180 ON THE BRITISH ANTIQUITIES OF WARWICKSHIItE. 



At Kings Newnham, which lies about a mile from the Foss road^ 

 is the site of another British settlement^ the indications of which 

 are, however, so faint, that were it not for the discovery of British 

 sepulchral and other antiquities on and near the spot, and traces of 

 fires which became visible on ploughing up the site of this settle- 

 ment about forty years back, it would have continued buried in 

 oblivion. The situation, however, accords with that commonly 

 made choice of by the Britons ; being on some high ground over- 

 hanging the river Avon, which flows on the south. A few years 

 ago, at the lime-works near this place, a celt of flint, a primitive 

 British weapon, was found, but this has since been unfortunately 

 lost. 



The few relics which have been found at this place are articles of 

 a description usually met with in the vicinity of British settlements, 

 and consist of a brass pin, apparently the acus or pin of a fibula or 

 brooch, a fragment of red pottery of the Roman era, a deer's horn, 

 and a boar's tusk. 



The site of a Roman-British station was discovered, about ten 

 years ago, on the north bank of the river Leam, about a quarter of 

 a mile southward of Princethorpe, and by the side of the Foss road, 

 when some antiquities were brought to light, on soughing a field. 

 This was rather a singular discovery, inasmuch as it tended to fill 

 up a blank in the Diaphragmata of Richard of Cirencester, a trea- 

 tise on the Roman roads in Britain, said to have been compiled by a 

 monk of Westminster, in the fourteenth century, from some very 

 ancient records now no longer extant. 



This treatise, the manuscript of which was discovered at Copen- 

 hagen, about the middle of the last century, contains several iters, 

 or lines of road, which do not appear in the Itinerary, or road-book, 

 of Antoninus, which likewise treats of the Roman roads in Britain, 

 as well as in other parts of the empire. The authenticity of these 

 treatises is, I think, unquestionable, though a doubt has been 

 thrown on the genuineness of that by Richard of Cirencester, 

 which doubt, however, this very discovery at Princethorpe has con- 

 tributed to dispel. 



In the fourteenth iter of this work a blank is left for the name of 

 a station between the stations Alauna, Alcester-on-the-Alne, and 

 Bemionis, High-cross ; but the numerals which indicate the number 

 of miles from one station to another are preserved, and these evince 

 this (till lately unknown) station to have been twelve miles from 

 the station at High-cross, with which distance this station on the 

 banks of the Leam, near Princethorpe, exactly agrees. 



