DISCOVERED IN WORCESTERSHIRE. 31 



I have Roman coins of Probus and Gratian, and also an undeci- 

 phered one, which are said to have been lately found in an excavat- 

 ed mass of soil upon which some old tenements stood, in a street 

 called Dolday, in this city. In The Stranger's Guide to Worcester, 

 by Ambrose Florence, p. 13, the above ancient part of the town is 

 noticed as follows . — " In the corporation book, called Liber Legum, 

 made in the reign of Henry VII., it is ordered that all ' Walshe 

 cateir coming to be sold, be brought to Dolday." 



Camden, in his Britannia, vol. ii., p. 352, edit. 1790,* says — 

 "Worcester was probably founded by the Romans, when they 

 built cities at proper intervals on the east side of the Severn, to 

 check the Britons on the other side of that river. It formerly 

 boasted Roman walls. It has now a tolerably strong wall." 



In Britton's History and Antiquities of Worcester Cathedral, pub- 

 lished in 1835, it is stated that " Dr. Stukeley, who appears to 

 have visited the city and several other places in this part of Eng- 

 land, in 1721, and afterwards published an account of his antiqua- 

 rian researches in his Itinerarium curiosum, says — " no doubt but 

 this was a Roman city, yet we could find no remains but a place in 

 it called Sudbury, which seems to retain in its name some memori- 

 al of that sort.' "t To this Mr. Britton added — " This place is 

 now called SidburyJ — evidently a corruption of South-bury or 

 borough. Since Camden, Stukeley, and Green wrote their respec- 



* Vide, also, Andrew Yarranton's Work, intitled, England's Improvement 

 by Sea and Land, ^c, (the first part of which was published in 1677>and the 

 second in 1698), and Chambers's Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire , 

 title, Yarrington. 



-j- Bishop Ly ttleton was also of that opinion. Dr. Nash, in the absence of 

 the late discoveries, raised considerable doubts, in his History of Worcester- 

 shire, as to Worcester having been a Roman station, as he did not think 

 Yarranton's account was sufficiently conclusive. 



X Upon a culvert, a few years back, having been made about thirty or 

 forty yards long in Sidbury street, just outside where the city-gate stood, 

 a pebble pavement was found all along the line, about six feet deep in the 

 earth. The like was also discovered in the adjoining lane leading out of 

 Sidbury, by the back of St. Peter's church, to the china factory ; but I should 

 think this pavement was not Roman, but of a more modern date, and buried, 

 perhaps, at the time of one of the conflagrations of this city, for the ground 

 in that quarter has been considerably raised since the above church was 

 built, as the steps down into that ancient edifice sufficiently indicate. It 

 was at the above spot in Sidbury where Charles II. escaped from the Crom- 

 wellites, aided by a waggon, which crossed the gate-way, and which was 

 laden with ammunition, according to Dr. Bates's account in his Troubles of 

 England., and with hay, according to the History of Dr. Nash. 



