A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE name, Ira, and the second half, Chester, is merely the term used in early times to designate Roman sites of all kinds, and sometimes even sites that are not Roman. The place has however long been known as a Roman site. Camden mentions it ; Morton has much to tell of it, and in his day, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the walls were appar- ently still standing. Discoveries made by ironstone diggers in 1873—4 called fresh attention to the spot, and in 1878—9 some excavations were carried out by the Rev. R. S. Baker, late rector of Hargrave.^ These excavations were unfortunately not very successful. Only a tiny fraction of the site (just ~ part) was thoroughly uncovered ; much was merely probed with iron bars ; buildings accidentally encountered were not traced out ; the excavators do not appear to have understood what they were finding, and their records of the results are not at all satisfactory. When the work was done the farmer who rented the field was permitted to remove some of the foundations, and the difficulties of future explorers have thus been seriously increased. We cannot therefore in the present state of our knowledge offer any complete or final account of the place. The 'camp' itself forms an irregular oblong of about 20 acres (fig. 10). It was surrounded by a stone wall 8 feet thick, of which Morton tells us that ' the outcourses were, as usual, set flatways, while the inner part of the wall consisted of stones pitched on end and inclining southward ' — not an unusual feature in the town walls of Roman Britain. The angles were apparently rounded ; but except perhaps for a puzzling circular founda- tion 3 1 feet in diameter near the south-west corner (plan, h) we have no indications of turrets or bastions. Foundations of the south and west gates and traces of beaten roads leading to the south and east gates were noted in 1879 (plan, g and d). Of the interior the northern or lower part was thought by Mr. Baker to contain few buildings, though roof slates were found especially towards the west gate (marked on the plan by shading). A long trench dug between the east wall and the eastern hedge of Burrow Field showed some pits or depressions with flint arrowheads and scrapers — vestiges probably of occupation long ages before the Romans. The southern or upper part of the interior con- tained many buildings in stone. The plans which we possess of them are confused and imperfect and permit no certain judgment, but the indiscriminate grouping and irregular orientation show that they do not belong to a fort, and the buildings themselves are certainly not of any military type. Painted wall plaster found in 1879 (plan, m) and plain brick and tile pavements, noted by both Morton and Baker, indicate civilian dwelling houses. Possibly the building east of the letter k on the plan may have been a shrine inside a little enclosure, and a sculptured stone to be described in the next paragraph may have stood in it. But it is rash to speculate further about a site which has been so little and 1 Morton, p. 517, copied by Bridges, ii. 1 8 1, and Gough, JJJitions to Camden, ii. 282. For the later finds see R. S. ^iVtr, Reports of the Aisociated Archit. Societies, xiii. (1875) 88-118, xv. (1879), 49-59. Mr. W. Hirst Simpson of Chester House kindly lent me a large map of the excavations on the scale of 33 feet to an inch, with notes by Mr. Baker, from which I have derived some useful details. 180
