became a stronghold of Puritanism, Bolton, indeed, being called the Geneva of Lancashire. The demolition of other wells may be accounted for by the vast increase in the size of the towns during the last hundred and fifty years.

In glancing at a map of Roman Lancashire, the eye is at once arrested by the numerous roads radiating like a spider's web from Mancunium, and we are, therefore, naturally led to speculate upon the reasons which induced the Roman conquerors to choose Manchester as such an important centre. A primary reason was undoubtedly that the aboriginal tribes in this part of England were of a turbulent and troublesome disposition, and it was necessary to plant a strong force in their midst. In the second place, the great Roman stations at York and Chester (reached respectively from London by Watling Street and Ermine Street) were so far apart that it was important to have a powerful camp midway between them.

Of the various Roman roads which thus radiated from Manchester one of the most important crossed the Mersey at Stockport, and passed on in a south-easterly direction into Cheshire. A second left Manchester to the southwest, and, passing through Stretford, crossed the same river near Ashton-on-Mersey to Northwich and beyond. A third road left the principal Roman camp in a northwesterly by westerly direction, passing a little to the north of Eccles and through Atherton to Wigan, where it joined the Roman road running nearly due north through Warrington and Preston. A fourth proceeded nearly due north-west to Ribchester and on to Lancaster, crossing the Irwell at Radcliffe. A fifth road, whose course is somewhat problematical,

passed near Rochdale over Blackstone Edge and on into Yorkshire. A sixth road led south of Oldham to Castle Shawe, near Saddleworth, and beyond. Another hypothetical road is shown on Mr. Harrison's archæological map, diverging from the Roman road between Manchester and Wigan at Pendlebury, its destination being Blackrod.

Considerable light has been thrown on the Roman occupation of Manchester by Mr. C. Roeder, in a paper printed in vol. xvii. of the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 1899, accompanied by excellent maps and other illustrations. His view, supported by discoveries made in recent years, is that the Romans dislodged the British from their camp on the rocky cliff at Hunt's Bank, and established themselves there for a time; subsequently that they formed a larger camp for themselves in the well-known position at Castlefield, at the other river junction site-that of the Medlock with the Irwell. These camps were, of course, connected by a road, following approximately the course of the present Deansgate.

Mr. Roeder thinks that the road to Wigan left Castlefield to the south-west, crossing the Irwell at Woden's Ford; that to Castle Shawe in a north-easterly direction through Ancoats; that to Ribchester from Castlefield, through Hunt's Bank to the north, along the course of the present Great Ducie Street, crossing the Irk at the spot where there is now a buried mediæval bridge near Victoria Station.

In the hundred of Lonsdale I have fortunately been able to trace the monumental and, to some extent, architectural history of that district during the greater part of the thousand years from the departure of the Romans to

the Reformation epoch and for a century or two subsequently. The sculptures and inscriptions on the ancient crosses at Lancaster, Heysham, Halton, and Hornby carry us back to a period two or three centuries before the Norman Conquest, and other crosses and carved stones again take us by degrees to a much later period. In the Salford hundred, however, the circumstances are different. In Manchester itself no actual cross of early date has come down to us, but there is the well-known sculptured and inscribed stone, now, after various vicissitudes, preserved in the Cathedral Library. The stone probably dates from the eighth century or before, and may have formed a portion of the door head of the pre-Norman church within the baron's yard. The sculpture—an angel holding a scroll-is certainly of an archaic character, and bears a striking resemblance to that over the chancel arch in the pre-Norman church at Bradford-on-Avon. An interesting paper on this stone. (to which I must refer my readers) was read by Mr. Phelps before the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society on 13th January, 1905. The writing has been deciphered by Canon Hicks and Rev. H. A. Hudson as "In manus Tuas Domine commendo (meum) spiritum."

The chief authority on the ancient crosses of Manchester and Salford is Mr. G. H. Rowbotham, who has traced and recorded much that is so far known as to their history in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. His principal references are to the Court Leet Records, and he enumerates the following crosses as having been at one time in existence in Manchester and Salford: the Manchester Market Cross, the Salford Proclamation Cross, Barlow Cross, Hyde Cross, and New Cross; and, as the following pages show,