c. toto corpore trudentes, what the old MSS Bibles have in respect of Sampson (Judic. xvi. 21.) clausum in carcere molere fecerunt, our Saxon Predecessors render expressly hanbepynie. (Mr Thwait's Hept. Anglo Sax.) besides this, which is entire, I have a fragment of another Millstone, whereon the Rows are yet remaining, but this being heavier, almost as thick at the Circumference as the other is at the Center (for they are convex on one side) I suppose might be the Runner, the Learned Gataker in his notes upon 47 Isai. 2. observes, the Original word is of the Dual form, and that the Law prohibiting the taking the Millstone to pledge, does particularly mention Receb or the Rider, because that lying loose might the more readily be taken off, and carried away upon that occasion, and in his Annotations (which are incomparably the best of those falsely ascribed to the Assembly of Divines) upon Lament. v. 13. they took the young men to grind, says, the Talmudists have a Story, that the Chaldeans made the young men carry Millstones with them to Babylon, where there was a great scarcity of them, whence probably their Paraphrase renders that Text, have born the Mills or Millstones, which might be true in a literal acceptation, they have also a Proverbial Speech of a Man with a Millstone about his Neck (alluded to St Matth. xxix. 6. used of one that lies under an exceeding heavy and almost insupportable burden. As we were traversing the Ground, I found the fragments of Urns and other Roman Vessels, one of which has been 23 inches, or two foot in Circumference, the generality of them are of the common red Clay, but I have also one of the best Coral coloured varnish, and others of a bluish grey; as also a brass Ring found in the same place. The Roman rig that this Town stood upon, comes from the great Military Road upon Bramhammoor, of which Leland in his MS Itinerary, which by the favour of my Lord Archbp of York, I have a transcript of, as far as it relates to Yorkshire or Lancashire, affirms, 'I never saw in any part of England so manifest a token as here, of the large Crest of the way of Watlingstreet made by hands. From thence this via vicinatis passeth by Thorner and Shadwell, Streetlane and Hawcaster ridge upon Blackmoor (near which is the Roman Pottery mentioned in some former Transactions) to Adel, thence thro Cookridge over the Moors towards Ilkley a known Roman Station, this same ridge is very evident in some part of the Grounds of Tho. Kirk of Cookridge, Esq;, who shewed me the place where a Roman Monument in his possession was dug up, it seems to have had a large Inscription, but so eraced that nothing distinct can be made of it; perhaps the said Cukeryg, as it is called in the Original Letters Patents of K. Edw. 6th to Archbp Cranmer (now, with the Estate thereby conveyed in the possession of the said ingenious Gentleman) was so denominated from this Roman ridge which passeth directly thro it. But what the name of this Station was I cannot divine, the learned Dr Gale some years ago gave me notice from an Anonymous Geographer, of a Station in these parts called Pampocatia, which he thought should be read Campocatia, and had sent into France for various Lections, concluding, 'Where to place this I know not, but my hopes are, that you will be so happy as to find it, and so kind as to communicate the discovery, &c. now considering, that in the said Author (Printed at Ravenna, An. Dom. 1688) this Pampo or Campocatia is the very next Station to Lagentium or Legecolium, it seems not improbable that this Camp, &c. was the very place; but because things things so many Ages past admit of various conjectures. I will offer another, which I am induced to from the similitude of the Names, the Agel or Adelocum of the Ancients, and the present Adel or Adel as it is in the Monastic Anglic. 'Tis true, 'tis sometimes writ Segelocim, but as Mr Burton, in his Comment upon Antonius's Itinerary well observes, it is to be reckoned among those Words to which the Ancients sometimes put an S or Sibilus and sometimes omitted; if this be thought too much Northward for that Station, which is placed South of Danum, it may be reply'd, that, not to insist upon the transposition of some places, of which there are instances in the Itinerary, I see no inconvenience in admitting that the Romans might then, as we at this day, have several Towns of the same denomination; thus from an Altar in my possession, inscribed CONDATE (the whole Inscription may be seen in the new Edit. of the Brit. p. 782.) the said Learned Dean of York concludes that Conset near Piersbridge, where this Altar was found, was as well called Condate, as Congleton in Cheshire. And to me it seems highly probable, that the Legions being detached against the Enemy to distant places, might endeavour to leave such Memorials of their removes, thus the Legio vicissima valens vietrix usually quartered at Deva or West Chester, were detached into Westmorland, as appears by an Inscription, and the Lingones who were seated at Ilkley, I question not but were also at Lingivel near Thorp on the Hill, where the Roman Coining molds (Phil. Transl. No 224) were found, and that the intrenchments there were so denominated from them, the Roman Vallum being pronounced Wallum, of which see Caesabon, Somner, &c. At this Agelocum or Adelocum, as Cambden himself once read it, is a Church of the most Antique form that ever I beheld, and being built of small squared Stones like the Roman Wall and Multangular Tower in York, I verily thought it the remains of some Roman Temple, till I found in it some Christian Histories, particularly the descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, done in Basso Relievo, but after so intolerably rude a manner, as sufficiently evidences their great Antiquity. The Inhabitants have an old Tradition, that Adel Church once stood upon Blackhill, the place where these Roman Monuments were lately discovered, occasioned perhaps by the removal of the Stones from some publick Edifice, at the destruction of the old Roman Town. But I am too tedious, and have scarce left place for the figures of the Monuments. LONDON, Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walsford, Printers to the Royal Society, at the Prince's Arms in St Paul's Churchyard, 1703.