CORSTOPITUM is the next place that occurs in this ‘iter,’ in which it is set down as being twenty miles from BREMENIUM. At the distance of about twenty-three English miles from the camp of High Rochester, and on the line of Watling-street, are now to be found the remains of the station of Corchester. [Sidenote: CORCHESTER.] This, which is a little to the west of the town of Corbridge, is doubtless the ancient CORSTOPITUM. The station, which is now entirely levelled, and can with difficulty be traced, has stood upon a gently swelling knoll on the north bank of the Tyne. A bridge, the foundations of which the floods of seventeen centuries have spared, connected it with the opposite bank of the river; the remains of this bridge are precisely similar in appearance to those on the North Tyne at CILURNUM. The bridge has crossed the river obliquely, a circumstance which corroborates the opinion formerly expressed, that the bridges in these parts consisted of horizontal roadways, supported upon piers—unless, indeed, we suppose that the Romans were acquainted with the construction of the skew-arch. Hutchinson states, that a ‘military way passes from this place south-west through Dilston Park, over Hexham Fell to Old Town in Allendale, and meets with the Maiden-way at Whitley Castle.’ Abundance of medals, inscriptions, and other Roman antiquities, have been found at Corchester. Pieces of Roman bricks and pots are spread over the surface of the ground. The church at Corbridge has been raised at the expense of the station. Horsley conceives that this fort was abandoned before the compilation of the Notitia, as it is not mentioned in that document. It is about two miles south of the Wall. The large altar which is figured in the initial letter at the beginning of this volume, formed, in Horsley’s days, the shaft of the market-cross at Corbridge. It is now on the stairs of the entrance-tower, at the castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The inscription is defaced, but the carving on both sides remains; on the one side is a soldier, armed—the representative probably of war; on the other is a warrior, having laid aside his weapons, dragging an amphora of wine—a picture, emblematic of peace. The singular use made of this heathen relic suggests the insertion here of the story of the ‘Fairy stone,’ as it is still told in this neighbourhood.