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and unfortunately hourly-increasing population, let me remind them of a few ominous facts. Were the New Forest cleared, were the 63,000 acres remaining used for agriculture, the produce would not maintain the inhabitants of such comparatively small towns as Bath or Cheltenham. At present half our food comes from abroad, and so rapid is the increase of population that not even the cultivation of all the parks and forests of England would provide food for the fresh mouths we may expect in the next ten years. There is such a thing as being penny wise and pound foolish, and the destruction of ancient woods, and the cultivation of waste places, would be dearly purchased by the increased disease and suffering, and greatly decreased enjoyment of life that would result.

I have not mentioned the Forest pigs-the liveliest and most charming little creatures in the world. In September, when they are running wild, nothing is more amusing than to watch them. Thousands of little fellows, black as ebony, with sparkling eyes full of fun and mischief, career madly about in all directions, intent on getting food, but withal inquisitive to a degree. If you sit down for a few minutes the little fellows are attracted, and first from one quarter, then from another, you see them stealthily approaching until I have counted over 20 a few feet off, gazing with undisguised interest at the intruder. Sometimes they gain confidence, and come sufficiently near to be actually touched; but usually they pull up some little way off, and as long as the person they are watching keeps quiet they feast their eyes upon him, but if he moves they are off like a shot at a speed so little like that of ordinary decorous farmyard swine that one is startled. When out of reach they halt, and in due course recommence their gambols. Truly they are, as Mr. Gilpin, of "Forest Scenery" memory, well said, most intelligent animals, with little tricks and ways that to the lover of Nature are an inexhaustible source of delight.

Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club.

FOURTH FIELD MEETING, FRIDAY, AUGUST 30TH, 1895.

VISIT TO CAERWENT, CALDICOT, AND THE SEVERN TUNNEL PUMPING WORKS AT PORTSKEWETT.

ON Friday, August 30th, on the Fourth Field Meeting of this Club, the ancient Roman town of Caerwent was visited, also the Castle of Caldicot, and the great pumping works of the Severn Tunnel at Sudbrook, in the parish of Portskewett, the Churches of Caldicot and Portskewett being visited en route. This extensive programme embraced archæology, ecclesiology, and triumphant engineering science over formidable sources of nature, well within the scope of investigation by a Naturalist's society.

The train, via Grange Court, landed the members at Chepstow Railway Station about twelve o'clock. No delay occurred in filling the four brakes from the Beaufort Arms, and in driving to Caerwent along the course, in places, of the Ancient Roman road, Via Julia, ascribed to Julius Frontinus.

This road originally conducted from Gloucester (Glevum) through the Forest of Dean by Lydney and Chepstow to Caerleon. From this road the summit of the Wyndcliffe 7705 feet high, is conspicuous on the north-east, and the road is bounded on the right, at the distance of three miles from Caerwent, by the Gray Hill, 900 feet high, on which is a pre-historic stone circle, thirty-two feet in diameter. The large Wentwood Forest occupies the background. St. Pierre Park is on the left, and occasionally a peep is obtained of the fine estuary of the Severn. At the distance of four miles from Chepstow the village of Crick is reached. The large modern house on the right-hand has been attached to the ancient building of Crick Manor House. A chapel with two lancet windows of the 13th century in the east end, a square-headed trefoil window on the south side, and varieties of architecture of the 15th century, the Elizabethan period, down to the bricking up of windows of the present century, adjoins Crick Manor House. The chapel is now desecrated by being used as a barn. Mr. Wakeman tells us that it is enumerated among the Churches of the See of Llandaff in the Bulls of Popes Calixtus, and Honorius, 1119, and 1129.

Crick was held of the Lords of Striguil or Chepstow by the service of half a Knight's fee. From Mr. T. Wakeman's notes on Crick, printed in 1860 for the

Caerleon and Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association, we read that "A Sir William de Deneford held the manor of Gilbert Marshall in 1240, and his name occurs as a witness to one of that Baron's charters to Tintern Abbey," and that Crick came into the possession of De-la-more, or De-Mora of Portscuet in 1321; that Sir John De-la-Moore was Lord of Crick in 1399, and married one of the family of Sir William de Denefords or Dernfords. The arms of the Denefords were azure, three salmons nayant in pale argent. It is possible that the sign of "The Three Salmons," with which we occasionally meet in this district, may have its origin from this family coat.

Nicholas Moore, high sheriff in 1639, twice entertained King Charles I. when he was making his head-quarters at Raglan in 1645. On Tuesday, July 22nd, the King left Raglan attended by the Duke of Richmond, the Earls of Lindsay and Lichfield, Lords Digby and Astley, and others, met Prince Rupert, who had crossed over from Bristol, and held a council of war at Mr. Moore's house. On July 24th, he again visited Crick, where the intelligence of the capture of Bridgwater by the Parliamentarians dissuaded him from crossing the estuary. In the Iter Carolinum, which accounts for the King's whereabouts daily from January 10th, 1641, to February 13th, 1646 (old style), there is no record of King Charles crossing the channel here, but in Symonds' Diary, and in a newspaper of the period, it is recorded that the King "had a very narrow escape of being taken near the Black Rock" at Portskewett. There is written evidence that a party of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers in pursuit of a royalist party compelled the boatmen at the Black Rock to row them over the channel; the boatmen landed their crew on the rocks called the English Stones, then high and dry, it being low water, at least a mile and a half distant from the Gloucestershire coast; on the return of the tide, which rises here very rapidly, the whole party was overwhelmed and drowned. The use of the ferry was henceforth forbidden by Cromwell. It was re-opened in 1718 under the name of "The New Passage," as a distinction from the "Old Passage" from Aust to Beachley 2 miles higher up the river.

A short distance beyond the fifth milestone from Chepstow the party entered Caerwent.

The members visited by invitation the grounds of Ty Mawr, the Great House, where Mrs. Till exhibited a collection of Roman coins dating from 117 (Trajan) to the die of Urbs Roma and Constantinopolis. The collection was classified by Mrs. Bagnall-Oakeley, and the list is given in Archæologia Cambrensis, 1886, pp. 224 to 227. Mrs. Till had also a fragment of a Samian bowl of exquisite tracery, and on the lawn is a small Roman plain column, surmounted by some sculpture of ecclesiastical design, which latter must not be considered coeval, or in any way connected with, the pillar on which it is placed. In the large adjoining orchard is the site of the Roman villa, where was discovered the beautiful tesselated pavement which our members inspected last year in the Caerleon Museum. At the south-east angle of the enclosure is a mound, possibly of observation, and the most important and largest discoveries have been unearthed from this portion of the village. The members left the

orchard by an opening in "The Port Wall" of the ancient town, and traversed the walls on their southern and western sides, finally assembling at the Church.

Caerwent is situated on ground gently rising from 50 feet at the south-west angle of the walls of circumvallation to 95 feet in the north-east angle of the churchyard. Its position, at the distance of two-and-a-half miles from the coast of the Bristol Channel, was taken advantage of by the Roman invaders as a base of operations for their advance into this portion of the kingdom. It is easy to believe, from the character of the intervening plain, that in eighteen centuries much ground has been reclaimed for agricultural purposes, and that the River Nedern or Troggy is the bed of an estuary which, eighteen hundred years ago, was under tidal influence, whence a creek, or Pill-to use the local colloquial expression-may have extended to the walls of Caerwent. The tradition of the proverbial old men is that, a century ago, enormous iron rings for securing ships' cables still existed on the "Port Wall" on the southern side of the village. The Nedern is at the present time but a small brook at least two hundred yards distant from the south-west angle, with every prospect of becoming a rivulet still smaller in volume considering the average daily drainage of twenty-four million gallons from the Great Spring, or "subterranean river" as it is locally called, drawn from a depth of 180 feet by the six gigantic pumps of the Severn Tunnel Works in No. 1 House at Sudbrook, Portskewett.

The ground plan of the walls of the ancient fortification forms a parallelogram with rounded angles, about 500 yards from east to west, and about 390 from north to south. The main road, Via Julia, from Gloucester (Glevum) to Caerleon-on-Usk (Isca Silurum), and thence to South Wales, ran through the centre of the town from east to west, and was traversed at right angles by a road running from north to south. At the present day the south face of the wall is in very good condition, with an average height of 19 feet 3 inches, laid in roughly squared stones on the exterior face, the inner core being formed of larger and roughly quarried stone laid diagonally. On the south side are three pentagonal bastions; these are not bonded into the walls, and are of a later period than the main walls. There are indications of a moat upon the northern side, extending also along the upper portion of the north-western face, now occupied by garden grounds and cottages of the inhabitants.

NOTES ON CAERWENT.

BY MR. JAMES DAVIES.

At the meeting of the members of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club at Caerleon-upon- Usk, in August, 1894, I had the honour of reading a paper upon that ancient city, so much noted in connection with both British and Roman history; and towards the conclusion I read some observations upon the neighbouring station of Caerwent. I have been requested to renew and enlarge those remarks upon the present occasion, respecting the latter city, but I fear that they will prove a very imperfect record of its important history.

The country, which lay westward of the river Severn, was the last which remained for Roman conquest, and when the Britons had retreated to their mountain homes, before the Imperial Standard, the Romans planted fortified camps for the protection of their acquired possessions, and amongst these was that of Venta Silurum, now known as Caerwent, in the southern extremity of the Silurian kingdom-and, as usual with conquerors, roads were constructed for military and commercial intercourse between the several stations. Whether there was an early British town or village at Caerwent does not appear certain, but the probability is that there may have been such, upon which the Romans afterwards erected a larger station, as it was in those days conveniently situated for commerce, there being, as it is said, a small navigable river, the Nedern, the estuary of which afterwards washed the walls of the more important Roman City of Venta Silurum.

The earliest evidence which we possess of the Roman stations in this country is found in the Itinerary of Antoninus, to which we have to refer for the first traces of our history.

According to the Itinerary there were three stations in Britain which were associated with the name of "Venta."

1.-VENTA BELGARUM at Winchester on Iter VII., which lay on the road leading from Clausentum, near Southampton, to Londinum (London).

2.-VENTA ICENORUM, near Caster, in Norfolk, on Iter IX., which lay on the road leading thence, passing Sitomagus, near Thetford, to Londinum (London).

3.-VENTA SILURUM, at Caerwent, on Iter XIV., which lay on the road leading from Isca Silurum at Caerleon, passing Venta Silurum, thence Abone on the north of the river Severn, near Chepstow, Trajectus on the south side of that river, thence to Aquæ Solis, at Bath, passing Verlucio, near Warminster, Cunetio, near Marlborough, Spinæ, near Spene, and to Calleva Attrebatum, near Silchester, where it appears to have united with Iter VII., connecting Clausentum, near Southampton, with Londinum. In a commentary upon the Itineraries of Antoninus, by William Burton, published in 1658, the author gives the following pithy remarks upon this station :-' -"Venta Silurum. I before gave notice that there were three Ventas in this Itinerary; one of the Belge and one of the Iceni, and this last is attributed to the country of the Silures. Tacitus names them in an old copy. The nation of the Silures was charged with no fierceness, nor with clemency, but that they would exercise war. And in the life of Agricola that the Silures passed into Britain, he conjectures, as a colony of the old Iberi, that, saith he, their coloured looks and curled hair for the most, and their situation over against Spain, cause a belief that the old Iberi passed over and possessed those places. And in the same book Julius Frontinus sustained the brunt, a great man, as far as he might, and overcame in arms the strong and stout nation of the Silures. Ptolemy made the Demetæ the utmost people of the island towards the west, and the Silures after them more to the east. Amongst them is the Wye, or Vaga, the limit betwixt the Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire men. In former times this city was called Caerwent."

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