In the first fosse, close to the wall, scarcely any pottery has been found; when we recede from the wall it becomes abundant, and more so near the edges of the fosses; at 90 feet away, the almost complete fragments of a large amphora (4 feet high) was found by me.
Whitaker, of course, misses the true character of the northern defences, and, being guided by his eyes alone, was naturally led away by mere appearances. What he saw was certainly a large hollow, 35 yards to 40 yards, or 105 feet to 120 feet wide, as he says, and this hollow is also well shown on Laurent's old map. The slope on the wall-side is nothing else but the large talus of soil and rubbish accumulated in the course of ages, and the northern termination of his fosse would coincide with the gravel ridge, past our Fosse IV. The intermediate four fosses were of course levelled up long ago, and would appear to him level ground, and formed thus the bottom of his so-called great fosse.
We learn from Whitaker that the northern defences, or his great fosse, runs 30 yards beyond the eastern end of the wall, and terminated in a high bank, which was raised upon the course of his ditch, and sloped away into the former part of it; the north-west part sloped north and south, and the north-east part sloped south and west, and was sunk 5 feet deep and extended 75 yards in length beyond the wall, even to the great road (Alport Lane).[1]
This latter incidental information is of particular interest; it simply shows that the northern fosses turned at right angles, that is, they swept away in a curve far beyond the north-east side of the castrum independently, without inter-branching with the eastern ditch on the side of Knot Mill.
- ↑ Whitaker, vol. i. p. 37, 1771; see also his "Ground Plot of Roman Mancunium."
