mmm. 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 5 
 
 ^^ o I 
 > 
 
 9 S 
 
 
 
 _^ £ r~ 1 
 
 I 4 - 
 
 ^= CD 1 
 ' 33 ■ 
 
 
 ^^= > ■ 
 
 16 1 
 
 == 33 ■ 
 ■ < 1 
 
 v s 
 
 === ° 1 
 
 I 2 i 
 
 = — \ 1 
 
 
 MM -i 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 xji i 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 PC) I 
 
 .
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 jfldolph f>. C. Wenaer.
 
 h- 
 
 O- 
 
 zC 
 
 UJ 
 
 h 
 
 UJ 
 
 >< 
 
 o 
 
 a: 
 
 h 
 
 < 
 
 Q 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 I 
 
 Q 
 
 en 
 
 IE 
 I- 
 
 o 
 
 UJ 
 
 X
 
 aP 
 
 f' 1 
 
 o f V> 
 
 DBUCOK1U 
 
 §r 
 
 THDMAS " WRIG-HT , ESQ; MA . E. S A . 
 
 
 Ch>^ 
 
 SHREWSBURY. BUNNY a EVANS;. HiGH STREET. 
 
 860.
 
 THE 
 
 RUINS OF THE ROMAN CITY 
 
 OF 
 
 tymmium, 
 
 AT 
 
 WROXETER, NEAR SHREWSBURY. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS WEIGHT, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 Ststb ©bitioir, 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 SHEEWSBUEY : BUNNY & EVANS, HIGH-STEEET. 
 
 LONDON: SlilPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1877.
 
 IDA 
 
 TO VISITOKS. 
 
 Parties from a distance, wishing to visit the ruins of the 
 ancient Ubiconium, at Wroxeter, will find every com- 
 fort and accommodation at the Raven, the Lion, the 
 George, and the Crown Hoi els, Shrewsbury. 
 
 Wroxeter is a little more than five miles from Shrewsbury. 
 Conveyances may be obtained at the Eailway Station, 
 Shrewsbury, and at any of the Hotels or Livery Stables. 
 Parties of any reasonable number may be conveyed 
 by either of the latter, on giving them two days' 
 notice by letter. 
 
 Upton Magna, on the Shrewsbury and Wellington Joint 
 Line of Eailway, is ths nearest station to Wroxeter, 
 from whence it is distant about two miles and a half — 
 a pleasant walk for an active person. 
 
 The Museum of the Shropshire and North Wales Natural 
 History and Antiquarian Society, College Hill, where 
 all the moveable articles from Wroxeter are deposited, 
 is open daily to visitors, from 10 till 4, on payment 
 of threepence each, and by an order from a Subscriber 
 
 GRATUITOUSLY. 

 
 ~JMi\%t ai J^Iafts* 
 
 PLATE 
 
 The North Side of the Old Wall, at Wroxeter 1 
 
 Wroxeter Church 2 
 
 First Roman Hypocaust discovered at Uriconium in 1859 3 
 Roman Tile-Roof, Roman Flag-Roof, Section of Roman 
 
 Hypocanst, &c 4 
 
 Plan of Walls, discovered by the Excavations at Wroxeter, 
 
 Salop, from February 3rd to September, 1863 5 
 
 Column, formerly in the garden of W. H. Oateley, Esq., 
 
 Wroxeter G 
 
 Ancient Stone Font in Wroxeter Church 7 
 
 Capitals found at Uriconium 8 
 
 Samian, Upchurch, and Romano- Salopian Pottery 9 
 
 Rings and Combs (actual size) 10 
 
 Hair Pins, &c, (actual size) 11 
 
 Sculls from Wroxeter 12 
 
 Roman Remains from Wroxeter, in the possession of 
 Samuel Wood, Esq., and Mask, in the Museum, 
 
 Shrewsbury 13 
 
 Upchurch Pottery, Adz, Spear Head, and Romano- 
 Salopian (red) Ware 14 
 
 Carved Stone Fragments found at Uriconium 15
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It is the aim of the following pages to give 
 the degree and kind of popular information 
 believed to be wanted by the numerous visitors 
 to the excavations at Wroxeter, who have no 
 guide to explain what they see, and are not 
 possessed of that amount of minute anti- 
 quarian knowledge which would enable them 
 to understand everything without such explana- 
 tion. It is the first instance in which there 
 has been, in this country, the chance of pene- 
 trating into a city of more than fourteen 
 centuries ago, on so large a scale, and with 
 such extensive remains of its former condition; 
 and when the visitor has walked over the 
 floors which had been trodden last, before they 
 were thus uncovered, by the Eoman inhabitants 
 of this island, he will appreciate more justly, 
 and with greater interest, the objects which 
 have been discovered, and are deposited in 
 the Museum at Shrewsbury; and he will learn 
 to look forward with hope to the light which 
 a continuance of these excavations must throw 
 upon the condition and history of this country 
 at so remote a period. Whatever this light 
 may be, it must not be forgotten that we shall
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 be indebted for it, in the first place, to His 
 Grace the Duke of Cleveland, who has shown 
 a generous public feeling in giving permission 
 and encouragement to the excavations on his 
 land, and to the late B. Botfield, Esq., M.P., 
 through whose zeal and liberality in the 
 undertaking the excavators were set_ at work, 
 when as yet it was uncertain if their labours 
 would be attended with any success. I have 
 endeavoured to fulfil literally the title of this 
 little book, and to give the visitor such 
 information as he would seek from a pro- 
 fessional guide, whilst I have gladly left the 
 description of the Museum, and especially_ of 
 those rather numerous human remains which 
 form so remarkable a part of our discoveries, 
 to one best qualified for that task, Dr. Henry 
 Johnson, who has so ably and zealously di- 
 rected the excavations on the spot, and who 
 has thus, unremunerated, given to the service 
 of the public so much of his valuable time. 
 
 T. W.
 
 Twrstfftinu 
 
 Jjfl«ir™-~ 
 
 KBiniviHuunni 
 
 piifiiimHiUiiil 
 
 □O 
 
 S 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 o: 
 > 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 (JO 
 
 09 
 
 o 
 o 
 a. 
 
 > 
 x 
 
 o 
 a: 
 
 o0 
 
 a:
 
 A
 
 PLATL . 4. 
 
 FIG 3 
 
 FIG.!. FIG 
 
 ROMAN TILE ROOF 
 
 FIG. 6. ROMAN FLAG ROOF. 
 
 1b 
 
 SECTION OF ROMAN HYPOCA'JST 
 
 FIG 7
 
 ^
 
 o 
 
 a: 
 -J 
 1_
 
 PLATE 6. 
 
 
 COLUMN IN THE GARDEN OF 
 W F.OATLEY, ESQ . WROXETER .
 
 
 PLATE 7. 
 
 —.- 
 
 ANCIENT STONE FONT. 
 IN WROXETER CHURCH,
 
 F I AT E 6 
 
 K 3 
 
 :-v-i--5 *,*•/' J* 4l^ ft 
 
 G 2 
 
 S3U- ... '■ 
 
 ^\<W,:- X •-•;■■•;) i t ■'• > ■_» • 
 
 
 F ! G 3 ■ 
 
 CAPITALS found sr i.'RICONIUM
 
 PLATE 9. 
 
 FiG 4. 
 
 PIG 5. 
 
 FIG, I, FRAGMENT OF SAMIAN WARE. 
 
 FIG. 2, CINERARY URN. 
 
 FIGS.3,4,5, ROMANO SALOPIAN POTTERY.
 
 PLATEIO. 
 
 FIG. I . 
 
 FIG. 3 
 
 FIG. 2 
 
 FIG. 4 
 
 FIG. 5. 
 
 FIG. 6. 
 
 RINGS and COMBS. ( ACTUAL SIZE.)
 
 PLATt II 
 
 HAIR PINS, ETC (actual size.).
 
 % 
 
 SKULLS FROM WROXETER .
 
 PLATE 14. 
 
 FIG 
 
 I FIG 3 
 
 FIG 5 
 
 FIG 5 IY1ASK(ACTUALSIZE)INTHE SHREWSBURY MUSEUM 
 PIGS 1.2,3,8c 4, ROMAN REMAINS FROM WROXETER, IN THE 
 POSSESSION OF SAMUEL WOOD, ESQ , SHREWSBURY.
 
 PLATE 13. 
 
 FIG2. 
 
 "iA FIG 4. 
 
 FIG5. 
 
 FIGS2,&3,UPCHURCH POTTERY. 
 
 FIG 4. ADZ. , 
 
 FIG 5, ROMAN SALOPIAN(RED) WARE , 
 
 FIG I. SPEAR HEAD.
 
 PL.A 1 t b 
 
 CARVED STONE FRAGMENTS. 
 FROM URICONIUM. 
 IN THE GARDEN OF EDWARD STANIER ESQ 
 VVROXETER .
 
 RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 If we leave Shrewsbury by its long eastern 
 suburb, known, from the important monastic 
 house which formerly stood at its commence- 
 ment, as the Abbey Foregate, passing the more 
 modern monument erected at its extremity, 
 Lord Hill's Column, our way lies for about 
 two miles along the London Road, bounded on 
 each side by rich and fertile fields. At the 
 distance just mentioned, this road approaches 
 close to the river Severn, and continues to run 
 along its banks, to the great improvement of 
 the scenery, until we arrive at the prettily- 
 situated village of Atcham, with Atcham Church 
 in face of us, and the river winding under its 
 stone bridge in the foreground. Atcham is 
 three miles from Shrewsbury. Crossing the 
 bridge, we leave the river, which here takes 
 a long sweep to the southward, and follow the
 
 10 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 road, which skirts for more than half a mile 
 the extensive park of Attingham. We here 
 approach another river, the Tern, which at thi3 
 point spreads into a fair expanse of water, and 
 forms, with the mansion of Attingham to the 
 left, and the copses which skirt it, a scene of 
 striking beauty, while to the right it divides 
 into two branches which empty themselves into 
 the Severn, a little lower down. Crossing Tern 
 Bridge, and proceeding a short distance, still 
 skirting the park, we reach a point where, 
 opposite the entrance to Attingham Park, a 
 branch road turns off to the right from the old 
 London road. We must take this branch road 
 which will lead us to the village of Wroxeter. 
 We soon cross a small stream, which is known 
 by the name of the Bell Brook, and after we have 
 passed this brook, the visitor will hardly fail 
 to remark, wherever his eye rests upon ploughed 
 ground, the extraordinary blackness of the soil 
 in comparison with that of the land over which 
 he has previously passed. 
 
 In fact he has now entered upon the site 
 of an ancient Eoman city, which is known, 
 from the circumstance of its being mentioned by 
 the geographer Ptolemy, to have been standing 
 here as early as the beginning of the second 
 century, when it was called Viroconium, — a 
 name which appears to have been changed in 
 the later Romano-British period to Uriconium ; 
 at least this is the form under which the name 
 occurs iu the later geographers, and which has 
 been generally adopted by modern antiquaries.
 
 THE RUINS OF URIC02UUM. 11 
 
 From the point at which we have now arrived, 
 the line of the ancient town-wall may be traced 
 by a continuous low mound, which runs south- 
 ward towards the Severn, the banks of which 
 it follows for some distance, and, after passing 
 between the river and the modern village of 
 Wroxeter, turns eastwardly behind the vicarage- 
 house, and makes a long sweep till it reaches 
 the hamlet of Norton to the north, whence it 
 turns to the westward again, and reaches the 
 point from which we started, forming an 
 irregular oval, rather more than three miles 
 in circumference. A portion of the Bell Brook 
 runs through the Roman city. After crossing 
 this brook, we approach ground which rises 
 gently, and nearly at the highest point we see 
 to the left a smith's shop. At this spot, which 
 is rather more than five miles from Shrewsbury, 
 the road which has brought us from that town 
 crosses another road, which turns down to the 
 right, to the village of Wroxeter, not quite half 
 a mile distant. Wroxeter is an Anglo-Saxon 
 name, the first part of which is probably cor- 
 rupted from that of the ancient Boman city 
 of the site of which it occupies the southern 
 extremity. The road which has led us to it 
 is called the Watling Street Boad, and there 
 is every reason for believing that it occupies 
 in a part of its course the line of one of the 
 principal streets of Uriconium. It crosses the 
 river Severn immediately below the village, 
 where there was doubtless a bridge in Boman 
 times, for it is in the highest degree improbable
 
 12 THE RUINS OF UPJCONIUM. 
 
 that in approaching a town of such importance, 
 the Romans would cross a river like the Severn 
 only by a ford. 
 
 On" arriving at the smith's shop just 
 alluded to, , the attention of the visitor will 
 be attracted by a solid mass of masonry, which 
 forms a very imposing object, and presents 
 those unmistakable characteristics of Roman 
 work, — the long string-courses of large flat red 
 bricks. This mass of masonry, the only portion 
 of the buildings of Uriconium which remains 
 standing above ground, is upwards of twenty 
 feet high, and seventy-two feet long, with a 
 uniform thickness of three feet, and has been 
 long known by the name of " The Old Wall." 
 It stands nearly in the centre of the ancient 
 city, which occupied the highest ground within 
 the walls, — a commanding position, with the 
 bold isolated form of the Wrekin in the rear, 
 and in front a panorama of mountains formed 
 by the Wenlock and Stretton Hills, Caer Cara- 
 doc, the Longmynd, the Breidden, and the still 
 more distant mountains of "Wales. With the 
 •exception of this wall, all that remained of the 
 Roman city, if as some people might perhaps 
 have doubted, anything did remain, — has been 
 long buried beneath the soil. At the close of 
 the year 1858, however, it was resolved to 
 ascertain what these remains were, and an 
 Excavation Committee was formed at Shrews- 
 bury, for the purpose of carrying this design 
 into effect by means of a public subscription. 
 Excavations were, accordingly, commenced on
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 13 
 
 the 3rd of February, 1859, and they have 
 already led to results of the most satisfactory 
 description. But, perhaps, before we proceed 
 to describe the ruins which have thus been 
 uncovered, it would be well to tell our readers 
 something of the general character of the Roman 
 towns in this island, and to explain how some 
 of them were destroyed, and from what causes 
 and by what circumstances their remains pre- 
 sent themselves in the conditions in which we 
 now find them. 
 
 Fifteen hundred years ago, this island, 
 with the exception of the highlands of Scotland, 
 was covered with flourishing towns, many of 
 them known to have been of considerable mag- 
 nitude, situated on numerous public roads, — 
 these latter of such excellent construction, that 
 they have remained to the present day the 
 foundation of most of our great English high 
 roads. These towns, like those in other parts 
 of the empire, enjoyed free municipal institu- 
 tions (from which our own mediaeval municipal 
 institutions are derived), and in all but certain 
 duties towards the imperial government, formed 
 in themselves so many little republics, possess- 
 ing all the ambitions and rivalries wJiieh
 
 14 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 seem inseparable from republican institutions. 
 Among the slight notices of this island in 
 ancient writers we learn that the towns of 
 Britain were remarkable for their turbulence, 
 which was encouraged, no doubt, by the dis- 
 tance of this province from Eome, and by the 
 peculiar character of the population of the 
 towns, which consisted of blood that was 
 foreign to the soil, and which was not uniform 
 in character in the different towns. We know 
 further that, during the fourth century, those 
 towns often confederated together, threw off the 
 imperial yoke, and raised emperors of their own ; 
 and we have every reason for supposing that, 
 when the restraint imposed by the central 
 power became slackened, the towns confed- 
 erated against one another, and that domestic 
 dissensions and contests troubled the peace of 
 the island. Such dissensions left the island 
 exposed to the invasions of its foreign enemies, 
 which had become very frequent and very 
 formidable during the fourth century. The 
 eastern coasts were often visited by the Teu- 
 tonic rovers, Saxons, and Franks ; the barbarous 
 Caledonians, then called Picts, from the north 
 rushed across the borders, and carried devas- 
 tation through the land, in which they were 
 assisted by the Irish, or, as they were then 
 called, Scots, and probably by the Armorican 
 Celts, or Britons from Gaul. The towns of 
 Britain united would, no doubt, have presented 
 a force sufficient to meet any of these in- 
 vasions, but their very constitution rendered
 
 THE RUINS OP URICONIUM. 15 
 
 such a union difficult, except for a short period. 
 Besides their independence of each other, the 
 towns had only been expected to defend them- 
 selves, while the defence of the province was 
 more especially the duty of the legions, and 
 on their withdrawal, the towns seem to have 
 followed their old practice in case of invasion, 
 and shut themselves within their walls, or, 
 at most, opposed the invaders without any 
 union, thus leaving the open country to easy 
 destruction. 
 
 The history of the conquest of the Eoman 
 provinces by the barbarians is, in general, sim- 
 ply the successive reduction of one town after 
 another. Such was eminently the case in 
 Britain, and the traditionary annals of the 
 early Saxon period present little more than a 
 list of conquered towns. Sometimes a town 
 was taken by stratagem or force, and then it 
 was plundered or destroyed, but in the far 
 greater number of cases the town was too 
 strong for the assailants and only submitted 
 by composition, by which it paid a tribute to 
 the conqueror and retained its old independent 
 municipal institutions. We all know how 
 many of our old cities and early municipal 
 towns are thus the representatives of the cities 
 of the Romans. In some parts of the island 
 the destruction was greater than in others, 
 and on the "Welsh border, through the whole 
 space between Chester (called by the .Eomans 
 Deva), and Gloucester (which the Eomans 
 called Glevum,) the towns seem to have been
 
 16 THE RUINS OF UKICONIUM. 
 
 all ruined. One of the largest of these towns 
 was no doubt that of Uriconium. We can only 
 judge by implication, and by a comparison of 
 what occurred in other places, of the manner 
 in which a town like Uriconium was treated, 
 when it was overcome by the barbarians. We 
 know that these invaders were influenced by 
 a love of plunder, but a love of destruction — 
 we may perhaps call it an impulse of destruc- 
 tion — was still greater ; and it is probable 
 that the plundering of a town like Uriconium 
 was a hasty and imperfect operation, and that 
 the plunderers carried off chiefly objects made 
 of the precious metals, or articles of dress 
 and arms, or other objects on which they 
 set considerable value, as they moved about 
 rapidly, and could not be provided very exten- 
 sively with the means of conveyance. (We 
 are here speaking of the earlier plundering 
 invasions of the barbarians, such as the Picts 
 and Scots, in which perhaps Uriconium perished, 
 towards the middle of the fifth centuiy, for it 
 is hardly probable that the Angles or Saxons 
 could have reached this part of the island at 
 so early a period.) The first impulse of the 
 plunderers was to apply fire to the buildings, 
 and the progress of the conflagration would 
 hasten their departure. Where the inhabitants 
 of the conquered town had not made their 
 escape and abandoned it before it was taken — 
 which was perhaps the case in some of the 
 smaller towns — there would no doubt be a 
 dreadful massacre, and the survivors would be
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONlUM. 17 
 
 dragged away into captivity, for the various 
 peoples who preyed upon the carcass of the 
 mighty empire of Rome, whether German or 
 Celt, or Tartar or Arab, ambitioned, almost 
 above other plunder, the possession of numerous 
 slaves. Thus the plundered town was left 
 without inhabitants, and in flames, of which 
 the latter, as may be judged, on the spot 
 from the massive character of the walls of the 
 houses, were probably partial in their effect, 
 destroying chiefly the timber and roofs. 
 
 Thus the town was left an extensive 
 mass of blackened walls; and such was the 
 condition in which the ruined Roman towns 
 remained during several centuries. Roman 
 walls, we all know, were too strongly built 
 to fall down, and various circumstances com- 
 bined for their preservation. In the first 
 place, the population of the country must have 
 been greatly reduced, and this part of the 
 island especially was probably very thiuly 
 inhabited after it had been ravaged by the 
 invaders. The ruins themselves would in time 
 be overgrown with plants and trees, and would 
 become the haunt of wild beasts, which were 
 then abundant, thus offering very little encour- 
 agement to anybody to enter them. But they 
 were protected in a still greater degree by the 
 strong superstitious feelings with which such 
 ruins were regarded by the people who now 
 occupied the land. The Teutonic invaders had 
 not only a prejudice against towns in general, but 
 they believed that all the deserted buildings
 
 18 THE RUINS OF UEICONIUM. 
 
 of the previous lords of the soil were taken 
 possession of by powerful evil spirits, on whose 
 limits it was in the highest degree dangerous 
 to trespass. They imagined, moreover, that 
 the Eomans had the power of casting spells 
 over buildings, which were no less dangerous 
 than the evil spirits themselves. It will be 
 remembered how, when Augustine and his 
 brother missionaries came to convert the Anglo- 
 Saxons to Christianity, the Kentish king and 
 his court gave them their first audience in 
 the open air; because, as we are told, the 
 Anglo-Saxons were afraid that, should they be 
 received in a covered chamber in the palace, 
 the strangers from Eome would be able to cast 
 a spell upon them. It is a remarkable proof 
 of the strength of this superstitious feeling, 
 that all the Benedictionals of the Anglo-Saxon 
 period contain forms for blessing the vessels 
 of metal or earthenware found in ancient sites, 
 and relieving them from the spells which had 
 been cast upon them by the " pagans," in order 
 that the finders might be enabled to make use 
 of these vessels without any personal danger. 
 When the people of the middle ages, whether 
 Christians or not, found the beautiful bronze 
 figures on which we set so much store, they 
 were in the greatest apprehension of personal 
 danger until they had mutilated them so as to 
 break the charm or spell which they believed to 
 be laid upon them, for they looked upon these 
 images as the more general instruments of the 
 ancient magicians. "When thus mutilated they
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 19 
 
 usually threw them into the nearest river. 
 The numerous bronzes dredged up from the 
 bed of the Thames at London are almost all 
 mutilated in this manner. This was the case 
 also with the inscriptions, for the successors 
 of the Eomans had no other notion of an 
 ancient inscription than that it was a magical 
 charm. This superstition has continued to 
 exist until very recent times, for it appears 
 that, within the memory of man, the peasantry 
 of Northumberland, on the line of the great 
 wall of Hadrian, were accustomed, when they 
 found an inscribed stone — and inscribed stones 
 are there very abundant — to hew out at least 
 a part of the letters of the inscription with a 
 pick or axe, in order to destroy the charm. 
 
 We thus understand how a ruined city — 
 like that at Wroxeter — was allowed to remain 
 untouched for centuries. Many of these ruined 
 towns became the subject of romantic legends. 
 One of these legends relating to an ancient 
 mined city in this, neighbourhood, is told in 
 the curious History of the Fitz-Warines, com- 
 posed in the thirteenth century, in Anglo- 
 Norman, no doubt by a border writer. This 
 writer is describing a visit supposed to have 
 been made by William the Conqueror to the 
 Welsh border in order to distribute the land 
 to his followers. "When King William ap- 
 proached the hills and valleys of Wales he 
 saw a very large town, formerly enclosed with 
 high walls, which was all burnt and ruined, 
 and in a plain below the town he caused his
 
 20 THE RUINS OF UMCONIUM. 
 
 tents to be raised, and there he said he would 
 remain that night. Then the king inquired 
 of a Briton what was the name of the town, 
 and how it came to be so ruined. ' Sire,' said 
 the Briton, 'I will tell yon. The Castle was 
 formerly called Castle Bran, but now it is 
 called the Old March. Formerly there came 
 into this country Brutus, a very valiant knight, 
 and Corineus, from whom Cornwall still retains 
 its name, and many others derived from the 
 lineage of Troy, and none inhabited these parts 
 except very foul people, great giants, whose 
 king was called Geomagog. These heard of 
 the arrival of Brutus, and sent out to encounter 
 him, and at last all the giants were killed 
 except Geomagog, who was marvellously great. 
 Corineus, the valiant, said that he would will- 
 ingly wrestle with Geomagog, to try Geomagog's 
 strength. The giant, on the first onset, em- 
 braced Corineus so tightly, that he broke three 
 of his ribs. Corineus became angry, and struck 
 Geomagog with his foot that he fell from a 
 great rock into the sea, and Geomagog was 
 drowned. And a spirit of the devil now 
 entered into the body of Geomagog, and came 
 into these parts, and held possession of the 
 country long, that never Briton dared to 
 inhabit it. And long afterwards, King Bran 
 the son of Donwal, caused the city to be re- 
 built, repaired the walls, and strengthened the 
 great fosses, and he made Burgh and Great 
 March. And the devil came by night and 
 took away every thing that was therein, since
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 21 
 
 which time nobody has ever inhabited there.' 
 The king marvelled much at this story, and 
 Payn Peverel, the proud and courageous knight, 
 the king's cousin, heard it all, and declared 
 that that night he would essay the marvel. 
 Payn Peverel armed himself very richly, and 
 took his shield, shining with gold, with a 
 cross of azure indented, and fifteen knights 
 and other attendants, and went into the highest 
 palace, and took up his lodging there. And 
 when it was night the weather became so foul, 
 black, 'dark, and such a tempest of lightning 
 and thunder, that all those who were there 
 became so terrified that they could not for 
 fear move hand or foot, but lay on the grouud 
 like dead men. The proud Payn was very 
 much frightened, but he put his trust in God, 
 whose sign of the cross he carried with him, 
 and saw that he could have no help but from 
 God. He lay upon the ground, and with good 
 devotion prayed God and his mother Mary, 
 that they would defend him that night from 
 the power of the devil. Hardly had he 
 finished his prayer, when the fiend came in 
 the semblance of Geomagog, and he carried a 
 great club in his hand, and from his mouth 
 cast fire and smoke, with which the whole 
 town was illuminated. Payn had a good hope 
 in God, and signed himself with a cross, and 
 boldly attacked the fiend. The fiend raised 
 his club and would have struck Payn, but he 
 avoided the blow. The devil, by virtue of the 
 cross, was all struck with fear, and lost his
 
 22 THE RUINS OF UEICONIUM. 
 
 strength, for lie could not approach the cross. 
 Payn pursued him till he struck him with 
 his sword ; then he began to cry out, and fell 
 flat to the ground, and yielded himself van- 
 quished. ' Knight,' said he, ' you have con- 
 quered me, not by your own strength, but by 
 virtue of the cross which you carry.' ' Tell me/ 
 said Payn, ' you foul creature, who you are, and 
 what you do in this town, I conjure you, in 
 the name of God and of the Holy Cross.' 
 The fiend began to relate from word to word 
 as the Briton had said before ; and told how, 
 when Geomagog was dead, he immediately 
 rendered his soul to Beelzebub, their prince, 
 and he entered the body of Geomagog, and 
 came in his semblance into these parts, and 
 kept the great treasure which Geomagog had 
 collected and put into a house he had made 
 underground in that town. Payn demanded 
 of him, ' what kind of creature he was ?' and 
 he said, ' He was formerly an angel, but now 
 is, by his forfeit, a diabolical spirit.' 'What 
 treasure,' said Payn, 'had Geomagog?' 'Oxen, 
 cows, swans, peacocks, horses, and all other 
 animals made of fine gold ; and there was a 
 golden bull, which, through me, was his prophet, 
 and in him was all his belief; and he told 
 him the events that were to come ; and twice 
 a year the giants used to honour their god, 
 the golden bull, whereby so much gold is 
 collected that all this country was called ' The 
 White Land.' And I and my companion in- 
 closed the land with a high wall and deep
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 23 
 
 fosse, so that there was no entrance except 
 through this town, which was full of evil 
 spirits.' ' Now, you shall tell me,' said Payn, 
 1 where is the treasure of which you have 
 spoken V ' Vassal,' said he, ' speak no more 
 of that, for it is destined lor others ; but you 
 shall be lord of all this honour.'" And so 
 the vanquished fiend goes on to tell him the 
 future fortunes of his house; and after King 
 William had been duly informed of this ad- 
 venture, and they had thrown the body of 
 Geomagog into a great pit, they proceeded 
 on their way to Oswestry. 
 
 In my edition of this History of the Fitz- 
 Warines I have offered some conjectures on 
 the spot to which this legend refers ; but on 
 comparing all the circumstances connected with 
 it, I have since been led to the conclusion that 
 the " burnt and ruined " city which had thus 
 been taken possession of by the evil spirits 
 was no other than the ruins of the ancient 
 Uriconium. This story implies that the walls 
 of the town and houses of Uriconium were still 
 standing above ground as late as the eleventh, 
 and twelfth centuries, and very likely a great 
 portion of them remained thus standing at 
 the time when the author of the " History of 
 the Fitz-Warnes " wrote. But during the 
 centuries which had passed since the city of 
 the Romans became a ruin, it had been under- 
 going a gradual but continual change from the 
 accumulation of earth. This rising of the level 
 of the ground is always found to have taken
 
 24 THE EU1NS OF UKICOXIUM. 
 
 place under such circumstances, and may be 
 explained by several causes. In the first place, 
 the floors must have been covered by a mass 
 of rubbish formed by the falling in of the roofs 
 and more perishable parts of the buildings. 
 Vegetation, too, would in the course of years 
 arise, and the walls would stop and cause to 
 be deposited the dust and earthy particles 
 carried about in the atmosphere. This deposit 
 we know by experience to be considerable. It 
 is now little more than three centuries since 
 the dissolution of the monasteries, and we have 
 all had opportunties of observing the depth of 
 earth under which the floors of the monastic 
 ruins now lie, sometimes amounting to as 
 much as three or four feet. What, then, must 
 it have been on an extensive ruin like that of 
 Uriconium, which had stood in that ruined 
 and deserted conditioD from the middle of the 
 fifth century to the middle of the twelfth ? 
 
 It was at this latter period that the Eoman 
 buildings began to be systematically destroyed. 
 It appears that still in the twelfth century, 
 England was covered with the remains of 
 Eoman ruined towns and villas standing above 
 ground, as they are still seen, though on a 
 lamer scale, in the countries which formed the 
 Eoman province m Northern Africa. AVe 
 have seen the superstitious feelings which pre- 
 vented people approaching those ruins in our 
 island, and it recp;iired nothing less than the 
 hand of the Church to interfere and break the 
 charm which kept the rest of society aloof.
 
 THE RUINS OF tmiCONIUM. 25 
 
 We learn from the history of the abbots of St. 
 Alban's, written in the thirteenth century by 
 Matthew Paris, that already in the eleventh 
 century the abbots of that great religious house 
 had began to break the ruins of the Roman city 
 of Verulamiuni, in order to use them as build- 
 ing materials. This practice became very 
 general in the twelfth century, and from that 
 time the Roman ruins were pillaged on an 
 extensive scale whenever a monastery or a 
 church was to be built. The ancient city at 
 Wroxeter was probably one of the great quarries 
 from which the builders of Haughmond Abbey 
 were supplied, and no doubt it contributed 
 materials to other monastic houses in this part 
 of the country. The church of Atcham, the 
 adjoining parish, and that of Wroxeter itself, 
 bear evidence to this appropriation of building 
 materials taken from ancient Uriconium. At 
 the time when this inroad was made upon the 
 ruins, the ground, as explained before, was 
 already raised several feet above the Roman 
 floors; and the madiaeval builders, finding 
 plenty of material above ground, cleared away 
 the walls down to the surface of the ground as 
 it then existed, and sought them no further. 
 This accounts for the condition in which we 
 now find these walls, that is, remaining tolerably 
 perfect just up to the height of what was the 
 level of the ground, at the time the rest was 
 destroyed. The difference between the tops of 
 the walls as they now exist underground, and 
 the present surface of the ground, is the accu- 
 C
 
 & 
 
 26 THE RUINS OF UEICONIUM. 
 
 mulation of earth which has taken place since 
 this destruction. It was the destruction of the 
 buildings which first caused this accumulation, 
 by scattering about the fragments of the plaster 
 of the walls and the broken tiles and stones 
 which were not worth carrying away. After 
 the walls above ground disappeared, and the 
 ground was levelled and cleared, such accu- 
 mulation went on much more slowly. 
 
 The sites of the ancient towns, thus 
 cleared, and the spell which held their invaders 
 at bay having been broken by the ecclesiastics, 
 became exposed to a new class of depredators. 
 Coins and objects of some value were no doubt 
 discovered from time to time by accident, and 
 were greatly exaggerated by common report, 
 during ages when the existence of hidden 
 treasure formed a prominent article in the 
 popular belief. Many a Salopian, doubtless, 
 longed for the hidden treasures of the city of 
 Geomagog, and many an attempt no doubt was 
 made to discover and obtain them. Treasure- 
 hunting of this description was a great pursuit 
 with our mediaeval forefathers, and the same 
 superstitious feelings were connected with it 
 that were attached to all the remains of more 
 ancient peoples. The treasure-hunter rarely 
 ventured on his search without having first 
 secured the aid of a magician for his protection 
 as well as for his guidance, for the same evil 
 spirits were believed still to haunt the ruins 
 undfi ground, and it was hoped that by the 
 power of the conjuror they might not only be
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 27 
 
 rendered harmless, but be made to give inform- 
 ation as to the exact . spot where the treasure 
 lay. Numerous examples might be quoted of 
 such mediaeval treasure-hunting on the Welsh 
 border, but it will be sufficient to give one 
 which appears to belong to the very site on 
 which we are now seeking treasures of another 
 description. An old manuscript chronicle of 
 the monks of Worcester, which is printed in 
 Warton's Anglia Sacra, and has preserved 
 numerous notices of events which occurred on 
 this border, informs us that in the year 1287, 
 at a place by Wroxeter, (that is near the 
 village), called " Bilebury," the fiend was com- 
 pelled by a certain enchanter to appear to a 
 certain lad and shew him where lay buried 
 " urns, and a ship, and a house, with an immense 
 quantity of gold." We easily recognize in the 
 objects described by the false Geomagog, 
 though not the material, the numerous figures 
 in bronze which are from time to time found 
 on Roman sites ; and the urns and ship may 
 perhaps admit of as easy an explanation. The 
 treasure-digger had to encounter sometimes a 
 worse opponent even than the fiend himself. 
 Treasure-trove belonged to the feudal lord, and 
 it was a right which he was inclined to enforce 
 with the utmost severity ; and the unfortunate 
 individual who was caught in the act of 
 trespassing against it found his way immediately 
 into a feudal dungeon, from which escape was 
 not always easy or quick. The learned historian 
 of this county, Mr. Eyton, has met with a record
 
 23 THE RUINS OF URICOXIUM. 
 
 from which we learn that some individuals 
 towards the close of the thirteenth century 
 were thus caught " digging " for a treasure at 
 Wroxeter, and that they were thrown into 
 prison. On their examination or trial, however, 
 it appeared that, though they had dug for a 
 treasure, they had not found one, and on this 
 plea they had the good fortune to be set at 
 liberty. This process of treasure-hunting had 
 an effect injurious to the object of our researches. 
 The mediaeval excavator cared very little about 
 antiquities as monuments of the past, and when, 
 in digging a hole into the ground, he came upon 
 a pavement, he broke it up without any scruple. 
 It is to this cause, perhaps, that we must ascribe, 
 in many cases, the damaged state in which we 
 find the floors of the Roman houses, even when 
 they lie at a considerable depth. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to explain the 
 manner in which a Roman town like Uriconium 
 was ruined ; how its ruin remained several 
 centuries untouched, while a depth of earth was 
 amulating on the floors; how at a later 
 period the ruins themselves began to be cleared 
 away, and a new accumulation of earth was 
 formed over the lower part of the walls which 
 had been left, until these could no longer be 
 traced on the surface, except by the appearance 
 of the crops in long periods of dry weather. 
 This double accumulation of the debris of build- 
 ings has often led people to form erroneous 
 et inclusions, and in the account of a former 
 partial excavation at Wroxeter, published by
 
 THE RUINS OF URTf'ONIUM. 29 
 
 the Society of Antiquaries, the writer has fallen 
 upon the rather old notion that the Roman 
 town had been burnt twice, — that he saw the 
 layers of burnt materials from two successive 
 burnings. 
 
 The effects of all these causes may be seen 
 in the excavations at Wroxeter, — the floor some- 
 timcs perfect and sometimes broken up ; the 
 walls of the houses remaining to the height of 
 two or three feet or more, as they were left by 
 the mediaeval builders, when they carried away 
 the upper part of these walls for material ; the 
 original level of the Eoman town on which its 
 inhabitants trod, strewed with roof-tiles and 
 slates and other material which had fallen in 
 during the conflagration under which the town 
 sank into ruin, and the upper part of the soil 
 mixed up with fragments of plaster and cement, 
 bricks and mortar, which had been scattered 
 about when the walls were broken up. 
 
 The site of Uriconium presents one great 
 advantage to the antiquarian explorer, that only 
 a small and not very important portion of the 
 area has been exposed to the most destructive 
 of all encroachments on its sanctity, mordern 
 buildings ; while the situation and nature of 
 the ground has not required the deep draining 
 which would have cut through the ancient 
 floors, and these lie too far beneath the surface 
 to be touched by the plough. It will be easily 
 understood that the preservation of such remains 
 depends much on the depth of soil which 
 rovers them. The Eev. T. F. More has dis-
 
 30 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 covered and made considerable excavations in 
 a very extensive and most interesting Eoman 
 villa, which occupies part of his beautiful park 
 at Linley Hall, near Bishop's Castle, but there 
 the position of the site, and perhaps other 
 circumstances, have caused the earth to accumu- 
 late much less rapidly, and the floors lay so 
 near to the surface that they have all been 
 destroyed. Where a fragment of the concrete 
 i if the floor remained, it was hardly six inches 
 under the ground. 
 
 Our means of observation have hitherto 
 been so imperfect, that w r e can only form vague 
 conjectures as to the internal aspect and dis- 
 tribution of the buildings of a Roman town in 
 Britain. At the close of the Eoman period the 
 towns were usually, if not always, surrounded 
 with defensive walls; but there are several 
 reasons for believing that the Eoman towns in 
 this island were not walled until a compara- 
 tively late date, perhaps not till the domestic 
 dissensions and foreign invasions of the fourth 
 century. These town walls, wdien closely 
 examined into, are often found to contain 
 materials taken from older buildings of another 
 kind, which older materials themselves present 
 the debased style of architecture which belonged 
 to the declining age of the Eoman power. The 
 lomr straffo'lins line of wall which surrounded 
 
 ~ Tin' 
 
 Uriconium, as we may conclude from its very 
 irregularity, can only have been built at a late 
 date, after the city had gone on for ages increas- 
 ing in its extent. We are naturally led to
 
 THE ItUINS OF UMCONIUM. 31 
 
 suppose that the public buildings would occupy 
 the central, or at least the more elevated pari 
 of the town, and this has in several instances 
 proved to be the case. The discoveries made 
 by Sir Christopher Wren, seem to leave no 
 doubt that a Roman temple occupied the site 
 of the mordern cathedral of St. Paul's, in 
 London. But buildings of all sorts would seem 
 to have been mixed very confusedly together : 
 for we believe that in London, more recent 
 excavations have brought to light remains of 
 potters' kilns in close proximity to this temple. 
 In one or two instances, as at Aldborough, in 
 Yorkshire, (the Roman Isurium), and in some 
 of the small towns on the line of Hadrian's 
 Wall, in Northumberland, masses of the small 
 houses have been uncovered, and their appear- 
 ance leads us to believe that the houses of a 
 Eoman town in Britian were grouped thickly 
 together, that they were mostly separated by 
 narrow alleys, and that there were in general 
 few streets of any magnitude. 
 
 We will now return to the spot where 
 the visitor has halted in view of the imposing 
 mass of Eoman masonry, called the Old Wall, 
 situated, as has been stated, in a large tri- 
 angular field formed by the divergence of the 
 two roads. The Old Wall stands not quite 
 east and west, but sufficiently near it to allow 
 us, for sake of convenience, to call it east and 
 west. Its northern side is evidently the out-
 
 32 THE RUINS OF UPJCOXIUM. 
 
 side of a building, while there could be no 
 doubt that the southern side, on which the 
 springing* of transverse walls and vaulted 
 ceilings are visible, was the interior. The exca- 
 vations were begun on the February 3rd, 1859, 
 on the northern side, or outside, of this wall, 
 partly with the object of ascertaining the 
 depth at which the floors and the foundations 
 of the buildings lay under the present surface 
 of the ground, which, as we have said before, 
 was an important fact to ascertain. The bot- 
 tom of the Old Wall was found at a depth 
 of fourteen feet, the last ten feet of which 
 was sunk in the natural substratum of sand, 
 so that the walls of the buildings in this spot 
 must have had originally very deep foundations. 
 It was found that this wall was continued 
 underground to the west, and excavations di- 
 rected towards the north brought to light 
 successively three walls running parallel, or 
 nearly parallel, to this first wall, the first of 
 these parallel walls being at a uniform distance 
 of fourteen feet from the Old Wall, the next 
 at a distance, also uniform, of thirty feet from 
 this wall, and the third at a distance from 
 the second of fourteen feet at the western 
 and sixteen at the eastern end, so that, as 
 the transverse wall at the eastern end of these 
 walls was not cpiite at right angles to them, 
 this large building was a little out of square. 
 This building, therefore, consisted of three 
 divisions, of which the central enclosure was 
 22G feet long by 30 feet wide, and appears 
 to have been paved in its whole extent with
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUU. 33 
 
 small bricks, three inches long by one inch 
 broad, set in zig-zags, ov, as it is more tech- 
 nically called, herring-bone fashion. This 
 description of pavement appears generally to 
 have been used in passages and in open courts, 
 and it seems probable, even from the magni- 
 tude of this enclosure, that it was not roofed. 
 Nothing was discovered in it to throw any 
 light on the object of so extensive a paved 
 enclosure, but there could be little doubt that 
 it must have been a public building of some 
 importance. Portions of the capitals, bases, 
 and shafts of columns were found scattered 
 about in different parts of the area, which 
 show that it was not wanting in architectural 
 decoration, and on one of the pieces of wall- 
 stucco, picked up in this part of the excavations, 
 were three letters of what had been an in- 
 scription in large characters. Among other 
 objects found here were a fragment of a very 
 strong iron chain, the head of an axe, and 
 an iron implement which appears to have been 
 a trident, and to have been originally placed 
 on a staff, perhaps an ensign of office. The 
 appearance of the face of the Old Wall, which 
 formed part of one side of the long narrow 
 enclosure on the south of this central apart- 
 ment, would lead us to suppose thai; this was 
 an open alley, and this is confirmed by the 
 other circumstances connected with it. In the 
 continuation of the Old Wall to the westward, 
 the lower parts of two doorways were found, 
 which were approached from this alley each
 
 34 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 by a step formed of a single squared stone, 
 which, therefore, may have been supposed to 
 have led from an exterior into an interior. 
 The corresponding long passage to the north 
 of the central apartment presented character- 
 istics of another kind. At the eastern end 
 were found pavements of rather fine mosaic, 
 of which specimens and admirable drawings, 
 by Mr. George Maw, of Broseley, are preserved 
 in the Museum. Mosaic of this description 
 was not made to be exposed to the air, and 
 the building here must not only have been 
 roofed, but we have reason to suppose that 
 there must have been a room or rooms of 
 a character on which elegant ornamentation 
 would be bestowed. 
 
 The walls of this building, as we find them 
 underground, present from time to time dis- 
 continuations, or breaches, caused no doubt by 
 the breaking up of the walls for materials by 
 the mediaeval builders, who sometimes went 
 deeper for them than usual ; and it is very 
 likely that this may have been caused, in some 
 instances at least, by the circumstances that on 
 the site of these breaches were doors or pass- 
 ages, the jambs and ornamental parts of which 
 were formed of large stones which were more 
 tempting to the old excavators. With the 
 exception of these breaches, there are no traces 
 of doorways from one apartment of this build- 
 ing to the other. About the middle of the 
 northernmost wall there is a very wide breach 
 of this kind, which perhaps represents a grand 
 entrance from the north. Moreover, in carry-
 
 THE RUINS OF UKICONIUM. 35 
 
 ins the excavations further towards the north, 
 it was found that this northernmost wall of 
 the building formed the side of a street, which 
 was paved in the middle with round stones, 
 not much unlike the pavements of some of the 
 streets in Shrewsbury and other old towns as 
 they remain at the present day. The northern 
 wall just alluded to was traced eastwardly 
 until the edge of the field in which the excava- 
 tions were carried on prevented the workmen 
 from going any further. Immediately to the 
 east of the building we have been describing 
 was a not quite rectangular enclosure, which, 
 from the appearance of the walls, was probably 
 a court-yard, A door-way, approached by a 
 stone step within the great inclosure to the 
 west, led into it. Beyond this, to the eastward, 
 was a much larger enclosure, which as far as it 
 was explored, had no tracings of walls or pave- 
 ment within, and may possibly have been a 
 garden. At the western end of the great build- 
 ing, about the middle of the extremity of the 
 great central inclosure, indications were dis- 
 covered which probably belonged also to an 
 entrance. These indications consisted of two 
 original openings in the wall, within which 
 were found, evidently in their original position, 
 in one a large squared stone, and in the other 
 two similarly squared stones placed one upon 
 another. One of these was bevelled off at the 
 outer edge into a plain moulding, and their 
 general appearance led to the belief that they 
 had formed the basis of something — perhaps
 
 36 THE EUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 of large columns. Here, therefore, may perhaps 
 have been the principal entrance into the long 
 and extensive area* which occupied the middle 
 of this building. It faced the modern Watling 
 Street Road, which evidently represents another 
 street ; and it thus seems to admit of no doubt 
 that this building formed the corner of two 
 principal streets of the Roman city of Uriconium. 
 We will now return to the long alley, as 
 we have ventured to call it, on the southern 
 side of the building we have been describing. 
 It has been already stated that there were 
 found in this alley two steps, formed each of a 
 large squared stone, attached to two doorways 
 in the western continuation of the Old Wall. 
 The more western of these two steps was very 
 much worn by the feet of the people who had 
 passed over it, as though it had led to some 
 place of public resort. It was at the more 
 easterly of these doorways that the excavations 
 were carried to the southward of the Old Wall. 
 This doorway apparently led into some open 
 court which communicated with domestic apart- 
 ments. A trench carried directly southward 
 from the doorway, brought the excavators to 
 the semicircular end of a hypocaust, which had 
 warmed a considerable room thirty-seven feet 
 long by twenty-five feet wide, and which was in a 
 state of very perfect preservation when opened, 
 although the floor which once covered it had 
 entirely disappeared. The pillars, which were 
 formed of Roman square bricks, placed one 
 upon another without mortar, and of which 120
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 37 
 
 -were counted, were above three feet high. This 
 room has now been competely laid open, and 
 on the western side has a complicated arrange- 
 ment of walls, which evidently served some 
 purpose connected with the heating of the 
 hypocausts. A considerable quantity of un- 
 burnt coal was found here. The northern end 
 of this hypocaust, the wall of which remained 
 to the height of several feet, presents an 
 imposing mass of masonry, and we learn from 
 it the interesting fact that the Soman houses 
 were plastered and painted externally as well as 
 internally. The exterior of the semicircular 
 wall at the north end of this hypocaust was 
 painted red, with stripes of yellow. Near it 
 lay an immense stone, hewn into the shape to 
 fit the semicircular wall of the hypocaust, which 
 had evidently formed part of a massive band 
 of such stones at some height in the wall. A 
 strong piece of iron is soldered into it with 
 lead, for the purpose of attaching something to 
 the building externally. A little alley, con- 
 siderably wider than the spaces between the 
 pillars of bricks, ran across this hypocaust, and 
 through an opening in the wall, into another 
 hypocaust, which was entered from without by 
 a large archway, and this again was approached 
 by a flight of three steps, each step composed 
 of one large well-squared stone, descending 
 from a square platform, which was apparently 
 on a level with the original fL the rooms. 
 
 When the steps were uncovered, a broken shaft 
 oi a large column was found lying across them.
 
 38 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 The platform at the bottom of the steps, or at 
 least the corner of it farthest from the arched 
 entrance to the hypocaust, seems to have been 
 used by the last occupiers of this building as 
 a receptacle for the dust swept from floors and 
 passages, for the earth, for about a foot deep on 
 the floor, was literally filled with coins, hair-pins, 
 fibulae, broken pottery and glass, bones of birds 
 and animals which had been eaten, and a 
 variety of other such objects. 
 
 To the east of the entrance to the hypo- 
 causts, a small room only eight feet square was 
 found, which had a herring-bone pavement like 
 that of the great inclosure to the north of the 
 Old Wall. A rather wide passage throiigh the 
 eastern w r all of this small room led into another 
 room with a hypocaust, the floor of which is 
 also gone. The pillars of this hypocaust were 
 rather more neatly constructed, but they seem 
 to have been considerably lower than those of 
 the hypocausts previously opened. This hypo- 
 caust was the scene of a very interesting 
 discovery. Abundant traces of burning in all 
 parts of the site leave no doubt that the city 
 of Uriconium was plundered, and afterwards 
 burnt by some of the barbarian invaders of 
 Roman Britain at the close of the Eomano- 
 British period, that is, towards the middle of 
 the fifth century. The human remains which 
 have been met with in different parts, bear 
 testimony to a frightful massacre of the in- 
 habitants. It would seem that a number of 
 persons had been pursued to the buildings
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 39 
 
 immediately to the south of the line of the 
 Old Wall, and slaughtered there ; for in trench- 
 ing across what were perhaps open courts to 
 the south and south-east of the door through 
 the continuation of the Old Wall, remains of 
 at least four or five skeletons were found, and 
 in what appears to have been a corner of a 
 yard outside the semicircular end of the hypo- 
 caust first discovered, lay the skull and some 
 of the bones of a very young child. In the last 
 of the hypocausts we have been describing, three 
 skeletons were found, that of a person who 
 appears to have died in a crouching position 
 in one of the comers, and two others stretched 
 on the ground by the side of the wall. An 
 examination of the skull of the person in the 
 corner leaves no room for doubting that he 
 was a very old man. One at least of the others 
 was a female. Near the old man lay a little 
 heap of Eoman coins, in such a manner as to 
 show that they must have been contained in a 
 confined receptacle, and a number of small iron 
 nails scattered among them, with traces of 
 decomposed wood, prove that this was a little 
 box, or coffer. The remains of the wood are 
 still attached to two or three of the coins. We 
 are justified from all these circumstances in 
 concluding that in the midst of the massacre of 
 Roman Uriconium, these three persons — perhaps 
 an old man and two terrified women — had 
 sought to conceal themselves by creeping into 
 the hypocaust ; and perhaps they were suffocated 
 there, or, when the house was delivered to the
 
 40 THE RUINS OF UPJCONIUM. 
 
 flames, the falling rubbish may have blocked 
 up the outlet so as to make it impossible for 
 them to escape. It is not likely that they 
 ■would have been followed into such a place as 
 this hypocaust. These coins were 132 in 
 number, and the following description of them 
 has been given by Mr. C. lioach Smith : — 
 
 Tetricus. One much worn, of the Fides Militum type.. 1 
 
 Claudius. One, rev. Consecratio ; an eagle . .■ 1 
 
 Constantine the Elder. Ohv. Constantinvs. max. avg. 
 Head diademed, or wreathed, to the right. Bev. Glo- 
 ria exercitvs. Two soldiers with spears and shields, 
 standing ; hetween them two standards ; or (in three 
 instances) a single standard. 
 
 Mint Marks (exergual letters) : p . const., 3 ; tr . p.. 
 
 6 ; s . l . c. 1 ; illegible, 3 ; total 13 
 
 Constats, Ohv. Much worn or decayed. Bev. eel . 
 temp . reparatio. The emperor holding a globe and 
 a standard, standing in a galley rowed by a Victory. 
 This coin is altogether much worn. It possibly may 
 have been plated 1 
 
 CoXSTANTINE II. Ohv . CONSTANTINVS . IVN . NOB . C. 
 
 Laureated head, to the right; bust in armour. Bev. 
 GLORIA exercitvs. Two soldiers standing; between 
 them two standards, and on the same a wreath, or 
 other object, in the field. 
 
 / letters : tr . p. or tr . s.. 15 : p . l . c. 9 ; 
 const., 3; illegible, 9; total 36 
 
 CONSTANTITJS II. Ohv. T . L . IVL . CONSTANTIVS . NOB . C. 
 
 Laureated head, to the right; bust in armour. Bev. 
 GLORIA -vs. Two . &c, as on the coins 
 
 of the preceding. 
 
 J- ■ . I leti e . s., 3 : p., 1 ; smts, 1 ; total 5
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 41 
 
 Julian. A plated denarius. Obv. fl . cl . itlianvs : 
 p . f . avo. Diademed head to the right. Rev. votis 
 v multt . xx., within a wreath 1 
 
 Helena. Obv. r : l . ivl . helenae avg. Head to the 
 right. Rev. pax pvblica. A female figure standing 
 and holding in the right hand a branch, and in the 
 left hand a liasta pura. In the field, a cross ; in the 
 exergne, tr . p. Another without the cross. Total 2 
 
 Theodora. Obv. fl . theodorae. avg. Head to the 
 right. Rev. pietas romana. A female standing suck- 
 ling an infant : in the exergue, tr . p 1 
 
 Urbs Roma. Obv . vrbs roma. Galeated head of Rome, 
 
 to the left. Rev. Romulus and Remus nursed by the 
 
 wolf ; above, two stars : on two, two stars and a wreath. 
 
 In the exergue : pl . c, 11 ; tr . p . or tr . s., 10 ; 
 
 illegible, 3 ; total 24 
 
 Constantinopolis. Obv. Constantinopolis. Bust of per- 
 sonified Constantinople, helmed, and holding a sceptre, 
 to the left. Rev. A winged Victory, with liasta pura and 
 shield ; her feet upon the prow of the galley, to the left. 
 Exergual letters : tr . p., 20 ; p . l . c. or s . L . c, 
 9 ; o . sis. 1 ; s . const., 1 ; illegible, 3 ; total. . 34 
 
 Valens. Obv. d.n. valens.... Diademed head, to 
 the right. Rev. secvritas. . . . Victory with wreath 
 and palm branch marching to the left. Much corroded 1 
 
 Rude copies of some of the foregoing 6 
 
 Extremely corroded 6 
 
 Total number 132 
 
 D
 
 42 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 This is, I believe, the first instance which 
 has occurred in this country, in which we have 
 had the opportunity of ascertaining what 
 particular coins, as being then in daily circula- 
 tion, an inhabitant of a Eoman town in Britain, 
 at the moment when the Eoman domination 
 in this country was expiring, carried about 
 with him. Mr. Eoach Smith, speaking of the 
 great majority of these coins, these of the Con- 
 stantine family, remarks to me — " I suspect 
 these coins were sent into Britain even after 
 the time of Valens, because they all are com- 
 paratively sharp and fresh. It is not improbable 
 that the procurators at Treves and at Lugdunum 
 may have had large stores of these coins by 
 them, which they sent out at intervals." A 
 consideration of these coins gives us an approxi- 
 mation, at least, towards the date at which 
 Uriconium must have been destroyed; Mr. 
 Eoach Smith agrees in the opinion that a com- 
 parison of them points to the very latest period 
 previous to the establishment of the Anglo- 
 Saxons. At a later period the freshly struck 
 coins of the Constantino family could not have 
 been brought over. They show us that at that 
 time the great mass of the circulating medium 
 consisted of coins of the Constantine family, 
 whioh again explains to us why the first coin- 
 age of the Anglo-Saxons was nearly all copied 
 from the coins of the emperors of that family. 
 Again, the care with which these small copper 
 coins (for only one is of plated silver) seem to 
 have been hoarded up, and the anxiety of their
 
 THE RUINS OF UltlCONIUM. 43 
 
 possessors to preserve them in the midst of a 
 frightful calamity, may perhaps assist us in 
 forming an estimate of the relative value of 
 money at this period. 
 
 The rooms which joined up to the south 
 side of the Old Wall, and which have been 
 more recently uncovered, were five in number, 
 and it appears from the remains, which are 
 distinctly visible on the face of the Old Wall, 
 that they had vaulted roofs of the kind tech- 
 nically called barrel roofs. In one of these 
 rooms was found a quantity of burnt wheat, 
 which would lead us to suppose that this 
 might have been a store room. The most 
 easterly of these rooms has had the interior 
 surface of its walls ornamented with tessellated 
 work instead of fresco-painting ; the lower 
 edge of which, consisting of a guilloche border, 
 still remains. The floor below has a plain 
 pavement of small white tessellas, and is 
 apparently that of a bath. To the south of 
 these rooms a long passage was discovered, 
 which appears to have communicated at one 
 end with the floor of the room in the hypo- 
 caust of which the skeletons were found. In 
 this passage was a square pit of very good 
 masonry, through which a drain rims, nearly 
 north and south. The stucco of the southern 
 face of the wall, forming the southern side 
 of the passage just alluded to, presented an 
 inscription scrawled in large straggling 
 characters incised with some sharp pointed 
 instrument, and closely resembling in character
 
 44 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 similar inscriptions which have been found on 
 walls in Pompeii. When first uncovered, two 
 lines of this inscription, perhaps the whole of 
 it, seemed to have been perfectly well preserved, 
 but before anybody had had the opportunity 
 of examining it, two casual visitors with 
 walking sticks, amused themselves with break- 
 ing off the plaster, in order apparently to try 
 its strength, and were not observed by the 
 workmen until the first line had been com- 
 petely destroyed, and the second, which had 
 been a shorter one, was very much broken into, 
 though just enough remained to show that it 
 must have been written in Latin. Even this 
 small remnant was nearly destroyed during the 
 interruption of the excavations, and not a trace 
 of it can now be seen. Thus all the advantages 
 of a discovery which might have been singularly 
 important for our knowledge of the state of 
 Britain at this period, have been lost through 
 mischievous wantonness. 
 
 During the month of May, 1859, the work 
 of the excavators was interrupted ; when it was 
 resumed, they proceeded to explore the building 
 to which these hypocausts belonged, beginning 
 from the side of the field adjoining to the 
 Watling Street Eoad, — that is, from the side 
 of one of the main streets of the old Roman 
 town, — and they found walls in the line, or 
 nearly in the line, of the western wall of the 
 great public building just described. Another 
 .street has since been discovered to the south, 
 running east and west, parallel to that met
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 45 
 
 with to the north of the buildings first excavated. 
 The excavations have since that time been 
 followed in various parts of the two acres first 
 inclosed by the Excavation Committee, and a 
 large extent of ruins is now laid open. But I 
 will here interrupt my narrative, while I give 
 an account of the general character of the 
 buildings, the ruins of which have already been 
 brought to light. 
 
 As yet the excavations on the site of 
 Uriconium have not been carried far enough 
 to enable us to form any idea of the general 
 distribution of the Eoman town, but it is evi- 
 dent that the building on which the excavators 
 are employed were inclosed by three main 
 streets, crossing at right angles, forming a 
 square mass. It has been stated that the few 
 discoveries hitherto made as to the character 
 of the streets in the Eoman towns in Britain 
 would lead us to think that they were little 
 more than narrow alleys, but this was cer- 
 tainly not the case with these three streets of 
 Roman Uriconium, which seem to have been 
 fine wide streets, and in the one to the north, 
 the pavement of small round stones appears to 
 have occupied only the middle part of the 
 street, designed probably for carriages and
 
 46 THE RUINS OF UKICONIUM. 
 
 horses. A tolerably wide space on each 
 side seems, as far as can be traced, to have 
 been impaved. But, although we have as yet 
 made little advance towards discovering the 
 general character of Uriconium as a city, and 
 the manner in which the houses were dis- 
 tributed over the Eoman town, we had found 
 sufficient fragments of different kinds to give 
 us a tolerable notion of the houses themselves. 
 The average thickness of the walls of a 
 house even where they only separated one 
 small room from another, was three feet. They 
 are rarely less than this, and it is only in 
 one or two cases of what appeared to be very 
 important walls that they exceed it, when they 
 reach the thickness of four feet. This measure 
 of three feet was no doubt a well understood 
 one for the wall of a house, and it was con- 
 tinued in the middle ages, when, in ordinary 
 dwellings, only the division walls between house 
 and house were of solid masonry. Municipal 
 regulations then fixed these partition walls at 
 a minimum of three feet in thickness, the 
 cause of which limitation was probably the 
 fear of fires ; and in these mediaeval municipal 
 regulations, it was further ordered, that closets 
 or cupboards in the wall should in no case 
 be made more than one foot deep, so that 
 if your own cupboard and your neighbour's 
 happened to back each other, there would still 
 be a foot of solid masonry between the two 
 houses. And the masonry of the Eomans 
 may well be called solid. Its character may
 
 THE RUINS OF UBICON1UM. 47 
 
 be seen perhaps to most advantage in the Old 
 Wall above ground. The process of building 
 seems to have been to raise first, gradually, 
 the facings of neatly-squared stones, supported, 
 no doubt between frames of woodwork, the 
 supports of which left holes which are still 
 seen in the face of the wall. The interior was 
 then filled up with rubble mixed with liquid 
 and apparently hot cement, which formed the 
 mass of the wall, and in setting has become 
 in course of time harder than the stones 
 themselves. After a certain number of rows 
 of facing-stones, the Roman builders almost 
 invariably placed a string-course of broad thin 
 bricks, the object of which is not at all evi- 
 dent, for they do not go through the wall so 
 as to form real bonding-courses. The Old 
 Wall still standing in probably nearly its 
 original height, will also give us a notion of 
 the elevation of the principal houses of the 
 Roman towns. 
 
 In spite, however, of this rather consider- 
 able elevation, which, reckoning for dilapidation 
 at the top and the portion buried under ground, 
 cannot have been much less than thirty feet, 
 it seems nearly certain that the Roman houses 
 in Britain had no upper stories, and that all 
 the rooms were on the ground floor. No 
 traces of a staircase have ever been found, 
 and all the fragments which are met with, 
 indicate that the rooms were open to the roof. 
 These roofs appear to have been of substantial 
 construction, and were probably supported on
 
 48 THE RUINS OF UMCONIUM. 
 
 a strong frame of woodwork. The common 
 coverings of the Roman houses of this island 
 consisted of large square tiles with strongly- 
 flanged edges, and these tiles being joined side 
 to side, a curved tile forming the half of a 
 cylinder was placed over the flanges of the 
 two tiles which joined, thus holding them 
 together, and at the same time protecting the 
 juncture so that rain could not pass through 
 it. These tiles, and the manner in which they 
 are arranged, will be understood by our figures, 
 (pi. iv., figs. 1. 2. 3.) The Eoman houses were 
 also very commonly roofed with slates, or 
 rather flags, and this appears to have been 
 the more usual description of roofing at Uri- 
 conium. These roof-flags are found scattered 
 about abundantly on the floors, sometimes 
 unbroken. They are formed of a micaceous 
 laminated sandstone, which is found on the 
 edge of the north Staffordshire and Shropshire 
 coalfield, at no great distance from Wroxeter, 
 and must have produced a glittering appearance 
 in the sunshine. Their form is represented 
 in our cut, (pi. iv., fig. 5) ; it was that of an 
 elongated hexagon, with a hole at one end, 
 through which an iron nail was passed to fix 
 it to the wooden frame-work. The nail is 
 often found still remaining in the hole. These 
 flags, which are very thick and heavy, were 
 placed to lap over each other, and thus formed 
 a roof in lozenges or diamonds, as represented 
 in fig. G. Slates, forming one half of the 
 hexagon (fig. 4), w 7 ere placed at the top of
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONITJM. 49 
 
 the roof, so as to make a strictly horizontal 
 line. It is a curious circumstance that in the 
 illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts we 
 find roofs of houses which evidently represent 
 both these methods, and which appear, there- 
 fore, to have been continued long after the 
 Roman period. In fact they are still used 
 in Yorkshire, and perhaps in other counties, 
 and have been used very recently on the Welsh 
 border. In the towns which were the head- 
 quarters of a legion, as at Caerleon, Chester, 
 and York, or which had been occupied for 
 some length of time by legionary detachments, 
 we often find the name and number of the 
 legion stamped on the roof-tiles. These roof- 
 tiles were frequently used for other purposes. 
 They are sometimes employed in the string- 
 courses in walls, when the builders appear to 
 have run short of the ordinary square tiles 
 or flat bricks ; and they are still more fre- 
 quently used to form the beds of drains and 
 aqueducts, when the flanged edges were turned 
 up, and set in the cement, formed the side of 
 the water-course. A very good example of 
 this use of the roof-tiles may be seen in the 
 drain at Wroxeter mentioned above. 
 
 Internally, the walls of the Eoman houses 
 were covered with fine hard cement, which was 
 painted in fresco, that is, the colours were laid 
 on the cement while it was wet, and they thus 
 set with it, and became almost imperishable. In 
 some of the houses in Roman Britain, and espe- 
 cially in the large villas, the internal walls were
 
 50 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 covered with fine historical subjects as in the 
 walls of Pompeii, and sufficient remains have 
 been found in this island to show that they 
 were here also executed in no mean style of 
 art. Nothing of this kind, has yet been dis- 
 covered in Uriconium ; but numerous fragments 
 are picked up in the diggings, on which the 
 colouring is perfectly fresh, and which exhibit 
 portions of designs which are always elegant 
 and in good taste. In one case a piece of the 
 stucco from the internal surface of a wall con- 
 tained some letters of an inscription. One of 
 the walls near the hypocaust where the three 
 skeletons were found presented a singular and 
 rather laborious method of ornamenting its 
 interior surface. Instead of being painted, it 
 was tessellated, the surface being covered with 
 tessellae, one half of an inch by three-fifths in 
 dimension, set in the cement, alternately of 
 dark and light colours, in horizontal lines, so 
 as to produce somewhat the appearance of 
 chequer-work. Perhaps when entire, it pre- 
 sented an ornamental pattern. I have already 
 stated that a similarly tessellated wall was found 
 in the easternmost part of this line of rooms. 
 Circumstances have come to light which show 
 that the exterior of the walls of houses were 
 also plastered and painted. The exterior of the 
 semicircular end of the largest hypocaust yet 
 opened was thus plastered over, a'nd painted 
 red with stripes of yellow. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that in the walls, 
 to the certainly not very great elevation they
 
 THE EUINS OF URICONIUM. 51 
 
 now generally reach, few doorways are dis- 
 covered, a circumstance which is by no means 
 easily explained. Small rooms are found with- 
 out any apparent means of access. Perhaps, 
 in such cases, the doorway was at a certain 
 elevation in the wall, and was approached on 
 both sides by wooden steps, which have long 
 perished, and left no traces of the means of 
 entrance. Of course, none of the walls of the 
 houses remain sufficiently high to enable us to 
 judge of the manner in which light was 
 admitted into the rooms, whether from side 
 windows, or from openings in the roof. Pro- 
 bability, however, is in favour of roof- windows 
 being in common use, and an interesting cir- 
 cumstance connected with the excavations at 
 Wroxeter seems decisive as to the material of 
 the windows. Considerable quantities of fine 
 window glass have been found scattered over 
 the floors of the houses, of an average thickness 
 of full one-eighth of an inch, which have been 
 duly deposited in the Museum at Shrewsbury. 
 It is the more curious as it has been the com- 
 mon opinion, until recently, that the Romans, 
 especially in this distant province, did not use 
 window-glass ; and the fragments of window- 
 glass which have been found more recently in 
 the excavations on the sites of Roman villas 
 have been much thinner than that found at 
 Wroxeter, and of very inferior quality. It is 
 evident, that some of the rooms, all the walls of 
 which were only walls of separation from other 
 rooms, must have received light from above, or 
 have been quite dark.
 
 52 THE RUINS OF URICOSHTM. 
 
 I must now describe a peculiar character- 
 istic of the domestic economy of a Eoman house 
 in Britain, and in the other western and 
 northern provinces of the empire. The Eomans 
 did not warm their apartments by fire lighted 
 in them, as was the case in the middle ages, and 
 in modern times, but by hot air circulated in 
 the walls. The floor of the house, formed of a 
 considerable thickness of cement, was laid upon 
 a number of short pillars, formed usually of 
 square Eoman tiles placed one upon another, 
 and from two to three feet high. Those of the 
 largest of the hypocausts yet found at Wroxeter 
 were rather more than three feet high. Some- 
 times these supports were of stone, and in one 
 or two cases in discoveries made in this country, 
 they were round. They were placed near to 
 each other, and in rows, and upon them were 
 lain first large tiles, and over these a thick 
 mass of cement, which formed the floor, and 
 upon the surface of which the tessellated pave- 
 ments were set. Sometimes small parallel 
 walls, forming flues instead of rows of columns, 
 supported the floors, of which an example has 
 already been found in the excavations at 
 Wroxeter. Flue-tiles, — that is, square tubes 
 made of baked clay, with a hole on one side, 
 or sometimes on two sides, — were placed against 
 the walls end-ways, one upon another, so as to 
 run up the wall. These arrangements, — which 
 were called hypocausts, from two Greek words, 
 signifying heat underneath, and were used in 
 Italy and Greece chiefly for warming baths, are
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 53 
 
 represented in plate iv., fig. 7, where aa is the 
 floor of cement, b b the pillars supporting it, 
 and c c the flue-tiles running up the wall of 
 the room. They had an entrance from the 
 outside somewhat like the mouth of an oven, 
 and fires being lighted here, the hot air was 
 driven inward, and not only filled the space 
 under the floor, but entered the flue-tiles by the 
 holes in the sides, was carried by them up the 
 inside of the wall, and no doubt had some way 
 of escape at the roof. The ashes and soot of 
 the fires have been found in the hypocausts at 
 Uriconium, just as they were left when the city 
 was overthrown and ruined by the barbarians. 
 The ashes are chiefly those of wood, but con- 
 siderable remains of mineral coal have been 
 discovered. These hypocausts must sometimes 
 have become clogged and out of order, and it 
 would be necessary to cleanse them, as people 
 in aftertimes cleansed chimneys. A sort of 
 alley across the middle of the large hypocaust 
 last-mentioned, was probably intended for this 
 purpose. It communicated with another hypo- 
 caust adjoining it to the north by a doorway, 
 and this other hypocaust was entered by a 
 rather large archway at the foot of the steps 
 already mentioned. People appear to have 
 been sometimes satisfied with having the hot 
 air merely under the floor, and the flue-tiles 
 were not always used. Comparatively few of 
 them, indeed, have been yet found in the 
 hypocausts of Uriconium.
 
 54 THE PvUINS OF UMCONIUM. 
 
 The requirements of argiculture have 
 rentered it necessary to cover up again all the 
 excavations to the north of the Old Wall, and 
 the vails of the great public building at the 
 corner of the two streets can no longer be seen 
 by the visitor. A piece of ground, however, 
 immediately to the south of the Old Wall has 
 been taken by the Excavation Committee at 
 Shrewsbury upon a rent, and on this piece of 
 ground the excavations are now carried on. It 
 forms a parallelogram, 319 feet long, by 279 
 feet wide, containing an area of exactly two 
 acres, including the Old Wall at its northern 
 edge. This piece of ground has been strongly 
 fenced round with hurdles, and it is entered by 
 a gate from the Waiting Street Road. By the 
 liberality of the Excavation Committee the 
 public are admitted to this inclosure freely, 
 and it is to be hoped that the visitors will ac- 
 knowledge this liberality by carefully abstaining 
 from committing any injury on the Roman 
 remains, or by walking upon or entering into 
 the parts in the course of excavation. 
 
 The plan annexed (p. 5) of the excavations 
 now in progress will enable me to explain them 
 to the visitor. The darkly-shaded mass, a a, 
 represents the Old Wall, or portion of Roman 
 masonry, standing above ground ; to the north 
 of which lay the extensive building formed by 
 the walls b b, c c, d d, running parallel to the 
 Old Wall. The wall d d, bordered upon a 
 wide street. To the east of these walls lay an 
 inclosure, e, perhaps a courtyard, and a large
 
 THE RUINS OF UMCONIUM. 55 
 
 space, /, which has been conjectured to have 
 been a garden, but which has been very imper- 
 fectly explored. All these remains have been 
 explained before; they have been buried again, 
 and the ground is now covered with crops. 
 The Old Wall, which stands just within the 
 north-eastern corner of the space separated from 
 the rest of the field by a fence of hurdles, now 
 forms the northern boundary of the excavations. 
 The visitor is introduced into this space by 
 a gateway from the road, nearly at its north- 
 western corner. Opposite this gateway he will 
 see an apartment, which the excavators are 
 now in the course of exploring. It is nearly a 
 square, and is about thirty-four feet in its 
 longest dimensions. The side towards the 
 street seems to have been open, or at least the 
 masonry of the wall presents the appearance 
 of having had wide folding doors, or a frame- 
 work of wood of some kind in two compart- 
 ments 6, 6. In the centre of the room is a large 
 pier of masonry (1), perhaps a table for workmen. 
 More towards the north-western corner, a sort 
 of furnace or forge (2) was found, built of red 
 clay, with a hole or cavity in the upper part 
 sufficiently large for a man to thrust his head 
 in. As the surface of the cavity, internally, 
 is competely vitrified, and as there was much 
 charcoal strewed about, there can be no doubt 
 that the cavity had been occupied by a very 
 fierce fire. A low wall has been traced, running 
 across the room east and west in a line with 
 this furnace ; and two transverse low walls of
 
 56 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 similar character. Upon the low wall a little 
 behind the forge (at 3), the excavators came 
 upon what was supposed to be the lower part 
 of a column with its base ; but it is formed 
 roughly, and I think it more probable that it 
 was a stone table for the use of the workmen at 
 the furnace. It was at first supposed that this 
 might belong to a colonnade running along 
 the wall ; but no trace of such a colonnade has 
 been found, although a large piece of a shaft of 
 a column lies in the middle of the room. This 
 column, however, is of larger dimensions than 
 the supposed base (3). Had such a colonnade 
 existed, it seems so little in accordance with 
 the existence of a forge, that we might be led 
 to suspect that the room had, at some late 
 period, been diverted from its original purpose, 
 and occupied by a worker in metals, or even 
 in glass, as fine specimens of glass were found 
 scattered about, and also many fragments of 
 metal. But objects of all kinds seem to have 
 been thrown about in such a manner, when the 
 town was plundered, that it would be unsafe 
 to argue upon the purpose of any particular 
 building, merely from moveable articles found 
 in it. Among other things found in this room 
 were nearly a dozen hair-pins, two of which 
 were much more ornamental than any we had 
 found before ; a much greater quantity of frag- 
 ments ofSamian ware, and of higher artistic 
 merit, than had previously been met with in 
 one spot ; a portion of a large bronze fibula ; a 
 number of coins, and other things. One of
 
 THE RUINS OF UIUCONIUM. 57 
 
 the vessels of Samian ware is a fiiie bowl 
 with figures in high relief, representing a stag- 
 hunt. Upon the low wall of the sill (6) a 
 number of copper Roman coins (about sixty) 
 were found together ; and near them the frag- 
 ment of a small earthern vessel, in which 
 probably they had been carried by some one 
 who dropped them there as he was hurrying out 
 of the place. Turning from the gate of the 
 field to the right, or south, along the inside of 
 the hedge, the visitor will come to a porton of 
 uncovered wall, h h, running north and south, 
 upwards of eighty feet, in which there are two 
 entrance gateways, i, p. The first of these is 
 about twelve feet wide, and was approached by 
 a sort of inclined plane, formed of three large 
 squared masses of stone, each about four feet 
 square by eleven inches in thickness. The 
 other entrance, which was only five feet wide, 
 was approached by two steps, each similarly 
 formed of one mass of stone; of which the 
 lower step is worn very much at its south-west 
 corner, in a manner to lead us to believe that 
 the great majority of the people who passed 
 through this entrance came'up the street from 
 the south. The upper step, or stone, is so much 
 worn by the feet of those who passed over it, 
 that it broke into three pieces under the work- 
 men's picks. On one side of it there is a deep 
 hollow, representing nearly the form of a small 
 human foot, which seems to have been scooped 
 into the stone for some purpose with which we 
 are not acquainted. These two entrances lead 
 
 E
 
 58 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 into one square court, the floor of which, proved 
 by the steps and inclined plane to have been 
 on a higher level than the street without, was 
 paved with small bricks laid in herring-bone 
 work, like the great inclosure to the north of 
 the Old Wall. It is found to have been much 
 damaged and mended in ancient times, which 
 seems to countenance the supposition that the 
 wide entrance and the inclined plane by which 
 it was approached were intended for horses 
 and perhaps for carts or for heavy barrows. 
 Among the Objects found in excavating here 
 was a portion of a horse-shoe. On each side 
 of this court a row of chambers is found, m m m, 
 four on the north side and four on the south, 
 from ten to twelve feet square. The western- 
 most of these chambers, on the north side of 
 the court, has been cleared out, and was found to 
 be ten feet deep, with a low transverse wall at 
 the bottom, the object of which is at present 
 quite inexplicable. A quantity of charcoal 
 was found in this room, as though it had been 
 a store-room for that article. One of the other 
 rooms, on each side of the court, seemed to 
 have been a receptacle for bones, horns, &c. ; 
 and as some of these had evidently been sawn 
 and cut, and others partly turned on a lathe, 
 they suggested the idea of having belonged to 
 limiiiii'Hcturers of the various objects made of 
 this material which are found so commonly in 
 the course of the excavations. They may, 
 therefore, have been the magazines of manu- 
 facturers and tradesmen, a notion which is
 
 THE EUINS OF URICON1UM. 50 
 
 somewhat confirmed by the circumstance of 
 several weights of different sizes having been 
 found in this part of the excavations ; or they 
 may have been mere depots for the stores and 
 refuse of a large mansion or other establishment. 
 These rooms are, perhaps, all deep like the one 
 already cleared out, but it is remarkable that, as 
 high as the walls remain, that is, about two 
 feet above the floor of the court, there is no 
 trace of entrances to them, which must, therefore, 
 have been rather high in the wall, and they were 
 entered perhaps by a ladder. 
 
 The back part of this court consists of a 
 long narrow inclosure, which is divided into 
 compartments by four transverse walls proceed- 
 ing from the western wall about halfway across 
 the inclosure, thus leaving a passage along the 
 eastern side. These compartments have much 
 the appearance of small shops or stalls for 
 selling, and seem to confirm the notion that this 
 building may have been a market-place. The 
 workmen, finding a doorway in the wall of the 
 back of this inclosure, at n in the plan, a trench 
 was carried through the ground to the eastward. 
 At about twelve feet from the opening at n, 
 they came upon a wall at h, running parallel to 
 the wall o o of the court, and beyond this they 
 found first a narrow passage, and then a rise 
 with a pavement of cement which extended 
 some four or five feet, and then suddenly sank 
 to a floor of large flag-stones, at a depth of 
 upwards of four feet from the floor of cement. 
 This flagged floor, the position of which is
 
 60 THE EUINS OF UBICONIUM. 
 
 marked by the letter q in the plan, was perhaps 
 a reservoir of water ; the bottom was found 
 covered with black earth filled with broken 
 pottery and other things, such as may easily 
 have been supposed to have been thrown into 
 a pond. The water appears to have been only 
 between two and three feet deep, as the floor 
 on the opposite side runs about level with the 
 ledge or step just mentioned, and is continued 
 eastward until, at r, we come upon the rather 
 massive walls of a building, the. nature of which 
 cannot be determined without further investiga- 
 tion. At a short distance within this wall, at 
 a deptli of about three feet below the cement 
 floor, we find a floor, at s, about ten feet wide 
 by thirty long, formed of flat Roman tiles, 
 twelve inches by eighteen inches square. This 
 floor has been uncovered, and as there was an 
 indentation in the middle which seems to 
 indicate that it was hollow underneath, a hole 
 was made there, but it lead to no discovery. 
 This seems also to have been a tank of water, 
 perhaps a cold water bath. The cement floor 
 was continued easterly until it was terminated 
 by a wall, t, which ran at right angles to the 
 eastern end of the Old Wall, and appears to be 
 the eastern termination of the buildings now 
 in course of exploration. The earth and rub- 
 bish from the excavations have been here 
 thrown into a great mound, from the top of 
 which the visitor can enjoy the bird's eye view 
 of the excavations. A few yards to the north, 
 he will come to the important line of excava-
 
 THE RUINS OF TJKICONIUM. Gl 
 
 tions nearer to the Old Wall. A small chamber, 
 about eight feet square, with a herring-bone 
 pavement in very good preservation, projects 
 beyond the line of this eastern wall at u in 
 our plan. To the west of this is a small 
 hypocaust r, the floor of which has been a 
 little lower than that of the room u. In this 
 hypocaust were found the remains of two 
 skeletons, one of which was that of a young 
 person. The northern wall of the room v is 
 particularly interesting, because in its whole 
 height of full nine feet, it presents the remains 
 of the lines of flue-tiles which ran up it, hardly 
 an inch apart, and which show that this room 
 must have been intended to be very much 
 heated. It was, perhaps, a sudatorium, or 
 sweating room. The opening from u to v 
 occupies nearly the whole width of the former 
 room, and was perhaps closed by a wooden 
 door. On the western side of the hypocaust, 
 at w, the wall has a sort of basement, formed 
 of large stones, scooped out in a singular manner, 
 the object of which is by no means evident. 
 We here come upon a series of passages x, to 
 the north of which were four rooms, z z z z, 
 extending to the Old Wall. On the face of 
 the Old Wall we can distinctly trace the 
 springing not only of the walls of division 
 the lower parts of which are found under- 
 ground, but of the vaulting, from which it 
 appears that these rooms are technically- called 
 the barrel-roofs of masonry. They were slightly 
 explored at the beginning of the excavations,
 
 62 THE TWINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 and in one of them was found a quantity of 
 burnt wheat, as though it had been a store- 
 room. 
 
 In the passages alluded to, there is at y, 
 a square pit, somewhat like what might be a 
 cesspool, of very good and substantial masonry, 
 at the bottom of which runs north and south 
 a very well formed drain, the bed of which is 
 formed of large roof-tiles. To the south of this 
 is a hypocaust, a, which differs from the other 
 hypocausts yet opened, in being partly formed 
 of low parallel walls instead of rows of pillars. 
 On the wall of the passage leading to this 
 hypocaust from the east was found the inscrip- 
 tion mentioned at page 45. Westward from 
 the hypocaust A, but without any apparent 
 communication between them, was another 
 hypocaust, B, which had been constructed in 
 the usual manner, the floors supported by rows 
 of low columns, formed of square thin bricks. 
 It was in this hypocaust that the three skeletons 
 mentioned before {p. 41) were found, the man 
 who possessed the money crouching in the 
 north-west corner, and the two persons sup- 
 posed to be women, extending along the side 
 of the northern wall. The opening into this 
 hypocaust was through its southern wall, from 
 the interior court, so that the fugitives must 
 have crept along the whole length of the 
 hypocaust to reach their place of concealment. 
 The part of this interior court, immediately 
 adjacent to this hypocaust, which has been 
 excavated to some extent, presents several
 
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 63 
 
 interesting features. A breach in the eastern 
 boundary wall had been newly repaired with 
 much inferior masonry at the time when the 
 city of Uriconium was taken and destroyed ; 
 and it is a curious circumstance that some 
 large pieces of stone lie here on the floor of 
 the court, unfinished by the masons, as though 
 repairs and alterations in the buildings were 
 going on at the very moment of the final 
 catastrophe. Adjoining to this hypocaust, at 
 its north-west corner, is a square room c, with 
 the herring-bone pavement, exactly like that 
 at u in character and dimensions which had 
 opened into the room above the hypocaust B, 
 much in the same manner as u opened in the 
 room v. Separated from this room by a wall, 
 but apparently without any communication 
 with it, is an interesting staircase, d, leading 
 down to the entrance to a larger and apparently 
 more important series of hypocausts. This 
 staircase descended from a square room, about 
 the same size as the room c, which had a 
 smooth pavement of cement. It is composed 
 of three steps, each formed of a large squared 
 stone. A part of the space at the bottom, 
 the north-eastern corner, appears to have been 
 used by the later Eoman inhabitants of this 
 building as a receptacle for the sweeping 
 of the floors, and when it was first opened the 
 earth, to the height of about sixteen or eighteen 
 inches from the floor, was filled with all kinds 
 of objects, such as coins, hair-pins, fibulae, needles 
 in bone, nails, various articles in iron, bronze,
 
 64 THE RUINS OF UEICONIUM. 
 
 and lead, glass, broken pottery, bones of edible 
 animals and birds, stags' horns, tusks and hoofs 
 of wild boars, oyster shells, in one of which 
 lay the shell of a large nut, &c. A large shaft 
 of a column lay across the steps. The Koman 
 masonry here is very good. To the right hand, 
 towards the south, a rather large arch, turned 
 in Boman bricks, led into the hypocaust E, a 
 doorway in the southern wall of which formed 
 the communication between this hypocaust and 
 the still larger hypocaust F. The latter had 
 supported what must have been a handsome 
 room, Avhich was about fifty feet long, including 
 the semicircular northern end, by thirty-five 
 in breadth. When first opened, this hypocaust 
 was in a state of preservation in which such 
 buildings are seldom found in this country. 
 A hundred and twenty columns of bricks were 
 counted, most of them at their original height, 
 of rather more than three feet. At the north- 
 eastern corner, the columns supported a small 
 portion of the floor in its original position. 
 It is a mass of cement, eight inches thick, 
 with the upper surface, which no doubt had 
 formed the floor, perfectly smooth. During 
 the time that the Excavation Committee were 
 excluded from the field, all the pillars of this 
 interesting hypocaust were thrown to the 
 ground, and. a great part of the bricks which 
 formed the supporting columns were broken 
 to pieces — even the pieces of the floor and its 
 supports at the north-east corner were over- 
 thrown. A very exact drawing of the latter,
 
 THE RUINS OF URICOXIUM. G5 
 
 however, had been preserved, which served as 
 a pattern for restoring it ; and it is to the 
 ingenuity and labour of Dr. Henry Johnson 
 that the public owes the restoration of this 
 hypocanst as far as it is possible to restore 
 it. 
 
 Returning to the steps by which these 
 hypocausts were entered, at D, the floor from 
 which we descended appears to have an 
 opening of some kind to the west, which 
 looked down upon a court outside the semi- 
 circular end of the hypocanst F, which from 
 this point presents to the view an imposing 
 mass of masonry. In the corner just under 
 this opening the remains of a very young 
 child were found, which we might almost 
 imagine to have been slaughtered in the room 
 above, and thrown out into the court. This 
 court, or open space, seems to have been con- 
 tinued to the wall a a, and to have been 
 entered by a doorway in that wall at g, which 
 was approached from the passage to the north 
 by a step formed by a large squared stone. 
 On the outside of the semicircular end of the 
 hypocaust f, lay, as if it had fallen or been 
 thrown down, an immense stone, carefully 
 worked into the shape of the arc of a circle, 
 and no doubt forming one of a course at some 
 unknown elevation in the wall. On the out- 
 ward side of it, a large iron pin was soldered 
 into it with lead, evidently for the purpose of 
 attaching some weighty object on the outer 
 side of the building.
 
 66 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 Another step and doorway in the wall a a 
 was found at h, which must have been much 
 more frequented than the other, for the stone 
 which formed the step was worn in an extra- 
 ordinary degree by the rubbing of footsteps. 
 It led to an inclosure, P, which presents the 
 appearance of having formed public latrince ; 
 and which is separated by a long narrow 
 inclosure from the room already described, as 
 apparently the shop of a worker in metals. 
 
 Such is a brief and general description of 
 the ruins of Uriconium, at present open to the 
 visitor. The real character of the buildings 
 we have been describing appeared for a while 
 very doubtful. The first discoveries led to the 
 belief that it was a great mansion, perhaps 
 the principal mansion in the Roman city, the 
 residence of the chief municipal officer ; but 
 in this case we might have expected to find 
 some very fine Mosaic or tessellated pavement, 
 specimens of which had been met with in 
 other parts of the area of the town. On the 
 contrary, all the floors yet discovered to the 
 south of the Old Wall, with the exception of 
 those of herring-bone brickword, and that of 
 a supposed bath, seemed to have been of mere 
 smoothed cement. This led us to suppose that 
 we were still exploring^ buildings erected for 
 some public purpose. A comparison of the 
 character of these various buildings leaves no 
 room for doubting that they belonged to the 
 public baths of Uriconium; and further exca- 
 vations to the south and west showed that
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONITJM. 67 
 
 they formed an extensive square, (Jc,k,k,k,) the 
 northern side of which was formed by the 
 Old Wall and its continuation westward; and 
 the southern side of which bordered upon the 
 other street running east and west, the pave- 
 ment of which, similar to that of the street 
 at I, has been uncovered in its whole extent 
 alone the line L L. The western and southern 
 sides of the square were formed by a wide 
 gallery or cloister (k,k,k,) no doubt the ambu- 
 latory, which was considered as an important 
 part of the public baths of the Eomans. The 
 ground to the eastward, in which no buildings 
 could be traced, may have been gardens which 
 were also usually attached to the baths of the 
 Eomans. 
 
 Having once decided that the building 
 we have thus explored is the public baths, 
 another equally interesting question arises out 
 of it. The public baths of the Eoman towns 
 in Britain, are not unfrequently mentioned in 
 inscriptions commemorating the repairing or 
 rebuilding of them ; but it is a circumstance 
 of some importance that this building is com- 
 bined with the basilica, or town hall. Both 
 seem to have participated in the same accidents, 
 and to have undergone decay together. Thus 
 an inscription found at Lanch ester, in Cumber- 
 land (supposed to be the Eoman town of 
 Epiacum) speaks of the baths and basilica 
 (balnevm cvm basilica) ; and at Eibchester, 
 in Lancashire, the baths and basilica (balinevm 
 et basilicam) were rebuilt after having fallen
 
 68 THE RUINS OF UEICONIUM. 
 
 into ruin through age. We are, therefore, I 
 think, justified in concluding that the two 
 great public buildings, the baths and the 
 basilica, usually joined each other; and I 
 think we may venture further to assume that 
 the large building to the north of the Old 
 Wall, the remains of which are now covered up, 
 was the basilica of Uriconium. The propor- 
 tions of this building are rather extraordinary, 
 and cannot be easily explained ; but it is 
 probable that in a provincial town the basilica 
 served a variety of purposes. An inscription 
 found at Netherby, in Cumberland, speaks of 
 a basilica for practice in riding (basilicam 
 
 EQVESTREM EXEECITATOEIAM.) 
 
 We may now proceed a little further in 
 identifying the topography of the ancient town. 
 The line of the buildings we have traced parallel 
 to the Watling Street road is at some distance 
 within the edge of the field ; and I believe 
 that, when the farm buildings were erected on 
 the opposite side of the road, what appeared 
 to be the front of buildings facing the opposite 
 direction, were found likewise at some distance 
 within the field. This, with the road, would 
 make a very wide space ; very much wider 
 than either of the two transverse streets. 
 Moreover, a glance at the plan will shew 
 that, beyond the transverse street to the south, 
 this wide space became considerably narrowed; 
 and in fact it seems to have been reduced to 
 the width of an ordinary street. It is my 
 belief that this wide space was the forum
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. G9 
 
 of Urieonhim ; and in that case it is rather 
 remarkable that the basilica held here exactly 
 the same place, in regard to the forum, as at 
 Pompeii. 
 
 We have thus already brought to light 
 a very interesting portion of the ancient Soman 
 town, and have learnt something more than 
 we knew before of the character and economy 
 of the Roman towns in Britain. The basilica, 
 as we have seen, came up to the frout of the 
 street, and formed the side of a transverse 
 street; but this was not the case with the 
 baths, for a space of some width between them 
 and the forum was occupied by other buildings, 
 which I have already described. 
 
 Other apartments surrounding the metal- 
 worker's shop are in the course of exploration, 
 and will, I think, make us better acquainted 
 with the character of the whole of this line 
 of buildings which looked upon the open 
 space which I have supposed to be the forum. 
 I have already said that this open space 
 contracts to the south of the transverse street 
 L l, in what has been no more than the breadth 
 of an ordinary street, which ran down towards 
 the river. A gutter, very well made, of care- 
 fully squared stones, and remarkably well 
 preserved, runs near the houses on the eastern 
 side of the street ; the only side which at 
 present can be explored, as it is near the edge of 
 the Watling Street Eoad. It runs very near the 
 walls of the houses, is a foot wide, and about 
 a foot deep, and from place to place square
 
 70 THE KUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 stones are laid in lozenge-fashion, apparently- 
 intended for stepping stones, but they must have 
 stopped the current of water down the channel 
 The buildings at this corner consist of small 
 rooms, and were probably private houses. The 
 existence of walls running parallel and trans- 
 verse to the street L L, has been ascertained 
 along the whole length of its southern side ; 
 but they have not yet been sufficiently explored 
 even to be laid down in the plan. 
 
 The objects of antiquity found in the course 
 of the excavations have been so often alluded 
 to, that the visitor will no doubt expect at 
 least a brief and general description of them. 
 I have already described those which illustrate 
 the building and construction of a house, 
 and we naturally continue the description by 
 turning to those articles which belong especially 
 to domestic life. Of this class, the most numerous 
 division, and that which strikes us first, is the 
 pottery, — of which certainly the most remark- 
 able to the general observer is the ware 
 resembling in colour and general appearance 
 bright red sealing wax, known commonly as 
 Samian ware, a name the propriety of which 
 Las been disputed. The Eoman writers speak
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 71 
 
 of an earthenware much used at table, and 
 said to have received its name from having 
 been originally made at Samos. It is described 
 as being of a red colour, as being of more 
 value than the common pottery, and as being 
 proverbial for its brittleness, all which charac- 
 teristics belonged to the red ware found in 
 this country, which was covered with tasteful 
 subjects of all kinds in relief, and was evidently 
 much valued, as we often find vessels in this 
 ware which had been carefully mended, and 
 the brittleness of which was such that we 
 seldom find a specimen unbroken. Such 
 mendings, chiefly by means of metal rivets, are 
 exhibited in specimens of Samian ware found 
 in the excavations at Wroxeter, and deposited 
 in the Museum at Shrewsbury, where there 
 are also several pieces of this pottery, pre- 
 senting subjects which are interesting, and by 
 no means of common occurrence. It may be 
 further observed that the Samian ware in this 
 country resembles a Eoman ware of which 
 the potteries have been found at Aretiurn, the 
 modern Arezzo, in Tuscany, but this ware was 
 much superior, especially in the degree of 
 artistic talent displayed in its ornamentation, 
 to that which was in use in this island, and 
 which no doubt was imported from Gaul, 
 where, especially on the banks of the Rhine, 
 the potteries in which it was made have been 
 found. 
 
 Extensive potteries have also been found 
 in this island, especially at Castor, in North-
 
 72 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 amptonsliire, where there was a Roman town 
 named Durobriva?., aud on the banks of the 
 Medway, at Upchurch, in Kent. The ware 
 from both these potteries is of a blue or slate 
 colour, produced by imperfect firing in what 
 is called the smother-kiln ; that is, the air 
 being excluded and the heat being insufficient 
 thoroughly to bake the pottery, it retains so 
 much carbonaceous matter as to give it a black 
 colour. The pottery of these two establish- 
 ments is distinguished by the difference of 
 shapes. The ornamentation of the Upchurch 
 w T are is in general of a very simple character; 
 that of the pottery from Castor is much more 
 elaborate, and often consists of hunting scenes 
 and other subjects, laid on in a white substance 
 after the pottery had been baked. Specimens 
 of botli these wares are found at Wroxeter. 
 
 The excavations at Wroxeter have brought 
 to light at least two new classes of Horn an 
 pottery, both evidently made in Shropshire. 
 The first is a white ware, made of what is 
 known as the Broseley clay, and consisting 
 chiefly of very elegantly formed jugs, with 
 narrow necks ; mortaria, or vessels for rubbing 
 or pounding objects in cookery, the interior 
 surface of which is covered with grains of hard 
 stone ; and bowls, which are often painted with 
 stripes of red and yellow. The other Romano- 
 Salopian pottery is a red ware, differing in 
 shade from the red Roman wares usually found, 
 and also made from one of the clays of the 
 Severn valley. Among the vessels in this
 
 THE RUINS OF URICON1UM. 73 
 
 wave are bowls pierced all over with small 
 holes, so as to have served the purpose of 
 colanders. We find also some very curious 
 specimens of an imitation of the Samian ware; 
 but we have as yet no means of ascertaining 
 where it was made. 
 
 Many very interesting fragments of glass 
 vessels have also been found in the excavations 
 at Wroxeter. Two or three other objects 
 intended for domestic purposes have been met 
 with, such as a small bowl or cup made of 
 lead, and what appears to have been the handle 
 of some large vessel, made of block tin, neither 
 of which metals, used for such purpose, are 
 of common occurrence among Roman remains 
 in this country. A ladle and several knives 
 have also been found, and a handle of a knife 
 made of stone as well as several whet-stones. 
 
 Of personal ornaments the most numerous 
 are the hair-pins, most of which are made of 
 bone, though there ' are a few of bronze, and 
 one of wood. Their use was to hold together 
 the knot into which the Roman women rolled 
 up their hair behind the head, and through 
 which the pin was thrust. They are, on an 
 average, about three inches long, with a large 
 head, rudely ornamented ; and it will be 
 remarked that the shank is thicker in the 
 middle, and that it becomes generally thinner 
 near the head, no doubt to prevent the pin 
 from slipping out of the hair. Some of these 
 pins had evidently been saturated with an 
 oily substance, which shows that the ladies 
 
 F
 
 74 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 in Roman Britain applied oil to their hair. 
 Several fibulae of the common Roman forms 
 have been met with ; they are all of bronze, 
 of superior workmanship to the hair-pins, and 
 most of those hitherto found at Wroxeter are, 
 or have been, enamelled. Their use was to 
 fasten the mantle and other parts of the 
 clothing. Among the personal ornaments found 
 already in the excavations are a number of 
 buttons, finger-rings, bracelets, glass beads, and 
 other objects, of which it is not necessary here 
 to give a particular description. Of two combs, 
 both of bone, one is remarkably neat in its 
 form and make. Several bone needles may 
 also be mentioned, and a pair of bronze 
 tweezers for eradicating superfluous hairs. 
 
 Roman coins are found in considerable 
 numbers, but many of them are so worn and 
 defaced that it is no longer possible to decide 
 to what emperor they belonged. The earliest 
 met with during the present excavations is of 
 the emperor Domitian. A great number are 
 small coins of the Constantine family of 
 emperors. Only two silver coins have yet 
 been found, the others are of bronze or brass. 
 The peasantry call them dinders, a name which, 
 though it represents the Latin denarius, was 
 no doubt derived from the Angle-Norman 
 denier. 
 
 Many objects of a more miscellaneous 
 character have also been found during the 
 present excavations, or have found their way 
 into the Museum from former discoveries.
 
 THE RUINS OF UKICONIUM. 75 
 
 Among these are three artistes' pallettes, for 
 using colour; several weights, some marked 
 with Roman numerals ; a steelyard ; several 
 keys; portions of iron chains; styli, for writing 
 on wax tablets ; an iron trident, which may 
 perhaps have been the head of a staff of office 
 or authority ; one or two spear heads ; a strigil 
 for scraping the skin in the sweating baths ; 
 a portion of an iron horse-shoe ; and two or 
 three very nice statuettes in bronze. The 
 most curious, however, of these miscellaneous 
 objects is a medicine stamp, intended to mark 
 packets or bottles ot what, in modern times, 
 would be called patent medicines. A certain 
 number of these Roman medicine stamps have 
 been found in Britain and on the Continent, 
 and they are all, like this stamp, found at 
 "VYroxeter, for salves or washes for the eyes, 
 diseases of the eyes having been apparently 
 very common among the inhabitants of the 
 western provinces of the Roman empire. The 
 Wroxeter stamp intended for a collyrium or salve 
 for the eyes, called dicdebanum or dicdibanum, 
 gives us in all probability the name of a 
 physician resident in Uriconium. The inscrip- 
 tion may be read as follows, filling up the 
 abbreviations : — TiBerii CLaudii Medici lialiba- 
 num ad OMNE \Yiium Ocvlonnn ex ovo, i.e., the 
 dialebanum of Tiberius Claudius the physician, 
 for all complaints of the eyes to be used with 
 
 e ss- 
 
 A few stones, with Eonian inscriptions, 
 chiefly of a supulchral character, have been
 
 76 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 dug up at Wroxeter in the course of accidental 
 excavations. Three of these were found in 
 1752, and are preserved in the library of 
 Shrewsbury School. The first inscription may 
 be read thus : — 
 
 C. MANNIVS 
 C . F . POL . SECV 
 NJ>VS . POLLEN 
 MIL . LEG . XX 
 ANORV . LII. 
 STIP . XXXI 
 BEN . LEG . PR 
 H.S.E. 
 
 intimating that it marked the grave of a soldier, 
 of the twentieth legion, (which was stationed 
 at Chester, the Koman Deva) named Caius 
 Mannius, of the Pollian tribe. Another com- 
 memorated a soldier of the fourteenth lesion, 
 and has been supposed to belong to a very 
 early period, as that legion was withdrawn from 
 Britain before a.d. 68. It was the legion which 
 suffered so much in the war against Boadicea, 
 and this soldier may perhaps have been engaged 
 in that war, although his having died in 
 Britain does not necessarily imply that the 
 legion to which he had belonged was there at 
 the time, or indeed that it had ever been there, 
 unless we had some other reasons for supposing 
 that it had been there. His name was Marcus 
 Petronius, the son of Lucius, of the Menenian
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONTUM. 77 
 
 tribe, and the inscription may be read as 
 follows : — 
 
 M . PETRONIVS. 
 
 L.F.MEN 
 
 "VIC . ANN 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 MIL . LEG 
 
 XIIII . GEM 
 
 MILITAVIT 
 
 ANN . XVIII. 
 
 SIGN . FVIT. 
 H.S.E. 
 
 The third of these inscribed monuments 
 was divided into three columns or tables, 
 commemorating three members of the family 
 of a citizen of Uriconium, named Deuccus. 
 The inscription on the third column is entirely 
 erased, but the two others may be read as 
 follows : — 
 
 D.M 
 
 PLACIDA 
 AN . LV 
 CVR . AG 
 CONI.A 
 XXX 
 
 D.M 
 DEVCCV 
 S.AN.XV 
 CVR. AG 
 RATRE 
 
 Another sepulchral stone, also preserved 
 in the library of Shrewsbury School was 
 found in 1810, and bore an inscription com- 
 memorative of Tiberius Claudius Terentius, a 
 soldier of the cohort of Thracian cavalry, 
 which mav be read as follows : — 
 
 V 
 
 TIB . CLAVD . TRE 
 NITIVS . EQ . COH 
 THRACVM . AN 
 OR\'M . VII . STIP 
 ENDIORVM 
 H.S.
 
 78 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 In the excavation on the site of the 
 cemetery, in the autumn of 1862, a sepulchral 
 stone was found, which had not improbably 
 been placed over the door of a sepulchral 
 chamber of masonry. There has been a figure 
 above, the lower part of the legs and feet of 
 which alone remain. The slab bears the 
 following inscription, which from the damage 
 the stone has sustained is very difficult to 
 decipher, but I owe this reading to the know- 
 ledge and acuteness of my friend Mr. Eoach 
 Smith. I may add that some of the letters 
 are extremely doubtful. 
 
 AMINIVS . T . POL . F . A 
 NORVMXXXXVSTIPXXII . MIL . LEG. 
 IIGEM . MILITAVTTAQNVNC HIC SII 
 LEGITE . ET . FELICES . VITA . FLVS . MINV 
 IVSTAVINIERAQVATIEGIIIE . INTV 
 TANARA. DITIS . VIVITE . DVMSPI. . . 
 VITAE . DAT . TEMPVS . HONESTE. 
 
 It is clear, at a glance, that the latter part of 
 this inscription contains three lines in hexameter 
 verse; unfortunately they are lines most rubbed 
 and most difficult to make out. Dr. McCaul, 
 president of the University of Toronto, in 
 Canada, in his recent work on " Britannio- 
 Romano Inscriptions," suggests that they may 
 be— 
 
 Perlegite et felices vita plus minus juta ; 
 Omnibus sequa lege iter est ad Tsenara Ditis. 
 Vivite, dum Stygius vitse dut tern pus, honeste. 
 
 The two last words of the first lines are 
 extremely doubtful, and I confess that I do
 
 THE RUINS OF TTRICONITJM. 79 
 
 not believe in Dr. McCaul's reading, which, of 
 course, is but conjectural. The second does 
 not appear at all to answer to what remains 
 of the original, with the exception of the last 
 words, Tamara Ditis. But of the last line, 
 Mr. Smith's reading is much the best, and 
 indeed appears to me to be the correct one, — 
 
 Vivite, duni spatium vitse dat tempus, honeste. 
 The part preceding the verses may be read — 
 
 Aminius (perhaps Flaminius,) Titi Vollione 
 Filuis, annorum xxxxv., stipe?? diorum xxii, mih's 
 legionis ?;ii gemincc. Militavit aqiiilifcr. Nunc 
 hie situs est. 
 
 It may be remarked, that in many respects 
 this is one of the most curious Roman inscrip- 
 tions found in this island, and that it appears 
 to be of rather an early date. 
 
 Another mere fragment of a stone, of the 
 present existence of which I can learn nothing, 
 is said to have contained the letters : — 
 
 LERT 
 FGAI 
 ...TILES 
 
 Lastly, a monument of stone, which during 
 the middle ages had been formed into a holy 
 water stoop, and which is now in the vicarage 
 garden, presents what has formed part of a 
 Roman inscription — 
 
 BONA. . REI 
 
 PVBLICiE 
 
 NATVS. 
 
 It has probably been a dedication to one 
 of the emperors, or an inscription commemo- 
 rative of him.
 
 80 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 It has been stated before, that the site of 
 Uricomum is of very great extent. If the 
 visitor, after having exan>ined the excavations, 
 would seek an agreeable walk, he may turn off 
 by the smith's shop already mentioned, along 
 the northernly continuation of the "Watling 
 Street Eoad, which soon becomes a deep and 
 pretty country lane, and crosses the Bell Brook. 
 Soon afterwards, on the rise of a bank, we 
 come to a spot where the ancient town wall 
 crossed this road, and where there are said to 
 be traces of one of the gateway entrances to 
 Uriconium. At the latter part of the year 
 1862, excavations were made in an adjoining 
 field to trace the line of the town wall, which 
 was found remaining to a height of three or 
 four feet ; but it was of very rough construc- 
 tion, built merely of small stone boulders 
 mixed with clay, and had evidently been 
 raised hurriedly, at a late period of the history 
 of Uriconium, to meet some sudden emergency. 
 There had evidently been an entrance opening 
 here, but there were no traces of gateway 
 buildings, which, perhaps, were only of timber. 
 Outside the walls, on the bank of the right, 
 was one of the principal cemeteries, and here 
 the sepulchral inscriptions mentioned above 
 were found. Successful excavations were made 
 in 18G2 on the site of this cemetery, and 
 many Uoman graves were opened, which fur-
 
 THE RUINS OF TJRICONIUM. 81 
 
 nished the Museum in Shrewsbury with another 
 inscribed monument of great interest, a number 
 of sepulchral urns, and vessels of glass, and 
 various other objects. 
 
 If, instead of going northward, the visitor 
 follows the Watling Street Road towards the 
 south, he will soon reach the village of Wroxeter, 
 and may examine its church. A new gate to 
 the churchyard has recently been erected, and 
 Mr. W. H. Oateley, of Wroxeter, who holds 
 the office of Churchwarden, has contributed a 
 shaft of a Roman column, and two Roman 
 capitals, which, together with another shaft 
 given by the Rev. E. Egremont, are now placed 
 on each side of this gateway. The two capitals 
 which were dragged out of the river Severn 
 are worthy of particular attention. They are 
 singularly rich in ornament, and mark that 
 late period of Roman architecture which became 
 the model of the mediaeval Byzantine and 
 Romanesque. I cannot help wishing that they 
 were safely deposited in the Museum at Shrews- 
 bury, and I think that the Roman columns 
 would serve as well for gateway supports 
 without the capitals, which probably did not 
 belong to them. The church of Wroxeter is 
 a substantial Norman building, with later 
 alterations, and on the outside of the southern 
 wall of the chancel are the remains of a very 
 interesting Norman doorway, which has been 
 built up. The chancel internally is chiefly 
 remaikable for some fine monuments with 
 effigies of the sixteenth and beginning of the
 
 82 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 seventeenth centuries, interesting especially 
 for their costume. It has at present a low 
 flat whitewashed ceiling, but there is a fine 
 old timber roof above, and it is greatly to be 
 regretted that the unsightly ceiling has not 
 been removed, so that the chancel might 
 again be open to its lofty roof of timber. 
 At the western end of the church is an early 
 font, pi. 7, which has been formed of a very 
 large Roman capital, taken from some impor- 
 tant building in the city of Uriconium. Such 
 applications of Roman monuments to later 
 ecclesiastical purposes are by no means 
 uncommon. In the garden of the vicarage, 
 which adjoins the churchyard, are a few 
 fragments of Roman architecture and sculpture, 
 which have been carefully preserved by the 
 present vicar, the Rev. E. Egremont. 
 
 Near the churchyard stands the residence 
 of Mr. Oateley, who has also collected in his 
 garden a few fragments from the ancient city 
 and its neighbourhood. Among these is a 
 cylindrical stone, which at first sight might 
 be taken for a part of a column, but which 
 appears, from a few remaining letters of an 
 inscription, to have been more probably a 
 Roman milliarium or mile-stone. Mr. Oateley 
 has placed a Roman capital on the top of it, 
 and both are represented in pi. 6. Several 
 architectual fragments are also preserved in 
 the garden of the late Mr. Stanier. Two 
 of the most interesting of these, belonging 
 to the shaft of the same column, or to those
 
 THE RUINS OF UKICONIUM. 83 
 
 of two similar columns are represented in 
 pi. 15. 
 
 The Watling Street Road leads us direct 
 from the gateway of the churchyard to the 
 river Severn, which is here crossed at present 
 by a ford. On the right is a large rugged field 
 overlooking the river, and occupied by Mr. 
 Oateley, which has been trenched in several 
 directions, but nothing was discovered except 
 a Roman well, ten feet deep, which is kept 
 open, and is now partly filled with clear spring 
 water. In an orchard at the corner of this 
 field, near the road, were found a number 
 of human skeletons, attended with some 
 remarkable circumstances, for an account of 
 which I refer the reader to Dr. Johnson's 
 remarks at the end of this little volume. On 
 the other side of the Watling Street Road, 
 the ground rises to a little knoll, which looks 
 down upon the river, and seems to have 
 formed the southern corner of the inclosure 
 of the city of Uriconium. The top of this 
 knoll has been carefully explored, and the 
 walls of a square building, perhaps of a tower, 
 were uncovered. Among the objects found 
 on this spot were a head sculptured in stone, 
 and a mould for casting Roman coins, both 
 of which are deposited in the Museum at 
 Shrewsbury. The impress on the coin-mould 
 is that of a coin of Julia Uomna, the wife of 
 the emperor Severus, (the commencement of 
 the third century); and it is rather a curious 
 circumstance that a silver coin of this empress, 
 which fits the impress exactly, has been found
 
 84 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 in the excavations near the Old Wall. This 
 method of multiplying the imperial coinage 
 by casts seems to have been very common 
 in these distant provinces, and was perhaps 
 exercised by the imperial or municipal officers. 
 Another coin-mould, also with the impress of 
 Julia Domna, was found at Wroxeter in 1747, 
 and two, one of Severus himself, and the other 
 of Plautilla, in 1722. 
 
 In conclusion, I may perhaps be allowed 
 to make a remark on some of the various 
 points on which the excavations on the site 
 of Uriconium have already thrown mora or 
 less illustrative light during the short period 
 in which they have as yet been carried on. 
 We see how, by examining their buildings 
 and comparing the objects that are turned up 
 by the pick and the spade, we get an insight 
 into the condition of the inhabitants of Roman 
 Britain, and learn to what degree they enjoyed 
 the luxuries and comforts of life. We see that 
 they possessed a great majority of the refine- 
 ments of modern society — far more than can 
 be traced among the population of the middle 
 ages. We are taught even the character of 
 their food by remains of edible animals. The
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 85 
 
 comparison of other objects enables us to judge 
 to a great degree of the state and extent of 
 manufactures and commerce. We learn from 
 inscriptions on their sepulchral monuments 
 and altars the names and occupations of some 
 of the inhabitants of the ancient town, and 
 the races to which they belonged ; and from 
 this partial information we are enabled by 
 induction to obtain a general view of the 
 whole. We are thus enabled to form a truer 
 notion of the manner in which this country 
 had been inhabited and governed during nearly 
 four centuries ; and we have the further hope 
 of eventually discovering monuments which will 
 throw some light on the more particular history 
 of this neighbourhood in these remote ages. 
 We learn, finally, from the condition in which 
 the ruins of Uriconium are now seen, and 
 especially from the numerous remains of human 
 beings which are found scattered over its 
 long-deserted floors, the sad fate under which 
 it finally sank into ruin, and thus we are made 
 vividly acquainted with the character and 
 events of a period of history which has hitherto 
 been but dimly seen through the vague tradi- 
 tions of writers who at best knew them only 
 by hearsay.
 
 86 
 
 f alatspe of tyntAw Jftttytiitts 
 
 i. 
 
 OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE ARRANGEMENT AND 
 CONSTRUCTION OF THE HOUSES AND OTHER 
 BUILDINGS. 
 
 1. Roofing Hags, of micaceous sandstone, 
 form generally hexagonal, with a hole for the 
 nail. — See pi. iv., Jig. 1. 
 
 2. Tiles of various kinds : — small square 
 tiles, flue-tiles, roof-tiles, &c. Large oblono- 
 square tiles for bonding-courses in the wall, &c. 
 Square tiles for making the pillars in the 
 hypocausts. 
 
 3. Specimens of the concrete which 
 covered the hypocausts, to the depth of eight 
 inches or more, forming the floor of the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 4. Eight different specimens of the 
 tessellated, or mosaic pavement, taken up as 
 it was found, and framed. 
 
 5. Drawings of the same, made by Mr. 
 George Maw, of Broseley, and presented by 
 that gentleman to the Museum.
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 87 
 
 6. Sculpture in sandstone ; a head, of late 
 Eoman art, which appears to have formed part 
 of the architectural ornamentation of a building. 
 
 7. Bases, capitals, and shafts of columns. 
 
 8. Stucco, covering the walls, coloured, 
 plain, and with some formed patterns. One 
 specimen, bearing the letters A.E.C.A., having 
 formed part of an inscription on the wall. 
 Tessellated ornamentation of the surface of a 
 wall, dark and light tesserse, so as to form an 
 irregular pattern. 
 
 9. Umbilicus, or hinge for a door. 
 
 10. Iron bolts, "f shaped iron stancheons, 
 and nails, for fixing roof and flue-tiles upon the 
 walls. 
 
 11. Many tiles bearing the impression of 
 the foot of domestic or wild animals, — some of 
 the dog ; others of sheep, pig, horse, and ox. 
 
 II. 
 
 objects for domestic purposes. 
 
 1. Pottery : — 
 
 a. Samian ware. 
 
 b. Upchurch pottery. 
 
 c. Durobriviau pottery. 
 
 d. Romano-Salopian ware, made of clay 
 
 obtained from Broseley. 
 
 e. Pieces of red earthenware, probably made 
 
 in Shropshire. 
 
 2. Glass :— 
 
 a. Fragments of flat or window glass.
 
 88 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 b. Portions of bottles, &c, generally coloured, 
 
 some opalescent, 
 
 c. Fragments of a cup, ornamented with spots 
 
 of deep purple glass. 
 
 d. One green glass bottle, 6| inches high, with 
 
 narrow neck, found in the cemetery, quite 
 entire. 
 
 e. A green glass jar, with wide mouth, about 
 
 5 inches high and 6 inches wide, also 
 found in the cemetery. It was full of soil, 
 everywhere penetrated by roots of plants. 
 
 /. Two metallic mirrors or specula, one in 
 fragments, the other entire. They are of 
 white metal, a compound of tin and copper, 
 with a large proportion of the former. — 
 (Cemetery.) 
 
 g. Three very pretty lamps. One bears the 
 figure of Hercules, another that of a 
 dolphin, a third that of a boy kneeling. — 
 (Cemetery.) 
 
 h. A silver fibula. 
 
 3. Bronze statuette of Venus and Mercury. 
 
 4. A striyil, (fragment.) 
 
 5. Part of an iron horse-shoe. Iron 
 bit of a bridle. Iron spur. 
 
 6. Two masks, one made of terra cotta, 
 the other of pottery. 
 
 7. Anomalous earthenware vessel. 
 
 III. 
 
 IMPLEMENTS AND UTENSILS. 
 
 1. Weights: one in lead, 20£oz. ; 
 another in stone, llioz.
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 89 
 
 Weight in lead, marked ii., weighs 2\oz. ; 
 another also in lead, weighs 2£oz. 
 
 2. Ladle ; and neck of some vessel made 
 of block tin. 
 
 3. Several keys, of different forms. Iron 
 padlock. 
 
 4. Large shakels, chains, &c, of iron. 
 
 5. Knives, spear-heads, and portions of 
 other weapons. Two axe-heads. Bone handle 
 of a sword, very curious. 
 
 6. Several whetstones. Stone handle to 
 a knife. Touchstone. 
 
 7. Iron trident, supposed to be a candle- 
 stick. 
 
 8. Rings of iron, bronze, and lead. 
 
 9. Stt/li of bronze and iron ; bronze 
 tweezers ; bronze and iron spoons ; steelyard. 
 
 10. Small cup of lead ; ditto of thin copper. 
 
 11. Large plates of lead, purpose unknown. 
 
 1 2. Cock made of lead, a child's toy. 
 
 13. Fragment of a lamp in red pottery. 
 
 14. Three painters' palettes. 
 
 15. A curious iron box — (ointment box.) 
 
 16. Iron trowel. 
 
 17. Bronze lancet (?) 
 
 18. Bronze pan of a pair of scales. 
 
 IV. 
 
 PERSONAL ORNAMENTS. 
 
 1. Hair pins, in great variety ; more than 
 30 specimens have been found made usually of 
 G
 
 90 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 bone ; with some of bronze, but those are much 
 more slender. PL 11. 
 
 2. Bodkins or needles made of bone. 
 
 3. Fibulae, and buckles in great variet} r . 
 
 4. Bracelets or armlets, and brooch. 
 
 5. Bronze studs or buttons, some flat and 
 others very convex. 
 
 6. Finger rings : — a. silver ; b. yellow 
 bronze ; c. bronze, with iron wire ; d. bronze, 
 with open work on one side ; e. fragment of one 
 of wood ; /. iron signet ring — device engraved 
 upon a blue stone, a fawn coming out of a 
 nautilus shell. 
 
 7. Combs made of bone, one much orna- 
 mented, PL 10, Jigs. 5, 6. 
 
 8. Beads of glass of various sizes, some 
 large to suspend round the neck, others to 
 string together upon a thread. 
 
 9. Bronze bracelet of twisted work. 
 10. Amber finger ring, (found 1867.) 
 
 COINS. 
 
 1. Coins* found in the present excavations 
 at Wroxeter. 
 
 2. Coins found at Wroxeter, at different 
 times, and given to the Museum. 
 
 3. The coins found with a skeleton in 
 the hypocaust. 
 
 4. Coining-mould of baked clay. Julia 
 Domna. 
 
 CINERARY URNS. 
 
 1. Large red earthenware urn, containing
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 91 
 
 human bones (burnt), inclosed in an outer urn 
 of lead, which was la-ought from Wroxeter 
 many years ago. 
 
 2. Another Cinerary urn of black pottery, 
 cotaining burnt human bones, found in a field 
 adjoining the .Cemetery, and outside the town 
 walls. Purchased by the secretary. 
 
 3. A large Cinerary urn, found in the 
 recent excavations, ten inches high, and thirty 
 in circumference, almost entire, containing 
 bones, but not human. — Sec pi. l?),fig. 2. 
 
 4. Cinerary urns in red and black pottery 
 of various sizes, from 4 to 12 inches high. Some 
 containing burnt human bones and unguent 
 
 Les. — (Cemetery.) Many small flask-shaped 
 bottles were found, some broken, some entire, 
 some which had evidently been exposed to 
 heat. Oily matter was detected in one ; hence 
 they have been termed unguent bottles. — 
 (Cemetery.) 
 
 V. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS. 
 
 Medicine Stamp, found at "Wroxeter, in 
 1808, by Mr. Upton ; purchased from his family 
 in 1859, by the late Beriah Botfield, Esq., M.P., 
 who presented it to the Museum. 
 
 1. Oyster shells in great number ; shells 
 of some nut found in an oyster shell. 
 
 2. Remains of small animals and birds. 
 
 3. Nondescript articles in iron, shapeless 
 masses of lead, innumerable fragments of 
 pottery, bone, &c.
 
 92 THE RUINS OF UEICONIUM. 
 
 4. Fragments of horn and bone, which 
 have been cut with a saw or other tool. 
 
 5. Fragments of bone, which have been 
 turned in a lathe. 
 
 6. Inscribed sepulchral stone with Latin 
 inscription, partly legible, There has been a 
 statue on the top. — (Cemetery.) ' 
 
 7. A skiff-shaped vessel in bronze, with 
 round handle, and a lid which closed with a 
 catch. 
 
 8. Several legs of the fighting cock, with 
 very large natural spurs. 
 
 9. Roundels, formed chiefly from the 
 bottoms of earthenware vessels, perhaps used in 
 some game; others made with a hole in the 
 centre. 
 
 10. Skulls of the dog: one, that of a dog 
 of the mastiff kind, of an unknown species. 
 Bones of horse, ox, roe, and red deer, (Cervus 
 elaphus); also fragments of the horn of a species 
 allied to the elk of Ireland. (Stronijylocerus 
 spckcvs.) Very numerous remains of the wild 
 boar, including bones of the hoof, jaw, and tusks. 
 
 Among other bones of the ox are some of 
 a very large kind, now unknown in this country. 
 
 Also, the crania of the Bos longifrons, more 
 than one bearing evident marks of the fatal 
 blow of the axe on the forehead. 
 
 11. Specimen of mended pottery : — 1. Sa- 
 mian ware. 2. Upchurch. 3. Romano-British 
 pottery. 
 
 12. Slabs of stone for grinding or mixing- 
 colours, painters' palettes.
 
 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 93 
 
 13. Specimens of hepatic iron ore. Ditto 
 of barytes, or heavy spar. 
 
 14. Iron tire of a wheel, 3ft. 3in. in 
 diameter, 1| inch in breadth. Two iron hoops, 
 supposed to have belonged to the nave of the 
 same wheel. 
 
 15. Two hoops of another nave, with the 
 wood remaining between them. 
 
 Human Remains. 
 
 1. Parts of three human skeletons found 
 in the hypocaust b. Two of the skulls are al- 
 most entire, and one is broken into fragments. 
 The latter is remarkable for its great thickness. 
 One of the two former, from its form, is most 
 probably the head of a female, and the bones of 
 the pelvis of one skeleton are also characteristic 
 of the female sex. One jaw-bone must have 
 belonged to a very old person, as not only the 
 teeth but even the sockets are gone. One hun- 
 dred and thirty-two coins were found in the 
 hypocaust with these skeletons. See page 39. 
 
 2. Five human heads, and other parts 
 of human skeletons, were first dug up in the 
 orchard, near the river. Of these, four were 
 singularly deformed, — the one eye being in 
 advance of the other, and the face oblique.
 
 94 THE RUINS OF URICONlUM. 
 
 Ten other skulls have since been found in the 
 same place, and have "been arranged in the 
 Museum. Of the ten above-mentioned three 
 are deformed like the others, four are so broken 
 and defective that their form cannot be ascer- 
 tained ; three are not deformed. One of the 
 latter is a very large skull, well formed, but 
 with very strong projecting cheek (malar) bones, 
 and a projecting occiput. 
 
 3. The principal bones of a skeleton 
 (female ?) belonging to one of the skulls, 
 stretched on a board (as well as could be done 
 on the spot) just as it lay in the ground. 
 
 The circumstances under which these 
 skeletons were found are full of interest. The 
 greater part of them (at least twenty have been 
 found, but not all in a state to be taken up) 
 w r ere evidently put into the ground with a 
 certain degree of attention, that is, buried. They 
 were not thrown heedlessly into a pit, but care- 
 fully deposited at full length, and generally 
 near together, the legs and arms for the most 
 part extended, or, as in the case above described, 
 one arm lying across the body. In general, 
 nothing particular has been found near them, 
 but only the usual contents of the soil, such as 
 stones, roots, and fragments of potter}'. In one 
 instance an iron ring, in another some nails 
 were met with, and in a third a single coin of 
 Claudius Gothicus. But all these might have 
 occurred accidentally in the neighbourhood of 
 the bodies, in an old Roman site, and not have 
 been buried with them. Xo vestiges of wood
 
 THE TWINS OF UHICOXIUM. 95 
 
 derived from coffins, or of apparel, were dis- 
 covered. There were no traces of weapons or 
 articles of domestic use, which were generally 
 buried by the Romans with their friends, and 
 the place where these remains were found is 
 within the Mails, and could not, therefore, be a 
 Roman cemetery. 
 
 4. In more than one instance, bones of 
 very young children have been found ; but in 
 one instance, alluded to at page 65, almost an 
 entire skeleton of a child was found, which has 
 been preserved, and is in the Museum. This 
 was found outside bhe semi-circular end of the 
 great hypocaust, where there must have been a 
 small court. From the smallness of the bones 
 of the skeleton, and from the circumstance of 
 the teeth being still contained within the jaw- 
 bone, it may be inferred that this was a very 
 young infant — perhaps still in arms. 
 
 5. A thigh bone has been found, which, 
 having been fractured, has become united 
 during life. 
 
 The most interesting circumstance con- 
 nected with the human remains found at 
 Wroxeter is the large relative proportion of 
 deformed skulls. Of the nineteen crania found 
 in the orchard and since deposited in the 
 Museum, eleven are more or less crooked. It 
 has been supposed, and indeed the opinion is 
 still entertained by some antiquarians, that this 
 deformity was congenital and not posthumous, 
 that is to say, that the persons to whom these 
 skulls belonged lived and died with deformed
 
 96 THE RUINS OF URICONIUM. 
 
 heads. And this was my own view before I 
 had learned that bones are capable of being 
 bent by pressure in the ground. There can 
 be little doubt that the deformity has been 
 produced by posthumous pressure, aided by 
 moisture and the solvent action of certain acids 
 that always exist in vegetable mould* Other 
 instances of a like effect have been described 
 by Dr. Sherman,^ and, in America, by the 
 Rev. D. Wilson.}: 
 
 H. J. 
 
 * See Abstract of Proceedings of Royal Society, June, 1862. 
 f Crania Britannia. 
 \ Pre-Historic Man, vol. ii., p. 306, &c. &
 
 97 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 On November the 11th, 1858, at the General 
 Meeting of the Shropshire and North Wales 
 Natural History and Antiquarian Society, held 
 at the Museum, Shrewsbury, the President, 
 Beriah Botfield, Esq., M.P., proposed that ex- 
 cavatious should be commenced at Wroxeter. 
 He had written to the Duke of Cleveland, and 
 obtained his Grace's consent to do so. He 
 also made the very liberal offer to give fifty 
 guineas towards the expenses, provided that 
 fifty other gentlemen could be found willing 
 to subscribe one guinea each. A Committee 
 was formed, consisting of the following noble- 
 men and gentlemen to carry on the work : — 
 
 The Eight Hon. the Eavl of Powis, Powis Castle 
 Beriah Botfield, Esq., M.P.. F.R.S., Decker Hill 
 R. A. Slaney, Esq.. M.P.. Walford Manor 
 Rev. B. H. Kennedy. D.D., Shrewsbury 
 Kev. E. F.gremout, Wroxeter 
 Rev. R. W. Kyton, Ruyton, Shiffnal 
 Rev. H. M. Searth, Bathwick 
 Samnel Ashdown, Esq., Uppington 
 W. H. Bayley, Esq., Shrewsbury 
 
 William F. F. Ffoulkes, Esq., Stanley Place, Chester 
 Henry Johnson, Esq., M.D., Hon. Sec, Shrewsbury 
 George Stanton, Esq., Shrewsbury 
 Albert Way, Esq., Worham Manor 
 * Samuel Wood, Esq., Shrewsbury 
 
 Thomas Wright, Esq., F.S.A., Brompton 
 
 A Metropolitan Committee has since been 
 thought desirable, and held its first meeting 
 August -' ? >rd. It consists of the following 
 
 1 • • • 
 
 distinguished noblemen and gentlemen : —
 
 98 TIIE RUINS OF UHICONIUM. 
 
 The Eight Hou. Earl Stanhope, President of the Royal Society 
 
 of Antiquaries 
 The Eight Hon. Viscount Hill, Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire 
 The Eight Hon. Lord Braybrooke 
 The Eight Hon. Lord Talbot de Malahide 
 The Eight Hon. Lord Lin 
 The Eight Hon. Lord New-port, M.P. 
 The Eight Hon. the Lord Chief Baron 
 Beriah Botfield. Esq., M.P. 
 The Hon. Eowland C. Hill. M.P. 
 
 E. Moncton Milnes, Esq.. M.P, 
 
 C. Octavius S. Morgan, Esq., M.P. 
 
 H. Panbv Seymour, Esq., M.P. 
 
 W. Tite, Esq., M.P. 
 
 C. C. Babington. Esq., F.R.S., St. John's Coll., Cambridge 
 
 The Rev. E. L. Barnwell, General Secretary of the Cambrian 
 
 Archaeological Association. 
 Sir John P. Boileau, Bart.. F.B.S., V.P.S.A. 
 The Eev. Dr. Bosworth, F.E.S., F.S.A., Professor of An<do- 
 
 Saxou, Oxford. 
 The Eev. Dr. J. Collingwood Bruce, F.S.A.. Hon. Sec. of the 
 
 Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon-Tyne 
 Talbot Bury, Esq.. F.E.I.B.A., A.I C.E. 
 Benjamin Bond Cabbell, Esq., F.E.S., F.S.A. 
 Robert Chambers, E-q., Edinburgh 
 Sir James Clai-ke. Bart., F.R.S. 
 James Dearden. Esq.. E.S.A. 
 C. Wenfwoith Dilke, J q. 
 J. Hepworth Dixon, Esq., F.S.A. 
 Joseph Durham. Esq.. F.S.A. 
 The Eev. E. Kgremont. Vicar of Wroxeter 
 
 F. W. Fairholt, Esq.. E.S.A. 
 Augustus Guest, Esq., LL.D., F.S.A. 
 S. Carter Hall, Esq., F.S.A. 
 
 J. 0. Halliwell, Esq., F S.A., F.ES. 
 
 The Eev. C. H. Hartshorne. 
 
 Fredk. Hindmarsh, Esq., F.E.G.S., F.G.S., Hon. Sec. 
 
 The Eev. T. Hugo, E.S.A. 
 
 Dr. Henry Johnson, Hon. Sec. of the Excavation Committee. 
 
 Shrewsbury 
 Joseph Mayer, Esq., F.S.A., Liverpool 
 Sir Roderick I. Murchison. F.R.S. , &c. 
 Frederick Ouvrv Esq.. F.S.A. 
 The Eev. H. M. Scarth 
 Charles Roach Smith. Esq.. E.S.A. 
 Vice- Admiral W. H. Smyth, F.R.S., F.S.A. 
 W. S.W.Vaux, Esq . F S. A., President of the Numismatic Society. 
 Albert Way, Esq., F.S 
 Thomas Wright, Esq., F.S.A., Treasurer.
 
 99 
 
 In a handsome volume, in royal 8m, with numerous 
 illustrations, price 25s., 
 
 TTIRICOIJ^ITTIM: ; 
 
 THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF THIS ANCIENT 
 
 BURIED CITY, 
 
 AND OF THE 
 
 i|ama»8 in Shropshire. 
 
 BY THOMAS WEIGHT, ESQ., 
 
 M.A , F.S., HON. F.R.S L., &c, 
 
 Corresponding Member of the Imperial Institute of France, (Academie des 
 Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.) 
 
 The above work contains a complete account of the re- 
 searches which have been hitherto made on this interesting 
 site, illustrated and explained by a comparison with the 
 similar antiquities found on different sites in Britain, as 
 well as in other parts of the Roman Empire. It contains 
 a history, as far as it can be traced from existing materials, 
 of the Roman occupation of this part of the island ; a 
 complete account of the discoveries which have been made 
 on the site of the city of Uriconiam ; and an attempt to 
 display, by means of these, the condition, life, and manners, 
 of the Roman inhabitants of this island. 
 
 BUNNY & EVANS, Printers, High Street, Shrewsbury.
 
 ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 S 
 
 Ijropsljivjc an& 4tf o n tgo ntcrr, s 1j I re (times, 
 
 (Established 1772,) 
 
 THE COUNTY NEWSPAPER, AND LEADING JOURNAL 
 FOR SHROPSHIRE AND NORTH WALES, 
 
 has by far the LARGEST CIRCULATION of 
 any Newspaper published in the district, its 
 Guaranteed Sale being FIVE TIMES more 
 than any other Shrewsbury Paper, spreading 
 over upwards of 100 towns and villages, in most 
 of which it has established Agents and Corres- 
 pondents. It is 
 
 THE GREAT ADVERTISING MED.IUM 
 
 THROUGHOUT SHROPSHIRE AND 
 
 THE PRINCIPALITY. 
 
 PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY MORNING. 
 Price 2d. By Post 2 id. 
 
 JOHN WATTON, Proprietor.
 
 advekti«o:mknt^'. 
 
 THE 
 
 RAVEN FAMILY HOTEL, 
 
 NEAREST TO THE RAILWAY STATION. 
 
 The number of Bedrooms having been largely increased, 
 Visitors who have been disappointed hitherto niay now rely 
 upon obtaining comfortable accommodation. 
 
 BILLIARDS, POSTING, &o. 
 
 :le with Families and Gentle 
 ;ne week or month. 
 
 MISS COLLETT, Manager. 
 
 Special arrangements made with Families and Gentlemea to 
 board by tne week or month. 
 
 T. L. D. JONES'S 
 
 j?brctuslnini |$orsc IJltpasiforg, 
 
 And the Shropshire & "West-Midland Counties 
 
 Horse Mart, Established 1867, for the Sale and 
 
 Purchase of Horses of every class. 
 
 AUCTION SALES, EVERY ALTERNATE TUESDAY, 
 throughout the year, and always a lot of Gentlemen's 
 Hacks and Harness Horses on Private Sale. 
 
 FIRST-CLASS POSTING ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 ELEGANT WEDDING EQUIPAGES, Broughams, & Flys, 
 Summer Carriages, Dog Carts, <fec, J )b Horses, Ladies' 
 Pads, and Gentlemen's Saddle Horses. 
 
 LIVERY & BAIT STABLES.-Scales of Charges and Terms, 
 which are most moderate, are posted about the premises, 
 and free by Post. 
 
 THE AUCTION ENTRY FEE ON HORSES IS REDUCED 
 TO 5s. EACH.-EARLY ENTRIES for each Sale are 
 respectfully solicit d to be made in time for publication 
 in the previous week's newspapers, and in the Catalogues 
 issued four days previously. 
 
 T. L. D. JONES, 
 
 Auctioneer and Proprietor, and 
 
 the Shropshire Horse Master's Agent, 
 The Repository, Shrewsbury.
 
 ADVEETISEMENTS. 
 
 R GOODWIN, 
 
 GROCER/AND PROVISION FACTOR, 
 
 NEW MARKET PLACE, 
 
 8, Mardol Head, Shrewsbury. 
 
 AGENT EOR THE JERATED BREAD. 
 
 S. ENDSOE, 
 
 (LATE HAMMETT), 
 
 latter, (tetanus Street; 
 
 A\D 
 
 J. J^fe h :J1 
 
 j: laf 
 
 <sfc.\», 
 
 HIGH STREET, THE SQUARE, 
 
 SHREWSBTJR,T.
 
 ADVEI'.TISEMENTS. 
 
 05 i) fe tu £ s " s 
 
 jllrnltfshtn) $ mint a I, 
 
 AND SALOPIAN JOURNAL, 
 
 I 1794,; 
 
 PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING, 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE. 
 
 EDITOR, MANAGER, AND PUBLISHER, 
 JAMES SHARPE. 
 
 The JOURNAL has a large and influential circulation 
 throughout the County of Salop and the whole Principality 
 of Wales, and also an advertising patronage amongst 
 Capitalists, Solicitors, Auctioneers, Merchants, Land Agents, 
 and Traders, SUPERIOR TO THAT OF ANY OTHER 
 NEWSPAPER published in the District. It also circulates 
 extensively in the wring Counties, and will he found 
 
 at the principal Hotels and Commercial Offices in London, 
 Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and other important 
 is. It is thus UNQUESTIONABLY THE BEST 
 MEDIUM FOR ADVERTISING, and affords a safe and 
 widely-spread means of publicity amongst all those classes 
 most likely to be useful to Advertisers. 
 
 OFFICES:— 7, THE SQUARE. SHREWSBURY.
 
 ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 E. W, & W. PHILLIPS, 
 
 TAILORS 
 
 AND 
 
 A 8 1 * M A IIS 
 
 @ 
 
 
 :es 
 
 37, High-Street, Shrewsbury, 
 
 ORIGINAL MAKERS OF THE 
 
 ■ %Mt 
 
 FOR LADIES, AND 
 
 Waterproof Overcoats 
 
 FOR GENTLEMEN", 
 
 Which they continue to supply of the finest Tweed and most 
 
 approved style. 
 
 Hosiery, Handkerchiefs, Gloves, Shirts, &c, 
 
 FROM THE BEST MAKERS. 
 
 Agents for Lincoln & Bennett's Hats. 
 
 Photographs of Waterproof Mantles and Coats, with 
 Patterns of Material, sent free tay post on application.
 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 ' dale stamped below. 
 
 ■ 
 \ 
 
 AUG 171989 
 
 10M-11-50( 2555)470 
 
 REMINGTON RAND - 20
 
 JJ 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 3 1158 01255 7871 
 
 AA 000 394 672 o 
 
 DA 
 690 
 W9G 
 1877