Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/85

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ROMAN MANCHESTER RE-STUDIED.
51

Stepping across Knot Mill, we have evidence of a large building and a Roman well at the Crown Inn (Trafford Street). Gaythorn has yielded a very rich field of finds; so have Trafford Street and Great Bridgewater Street, which also must have been largely occupied. We must now cross the Medlock; here on its south banks we obtain traces of a water mill and other evidence which makes it clear that it was also populated. We have seen already that the erection at Trafford Street and Gaythorn of botontini, and the later construction of a road over the former one, indicates an expansion of the boundaries of the settlement in that direction. Towards Fleet Street and Alport Town, on the east side of Deansgate, the occurrence of finds is remarkably thinning out. Recent excavations have shown that here the original soil is only covered to a slight extent by a layer of Roman "trodden" soil; it seems to have been left in later times to free cultivation, for it is covered with a layer of good light sandy clay almost free from any fragments of pottery. Taking, now, a general view, the "larger" Mancunium was enclosed and bounded on the west by the Irwell, on the north by Quay Street, on the east by the banks of the Tib, and on the south by the Medlock and certain parts in Hulme alongside of the southern banks, perhaps reaching to a little beyond Great Jackson Street.

The station was built by some auxiliary cohorts of the Frisians, we have the names of the first centuria of Masavo, and Quintinianus and Candidus. Those of Candidus and Masavo were seen in situ by Camden and Dr. Dee in the walls, while the centurial stone of Quintinianus was found under the rubbish at the eastern gate. Another one of the first centuria of the Frisians (officer's name incomplete) was found at Great Jackson Street, across the Medlock. These three cohorts alone