43 
Wigton, and which is known as Old Carlisle: thus the coast road 
by the sands, by Whitbeck and Bootle would become of secondary 
importance. 
My idea is that Agricola conquered the district by marching 
round its coast, and forming a great coast road, which was more 
or less, afterwards, abandoned for a short cut, which avoided the 
estuaries, and conducted to Old Carlisle, near the Red Dial. 
I suppose that in the earlier Roman days in Britain, when a 
legion lay in garrison in Chester, Old Carlisle, near the Red Dial 3 
and not Carlisle (Zuguvallum), was the Roman head quarters in 
this district, which would be only transferred to Luguvallum or 
Carlisle, when York became the capital of Roman Britain, 
when the great road from York to Carlisle was made, and 
when the military subordination to Chester was done away with. 
And in the names of Carlisle and Old Carlisle, there appears 
to be some traditional confirmation of this theory. That Old 
Carlisle was an important place is shown by the vastness of its 
ruins: in the last century they covered many acres. Stukeley 
writes of it—“ The fairest show of buildings I ever saw.” 
I have told you that Agricola started from Chester; you will 
see that by this great military road Old Carlisle was in direct 
communication with Chester, where, in the earlier days of the 
Roman rule in Britain, a Roman legion was quartered. During 
the later portion of the Roman rule, no legion lay at Chester. 
Britain was under the command of two great officers, the Comes 
littoris Saxonici per Britanniam, who ruled in the south, and the 
Dux Britanniarum, who lay with a Roman legion at York, from 
whence he bore command over the great Wall, drawn from Tyne 
to Solway, and its many garrisons. To bring him into military 
communication with the western portion of the Wall, a military 
toad was made following the natural passage from the great plain 
of York, by the pass of Stainmoor, down the valley of the Eden 
into the Cumberland plain, and thence to Carlisle. This great 
road ran from York over Stainmoor by Bowes, Brough, Brougham, 
Old Penrith, Carlisle, and Netherby. On the completion of this 
