_Devotissima civitas Heduorum ex hac Britannicæ facultate victoriæ plurimos quibus illæ provinciæ redundabant, accepit artifices, et nunc extructione veterum domorum, et refectione operum publicorum et templorum instauratione resurgit._ Two remarks are naturally inferred from this testimony. 1. How fond the Romans were of this island; whence the cities, castles, roads, temples, altars, sculptures, and in general the whole face of the country here, vastly exceeded that of the continent. 2. When I returned home from this journey, and compared my drawings of the antiquities here exhibited, taken from the things themselves, with those that have been published before or since, by Mr. Alexander Gordon, or Mr. Horsley; it grieved me that, for want of a tolerable skill in design, they have given us such poor and wretched pictures of these elegant antiquities; so that the reader may not wonder when he views them both together: and indeed it gives foreigners a mean idea of the Roman works in our island; but very injuriously. I have therefore caused a good many of these to be engraven, to show the just difference. At Chesters an admirably carved stone was dug up lately, very large: the tenant of the farm caused it to be planed and turned into a grave-stone for himself; and it is now laid over him at the parish church. HEXAM. Hexham has a fine appearance every way; stands on a hill in a pleasant woody vale by the river Tyne; once a bishop’s see: the church dedicate to St. Andrew by the great Wilfred, who was the occasion of bringing my native country of Mercia to embrace christianity: he founded the priory of St. Leonard’s, between Stamford and Uffington, the first of the kingdom of Mercia: part of the church of his building remains, though turned into a barn: he built St. Peter’s church in Stamford, the first church there. By Mr. Gale’s persuasion I wrote the whole _primordia_ of Stamford, which I have by me. At Tickencote, hard by, is the most venerable church antiquity extant, the intire oratory of prince Peada, who founded Peterborough abbey. But return we to Hexam. The cathedral is a large, lofty structure; but the body or west end, and the two towers, are intirely demolished: it was collegiate: a great building, called the College. Between it and the church are cloisters, now a garden. In the choir two knightly monuments of stone cross-legged; by the arms on their shields, Vernon and Umfrevile; they either went a warfare into the Holy Land, or vowed it: a tomb of one of the Northumbrian kings: two oratories over sepultures unknown: a tomb of a woman with a veil over her eyes.