Itinerarium curiosum (centuria I) : $b or, an account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great BritainStukeley, William
History
Itinerarium curiosum (centuria I) : $b or, an account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great Britain
Stukeley, William
Great Britain -- Antiquities -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Here is a vast jaw-bone or rib of a whale, that
has lain time out of mind, like that at St. James’s. Wintringham church
stands on the end of the Lincolnshire _Alpes_. Well may the Humber take
its name from the noise it makes: my landlord, who is a sailor, says
in a high wind it is incredibly great and terrible, like the crash and
dashing together of ships. The Roman way beyond the Humber at Brough is
continued in Yorkshire; but of its progress that way I can say nothing
at present, this being the northern boundary of my expeditions.
[Sidenote: +Aquis.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XVII. 2d Vol.]
From the termination of the Hermen-street, just by the knoll of old
Wintringham, and the hedge on the side of a common, a lesser vicinal
branch of a Roman road goes directly west to Aukborough, passing over
Whitton brook. All the ground hereabouts terminates at the Humber
in longitudinal ridges going north and south, and all steep like a
cliff to the west, plain and level eastward. Aukborough I visited,
because I suspected it the _Aquis_ of the Romans, in Ravennas, and I
was not deceived; for I presently descried the Roman _castrum_.[83]
There are two little _tumuli_ upon the end of the road entering the
town. The Roman castle is square, three hundred foot each side, the
entrance north: the west side is objected to the steep cliff hanging
over the Trent, which here falls into the Humber; for this castle is
very conveniently placed in the north-west angle of Lincolnshire, as a
watch-tower over all Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, which it surveys.
Hence you see the Ouse coming from York, and downward the Humber mouth,
and all over the isle of Axholm. Much salt-marsh is gained from all
these rivers, though now and then they reclaim and alter their course.
Then they discover the subterraneous trees lodged here at the Deluge
in great abundance, along the banks of all the three rivers: the wood
is hard and black, and sinks like a stone. Here are likewise other
plentiful reliques of the Deluge in the stones, viz. sea-shells of
all sorts, where a _virtuoso_ might furnish his cabinet: sometimes a
stone is full of one sort of shell, sometimes of another; sometimes,
of little globules like the spawn of fishes: I viewed them with great
pleasure. I am told the camp is now called Countess Close, and they say
a countess of Warwick lived there; perhaps owned the estate;[84] but
there are no marks of building, nor I believe ever were. The _vallum_
and ditch are very perfect: before the north entrance is a square plot
called the Green, where I suppose the Roman soldiers lay _pro castris_:
in it is a round work, formed into a labyrinth, which they call
Julian’s Bower. The church is of good stone, has a square tower, but
the choir ruinous, excluded by a wooden partition: between it and the
way to the marshes, a good spring rising out of the cliff. I dare say
no antiquary ever visited this place since the Romans left it; for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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