ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE They are also, in two out of three cases, doubtful in point of date ; but they demand mention here. Bat House Cave is near Ambergate and Alderwasley, situated high in the cliff above the valley of the Peatpits brook near its opening into the Derwent. It is not a true cave but a group of fissures in the Millstone Grit rocks. A mass of stone has moved forward, another mass has fallen out, and there has remained an irregularly triangular cavity, some 25 feet high, roofed by the less disturbed upper strata. This cavity was excavated in 1884 by Mr. C. B. N. Dunn and Mr. Thos. Crozier (both since dead), and various remains were obtained from the lower part of a deposit of mixed earth, six feet thick, which forms the floor of the place. Among these remains was a Roman fibula re- sembling those found in other caves (Fig. 40) and assignable to the second or early third century ; potsherds, including Upchurch ware ; some flints, apparently unworked ; a bronze and iron pin of doubtful age, and a tiny bit of ' raddle ' or oxide of iron, thought by its finders to have served as rouge, but equally likely to have been used for polishing metal objects. 1 Some of the potsherds were taken to be pre- Roman, and may be connected with a stone axe found in 1876 just outside the cave. No bones or refuse heaps were noticed. Certain grooves or holes in the sides of the cave were thought by one observer to indicate a wooden barricade near the entrance and a floor of an upper storey, but this is very doubtful. The cave, it is plain, was occupied during the Roman period and probably during the same part of it as the caves already described. But the occupation was, in this case, slight or perhaps only temporary. 8 FIG. 40. FIBULA FROM BAT HOUSE CAVE (f). (e) RAINS CAVE (BRASSINGTON) Rains Cave, so styled from the owner of the land, is a small cavern in the Longcliffe, a high ridge of hill above Brassington, between Wirksworth and Matlock. It was carefully examined in 1888 and following years by Mr. J. Ward and others. Some of the objects found in it rude wheel-made pottery and turned spindlewheels have been considered Roman. But none can be quite definitely assigned to 1 Compare 'the piece of red war paint' found at Wetton (Staffs.) in 1852 (Lombtrdale House Cat. p. 163) and the ' red ochre ' found on Harborough rocks, Derb. Arch. Journ. xii. 115, and at Thirst House.
- J. Ward, Reliquary, v. (1899), p. 77. Mr. A. F. Hurt of Alderwasley very kindly showed me a
MS. report by the late Mr. Dunn, and also the fibula and raddle mentioned above, some flints (probably unworked) and parts of a pre-Roman and of a Roman urn, which are in his possession. A brief reference to the finds occurs in Bulmer's Hist. Tofog. Directory of Derb. (1898). 237
