32 ROMAN ANTIQUITIES 



tive worksj a vast mound of earth — the keep of the ancient Norman 

 castle on the south side of the cathedral — has been entirely taken 

 away ; and some Roman antiquities were found, in 1833, at or near 

 its base: viz., an urn or jug of red earth with a handle; coins of 

 Vespasian, Caligula, Nero, Tiberius, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, &c. ; 

 and in a field near Upper Deal was discovered another Roman urn, 

 containing twenty copper coins of Carausius." 



*' The real extent of the ancient castle cannot now be ascertain- 

 ed, but the lofty mound, called the keep, and its ditches, &c., occu- 

 pied an area of between three and four acres. The apex of the 

 keep mound measured more than eighty feet above the high-water 

 mark of the Severn, which flowed close to its western base." 



In addition to the above-mentioned discoveries of remains at the 

 Castle-hill, I have to observe that a workman some time ago 

 brought me a small fragment, which, from its weight, he fancied 

 was gold. He stated that he dug it out of the gravel, near the cen- 

 tre of the bottom of the above hill, during its demolition. I sub- 

 mitted this substance to an experienced Chemist, who, upon analiza- 

 tion, found it to be exactly the same in quality as what is called 

 " patent yellow,'^ the mode of making which is set forth in Mr. 

 Gray's work on Pharmacology. Now, if the Castle-hill really was 

 thrown up by the Romans, and the workman's above account was 

 true, it may reasonably be inferred that the paint in question was 

 of Roman manufacture ; but it has been surmised that the above 

 hill, or the greater part of it, was made of the earth which was ex- 

 cavated upon the laying of the foundations and crypt of the cathe- 

 dral. 



With respect to that splendid and probably ancient British tumu- 

 lus, called Cruckbarrow-hill, which is situated between two and 

 three miles eastward of Worcester, it is very likely that the Ro- 

 mans used it as a watch or signal station, in the line of the Old 

 Hills and Malvern Hill, on the south-west, and of the Storage, 

 Suckley,* Ankerdine, Berrow, Woodbury, and Abberley Hills on 

 the west and north-west. This hill is of an oval shape, and mea- 

 sures 512 yards round within the ring fence at the base, and about 

 J 80 yards round the crown. I take it this was partly a natural hill, 

 and that it had a tail lying eastward, which was pared down to- 



* That part of the Suckley chain, called the Round Hill in Alfrick, has a 

 very tumulus-like appearance : the whole of the above range is rather mi- 

 nutely described in ray pamphlet On certain curious Indentations in the Old 

 Red Sandstone of Worcestershire and Herefordshire^ &c. &c., published in 1835. 



