Archaeologia Cambrensis. FIFTH SERIES-VOL. V, NO. XIX. JULY 1888. NOTES ON A ROMAN STEELYARD AND OTHER OBJECTS FOUND AT STRETTON GRANDISON, HEREFORDSHIRE. BY J. ROMILLY ALLEN, ESQ., F.S.A. SCOT. THE Editors of the Archæologia Cambrensis are very much indebted to Mrs. Glinn of The Steppes, Eigne, near Hereford, for kindly allowing the late Mr. Philip Ballard's beautiful drawings of Roman antiquities found in the neighbourhood of Stretton Grandison to be engraved by Mr. Worthington G. Smith, and thus affording the members of the Association an opportunity of judging of the great interest attaching to the discovery. Mr. Ballard's untimely death is fresh in the minds of most of us, and regret for his loss, and sympathy for his bereaved relatives, are mingled with feelings of satisfaction at the knowledge that the men by whom he was so cruelly murdered in his bed have received the just reward of their misdeeds, having been hanged at Hereford last March. The late Mr. Ballard was engaged as Engineer on the construction of the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal, and the objects engraved on the Plate opposite, consisting of a steelyard of Roman manufac 5TH SER., VOL. V. 14 ture, a piece of Samian ware, and a bronze spear-head, were discovered during the progress of that work, whilst excavating for the aqueduct over the river Frome, about three-quarters of a mile below Stretton Grandison Church, in the year 1842. The terra-cotta lamp, which is also Roman, was found quite accidentally by one of Mr. Ballard's nephews, when walking through a wood near the Roman camp to the east of Stretton Grandison Church. He was pulling up a fern out of a bank, and the lamp fell at his feet. On Mr. Ballard's drawing of the lamp it is stated to have been found in 1882.1 The interest of these discoveries is of a twofold nature, both on account of the intrinsic merit of the objects themselves as specimens of Roman workmanship, and for the indication they afford of a Roman settlement in this locality. The process of the identification of a Roman road or settlement is one in which we are guided by four different kinds of evidence, namely, (1), historical, derived from the itineraries and references in classical authors; (2), philological, depending on the names of the places ; (3), archæological, obtained from the examination of structures and objects; and (4), engineering, where the straightness of the roads between certain points gives a clue. "Two imperfect itineraries, giving us the names and distances from each other of the towns and stations on the principal military roads, have been preserved. The first is contained in the great Itinerarium of the Roman empire, which goes under the name of Antoninus, and is believed to have been compiled about A.D. 320. The other is contained in the work of Richard of Cirencester, and is supposed to have been copied by a monk of the fourteenth century from an older itinerary or map. They differ a little from each other; but our faith in Richard's Itinerary is strengthened by the circumstance 1 The information here given was courteously sent by Mrs. Glinn and Miss Fanny Ballard. that nearly all the roads he gives, which are not in Antoninus, have been ascertained to exist. Traces of many Roman roads are found all over the country, not mentioned in these itineraries; and the names of a great number of towns found neither in Antoninus nor in Richard are given by an anonymous geographer of Ravenna, who wrote about the middle of the seventh century; but as he placed them in no regular order, it is very difficult now to identify their sites." The portions of the Itinerary of Antoninus relating to Wales, are the whole of the 11th, and parts of the 2nd, the 12th, the 13th, and the 14th. The number of miles between each station is given in the Itinerary, but so many errors are found to exist, probably resulting from careless copying, that the distances thus obtained are quite unreliable. A few Roman milestones have been discovered at different times in this country, but no two consecutive ones remain in situ, and consequently the length of the Roman mile is still a matter of doubt. It is known to have consisted of 1,000 paces (mille passus), and the average length (which, however, varies in different parts of the country) is about 4,834 English feet, or fourteen Roman miles go to thirteen English ones. A great deal has been written about the Roman roads in Great Britain, but no attempt has yet been made to set on foot an archæological survey of the whole, taking into account all the various kinds of evidence of their existence which have been enumerated. Such a work for Wales would be well worthy of the attention of the Cambrian Archæological Association. Up to the present time the subject has been attacked in a most desultory fashion, there being an entire want of system in the methods of investigation employed. As a preliminary step, lists should be compiled of all the papers that have been written on Roman remains 1 Thos. Wright's The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, p. 120. The Itinerary of Richard of Cirencester is now generally believed to be a forgery. in Wales, and a complete catalogue made out of all objects that have been discovered at different times, and all structures now in existence, or those of which any record has been preserved. All the localities where Roman antiquities have been found might then be marked on the Ordnance Map, together with the roads and stations which have been identified. This would form a basis for future research. Wales should be divided into districts, each of which should be allotted to one or more members of the Association who would undertake to examine all the Roman remains in it, and report upon them. A set of sheets of the Ordnance Map of Wales, embodying the results of an archæological survey such as the one suggested, would be of very great value, and would add far more to our knowledge than all the disjointed communications contained in the Archæologia Cambrensis since the commencement. The sheets of the Ordnance Map should be placed in a portfolio in the custody of some member of the Association, who would undertake to add any new discoveries; and corresponding to each sheet there should be a list of the localities where Roman remains exist, together with all particulars. A good deal of useful work might be done at the annual summer Meetings by forming a survey party with the object of tracing some portion of a Roman road carefully throughout its whole length, or examining thoroughly some one or two stations. The fact is that the rushing about from church to church and from cromlech to cromlech, which takes place at the annual excursions, goes a very small way towards solving those archæological and historical problems for the investigation of which this Association was formed. We have now, as a body, been at work for forty years, and during that time, with perhaps the exception of the early inscribed stones, no single subject has been systematically treated as a whole, nor has any one locality been exhaustively surveyed so as to leave nothing to be gleaned hereafter. |