A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE family, a few of the late fourth century down to Valens and Arcadius, and some minims. 1 Nor are the discoveries limited to the ' station ' and its neighbourhood. A hoard of eighty or ninety much worn coins, some silver, some bronze, was met with in 1887 on the west side of the Derwent, when a road was being carried across the lower part of Strutt's Park. It included a Republican denarius of B.C. 81 (Papia), a denarius of Tiberius, and First or Second Bronze of Nero, Vitellius, Vespasian. But it was dispersed immediately on discovery, and the five or six coins recorded from it give us no trustworthy idea of its range.* Stray coins have also been noted in North Street (i Faustina, i Gallienus), Penny Long Lane, Nun's Green, Duffield Road (these three, third- century coins) and Kedleston Road (Constantine I.). In short, the list is substantially continuous from the later years of the first century till the end of the Roman dominion in Britain. It may be taken to indicate occupation of one kind or another for some three hun- dred years, but especially during the first three quarters of the second century. It remains to add that several Roman roads met at Little Chester. The so-called Rycknield Street which ran from Gloucestershire past Alcester and Wall near Lichfield (the Romano-British Letocetum) to Yorkshire descended Darley Slade, crossed the river by a bridge of which traces are said still to be sometimes visible, and skirted the northern rampart. Another probably important road branched here and went on northwards to Buxton and Manchester. A shorter and more puzzling road seems to have run south-eastward to Sawley, and may possibly be connected with water carriage down the river Trent. A fourth road may have led westward to Rocester on the Stafford- shire border. 8 Such are the details of Roman Little Chester. We have now to determine its character. Previous writers have in general contented themselves with calling it a ' station,' and in order not to prejudice the question, I have used that vague and convenient term in the preceding paragraphs. But it seems highly probable, 4 in view of our survey, that the place was a permanent fort, held by an auxiliary regiment. Its size of seven acres and its regular oblong area girt with a stone wall suit that hypothesis and no other. Its position in an open valley close to water is such as the Romans usually chose for forts and fortresses, and the 1 Soc. of Antiquaries, Minutes, i. 86 (1723 A.D.) and 199 (1727), hence Cough's Camden, ii. 307 ; Stukeley, Iter Boreale, p. 25 ; Pilkington, View, ii. 198, 200 (coin of A.D. 14), followed by Glover, History of Derbyshire, i. 293 (ed. 1829) ; Hutton, Hist, of Derby, p. 206 (coin of Vespasian) ; Bateman Vestiges, p. 145 ; Brit. Arch. Assec. vii. 365 ; Intellectual Observer, xii. 347; Watkin, Derb. Arch. Journ. x. 159, Ward, Derb. Arch. Journ. xi. 91 ; Refiquary, i. 178, iii. 73 ; Antiquary, xxii. 44, 94 ; Bailey, Derb. Arch. Journ. xiii. 108 and xv. 20. British Mus. MS. Add. 6707, fo. 6 (Reynolds records I Domitian and I Constantine Junior). The coins of Alexander and Tolemy (tic), mentioned in Derb. Arch. Journ. xiii. 1 1 1 , are not adequately attested and must be considered as not found at Little Chester.
- Derb. Arch. Journ. xiii. 1 1 6, xv. 20 ; Antiquary, xxii. (1890), 44.
See further, pp. 243-247.
- This assumes that Stukeley's plan and details are correct. I do not think the assumption very
rash. But I may note one little inaccuracy, the squareness of the angles, which should be rounded. This, however, is merely draughtsmanship. The earlier plans of Melandra equally show squared angles. 22O
