A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 3. LITTLE CHESTER Little Chester is to-day a suburb of Derby, situated on the north- east side of the town and on the east bank of the Derwent. Standing as it does on level ground in an open valley close to the river, its position may seem geographically insignificant. But it is here that the Derwent disengages itself from the hills that overhang and hem in its upper course, and Little Chester and Derby hold, as it were, the mouth of the valley. The site has long been recognized as Roman. The appellation ' Chester,' which usually in England denotes Roman remains of some sort, has been applied to it continuously since Saxon times. In 1 607 Camden noticed it as yielding Roman coins. 1 About 1650 Philip Kinder or Kynder, writing a Histone of Darbyshire, called it a Roman town. 3 In 1695 Gibson, re-editing Camden, added that on a clear daymen could see the foundation of a bridge crossing the Derwent to Darley Hill. But the first detailed information was given by Stukeley. He visited Little Chester in 1721 and 1725, examined the site with care and described and planned what he saw, and his account is our main authority (fig. 233). The remains, as he tells us, were in his time being daily robbed to mend the roads, and this may be one reason why some of his successors in the eigh- teenth century, Horsley, Sal- mon, Bray, and others, simply cite him, while others, like Pegge, Pilkington, and Hut- ton, mention only a few fragments of walling as visible in their day. The destruc- tion, certainly, has been car- ried on during the nineteenth century. Almost the whole Roman area has been covered with houses, and the modern builders, while reverencing antiquity by the employment of street names such as Caesar Street, Marcus Street, Ro- man Road, have effectually FIG. 2 3 A. SITE OF LITTLE CHESTER. 1 Britannia (ed. 6, 1607), p. 418 : not in the earlier editions. 3 Ashmole MS. 788, fo. 201, in the Bodleian : ' Little Chester, as a ... live ( ?) or countercastle to Magna Chester in y" wall neere Hault Wessell [Haltwhistle] by y e Roman monies theire found, seems to be a colonie of y Roman souldjers (for soe y e name may import from Castrum [but see p. 255] : but I would not have every place wherein such coin is found to be a garrison, for then why not Chadston [i.e. Chaddesden], a neighbouring towne where greate plentie have been turned up, in y" custodie of M. R. W. Lord of y e soile ? Neither do I believe y' y e Romans horded up all theire monies to them- selves, but made use of it for exchange and barter, and soe y subject commonly had as greate a share.' Printed, but not quite fully, in the ReRjuary, xxii. 199.
