A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE A sewer or cloaca is supposed to have run from the east gate of Ratae, where a piece of it has been found, 88 across the town to the west gate through the Jewry Wall, then in a due westerly direction almost to Talbot Lane, where it is thought to have turned in a north-westerly direction to the River Soar. Remains of it were discovered in Talbot Lane in 1793 at a depth of 5 ft. from the surface. Some very large blocks of freestone, half a ton in weight, having been removed, a kind of tunnel, 2 ft. across and 4 ft. deep, was found. It was made of the same materials as the Jewry Wall, the bottom of the tunnel being also of freestone. Throsby stated that the commencement, as far as could be discovered at the time, was in the cellar of a house near the south end of the Jewry Wall, and continued with a considerable descent north- westwardly to the river. This house stood in St. Nicholas Square, where the south-east end of Messrs. Rust's factory now is, but later discoveries tend to prove that the sewer turned slightly towards the centre of the wall. The contents of this passage seem to have been earth, light on the surface, heavier lower, and gravelly at the bot- tom, mixed with broken pottery, some Samian ware with potter's marks, a few bones of animals, a fragment or two of glass vessels, and a coin of the Augustine age (B.C. ag-A.D. 14), the earliest coin yet found in Leicester. A yard from the sewer (at the end near the Jewry Wall) lay the columns already described in St. Nicholas Street. 83 In 1887 the sewer was again opened and found to be entirely filled with earth. The direction towards the river, if carried straight, would show that it emptied itself where the old Soar joins the present canal, which increases the doubt whether the stream now used as a canal existed in the time of the Roman occupation. Throsby thought that it was a new cut made by the Romans themselves. It seems more probable that it was mediaeval, con- temporary with the mill and the castle, the space between the bottom of the hill (from Talbot Lane) to the old Soar being probably a swamp. By sinking shafts to ascertain the upward direction, it appeared that the sewer bent towards the Jewry Wall, and apparently passed through it. 8 * In 1890, at a different part of Tal- bot Lane, the sewer was again opened, SECTION OF ROMAN WELL FOUND AT LEICESTER, SHOWING BASKET 1 Thompson, Hist. Leu. App. A 447. 84 Leic. Arch. Soc. vi, 312. 198 Throsby, Hist. Leic. 388.
