PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. i 
possession of Mr. Clayton, and to see the remains of Cilurnum, 
whilst the other mounted the hill, following the course of the 
wall, to St. Oswald’s. On the road to St. Oswald’s, by the kind- 
ness of Mrs. Lee, the party saw, in her grounds at Brunton, a 
fragment of the wall in good preservation, and also a Roman 
altar. The church of St. Oswald’s is a modern and unimposing 
structure. It occupies the site of the church built on the spot 
where King Oswald erected the cross, before the battle, when he 
defeated and slew the British leader Ceedwalla, the son of 
Cadvan, and Prince of Gwywedd. The place where this battle, 
which according to Beda occurred a.p. 635, was fought, has been 
a fertile subject of controversy. Beda tells us that it was at 
Denisesburn,* a locality not now to be identified under that 
name. ‘The field of battle was, without doubt, situated at no 
great distance from the place where Oswald erected the cross, 
and more than one place, near adjoining, has been fixed on as the 
battle field.t A charter of the thirteenth century, granting 
lands to an Archbishop of York, seems to fix the place on the 
south side of the Tyne, and up the Devil’s Water, that is, if we 
may allow the name Denisesburn to settle the point. The locality 
thus designated in the charter is certainly at no great distance from 
St. Oswald’s, and though we might from Beda’s account, have 
looked for the battle field nearer to the wall, yet the name 
* Nennius calls this battle Catscaul, “Ipse est Osuuald Lannguin, ipse occidit Catgab- 
laun regem Guenedote regionis in bello Catscaul, cum magna clade exercitus sui.” Nennius 
Ed. Stevenson p. 64. The Annales Cambriz, which places the battle under the year 631, 
contains the following entry: “Bellum Cantscaul in quo Catguollan cum suis corruit.” 
The name Catscaul has a probable derivation from the Welsh cad, a battle, and gwai, a wall 
or barrier, and so may mean the battle at or near the wall, which certainly corresponds 
with the place of Oswald’s victory. 
+ The site of the battle has been generally considered to have been necessarily, to the 
north of the Roman wall, but for this there is no sufficient authority. Beda tells us that 
Oswald, about to engage in battle, erected the cross at a place near to, and north of the 
wall, but he does not say that the battle was fought on the spot. Heven-felth, heaven- 
field, which he mentions in connection, refers, I think, to the locality where the cross was 
erected, and where the battle, may, figuratively, through that erection, be said to have com- 
menced, and not to the site of the actual battle. Smith in his edition of Beda, in the appendix 
No. 13, considers the Erring Burn to have been the Denisesburn of Beda, and that the 
battle was fought near Bingfield, which he says was traditionally the ancient Heven-felth. 
All these traditions and the betief that the battle occurred to the north of the wall, have 
probably their origin in the fact that there Oswald, before the battle, erected the cross, but 
afford no sure evidence as to the site of the actual engagement. 
