The fund of coal in this country is inexhaustible; for the whole country is a mine of coal quite across the kingdom, in the moors, and so to Scotland: and this will be an eternal source of seamen in the kingdom. Going up the hill toward Benwell, I find the counter-guard goes just 300 foot off the wall, which was sufficient for the march of the detachments from place to place. The eastward part of the wall joined the castle where the stairs now are. A good part of the friery is standing, being a court: the chapel is converted into a hall for the smiths. Nothing of the nunnery left, but the jambs of the gate-house next the street. GABROCENTVM Was Gateshead, as its name imports in British, I suppose, from the sign of some inn: a Goat still stands upon a sign of the Golden Lion, crowned. I guess this was a fortified town in the times of the Romans, where a ferry was for passage northward; but by reason of the buildings no traces of it are left: it stands on a deep rocky descent Westward. The Roman road here, which is the true Hermen-street coming from Sussex, coming down Gateshead fell, passes in a strait line to the bridge. I saw several Roman stones here, the recipient part of their hand-mills. In this place, in the time of the _Notitia_, lay the second cohort of the Thracians in garrison. There is an odd _mausoleum_ in the church-yard. Lord Hertford’s workmen, digging up the Roman city by Marlborough, found a piece of brass with an inscription in Romano-barbarous letters, a quarter of an inch high, thus: ʌ.MʌIS.ʌBALLʌVʌ. VXELODVM.CʌMBOGLʌNS.BʌNNʌ; which I interpreted, being the names of five Roman stations: it was upon the edge of a cup. The castle at Newcastle was built by Robert son of William I. after his return from the expedition against Malcolm king of Scots. CONDERCVM. +Chester on the Street.+