ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE vie with that. Its basins were doubtless fewer and smaller, but the type appears to be the same. Round the healing springs there naturally gathered a small settlement or village. Traces of this have been encountered at various times on the low hill which rises south and south-east of the baths, some 60 or 70 feet above them. The first discovery came in 1787, when Rooke noticed here some ' little banks of earth ' and ' an oblong tumulus,' and, on digging, uncovered some masonry. He describes this masonry as an un- mortared wall, enclosing a rectangle of 22 J by 46 feet, and crowned originally (as he supposed) by a superstructure of well-dressed stone ; part of a Roman tile, a Roman potsherd, and some nails were found in clearing this out. The use of the building cannot now be determined. Rooke thought it a temple, but for this there seems no good reason. He gives the position as on the top of StainclifF, which corresponds to the present Terrace and Terrace Road. 1 Other remains have been found much more recently, in the same quarter but slightly further east, in the course of building operations. In particular the con- struction of Holker Road, Silverlands, has brought to light many Roman antiquities dur- ing the last two years (19034). Structural re- mains are few. They are described as consist- ing of an area of 30 by ., ,, . a j f Fie. 27. RESTORATION OF SAMIAN BOWL FOUND NEAR SILVERLANDS, 30 feet, floored With un- BUXTON. (Probably of the first century A.D.) dressed local limestone, some tiles and bricks indicative of a building not far off, and three gritstone hearths about 5 feet in diameter planted on the floored area. Smaller objects abound. The Samian includes an embossed bowl of first-century type, stamped inside OF F NTI, Officina Ponfi* several bits of embossed bowls assignable to the second century, the hough of a plain vessel stamped CF CALVI, and many less noteworthy pieces. Commoner kinds of pottery are more frequent, as well as fragments of glass (including part of a square glass bottle), bits of lead, iron nails, querns, whetstones, bones of animals, and a flint arrowhead of leaf shape. 8 The coins known to me are a denarius of Augustus (Cohen 189, B.C. 20) and a First Bronze of Trajan.* With these recent finds in Holker Road we may connect some scattered discoveries. Half of a Roman milestone was found close by, 1 Rooke, Arch. ix. 137, with plans of site and building, which are practically useless.
- ThePonti bowl is of the form numbered 29 by Dragendorff and Dechelette ; its foliation most
resembles Dechelette, plate vi. 1-5. The piece is in the collection of Mr. Micah Salt. See fig. 27. 3 Stukeley, Iter. Borcale, p. 28, mentions arrowheads as often found at Buxton.
- Information from Mr. Salt, who possesses most of the objects and very kindly gave me full access
to them ; letters by Mr. W. Turner, 25 March 1903, in the local press and in the Reliquary, 1904, p. 54 ; personal knowledge. I 225 29
