Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/64

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36
RECENT ROMAN DISCOVERIES:

gravel; they appeared plainly to have originally trenched the line of the moss, the larger and more solid plates of turf they appeared to have laid upon the original face of the moss and raised the level of the line with them more than a yard in height. Upon sinking a pit along the sides of the gravel and for 1½ yards into the black soil, no ling or heather was found upon the surface of the soil and immediately below the gravel. It was first found about a yard below the surface, and then found in considerable quantities."

Close to either margin of the "Street"[1] and 3 yards under the crown of the Roman road Whitaker found frequently the fir, birch, and oak (p. 311). On this road a hoard of Roman brass coins (a.d. 135–235) has been found at Hollinwood; at Oldham Park a silver denarius of Domitian (a.d. 81–96) and a patera at Oldham. This road was also well described by Thomas Percival in 1751–2.

Road to Aquæ (Buxton), striking off, according to Whitaker, from the street on the northern side of the ditches that extended from the northern wall[2] and intersecting the Slack and Kinderton road at Alport Lane, and proceeding along the left of Gaythorn Fields, and crossing the Tib beyond its mounted Calley Banks and along its edge into Garrett Lane to Garrett Hall, and passing along the margin of the Medlock into Longsight. Traces of this road were seen by me in Owen's Yard, at


  1. The Roman road from Wagstaff Fold (Failsworth) to Street is well indicated on William Johnson's "Plan of the Parish of Manchester, 1820."
  2. By the time the road to Buxton was made and the northern suburb erected, the fosses on the northern wall were already filled up and levelled. The ground plan and the perspective view of Mancunium (see engraving), which includes a view of the suburb, also show the northern fosses which, of course, should have been omitted there, but are partly indicated just to give an idea and to save the expense of another special plan.