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of brick, being a foot long and three inches square, let artificially into one another. 
Colonel Dantsey found burnt wheat in one hollow place, and sent some of it to 
the Society of Antiquaries in London. Camden adds that ‘“‘numbers of coins, 
bricks, leaden pipes, urns, and large bones have been formerly dug up here.” 
This ‘‘chair,” it may be stated here, was at one time called ‘ Becket’s 
Chair,” from a legend that ‘‘Thomas & Becket often visited a pool in the parish 
of Sugwas by the road side, abounding in trout.” There is much doubt whether 
Becket ever came into Herefordshire, but his memory was evidently much 
respected in this county. The old Roman road certainly passed by Sugwas pool; 
though it has long since been altered. This pool has also another tradition at- 
tached to it. It is supposed to occupy the site of an ancient city, which was 
destroyed and submerged by an earthquake. The pool as we now see it is little 
more than a marsh, and it seems just possible that the tradition may only have 
become inverted, and that the clay for the bricks to build the Roman city came 
out of the place and formed the pool. : 
Baxter, in his Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum (1733), places Magna 
at Wall Hills near Ledbury, but as is now well known very erroneously. 
There is no record to be found as to the time when the ruined walls above 
ground were taken away, and the site levelled for cultivation. It was probably 
a gradual work extended over many years, but it is within the memory of old 
men that many portions of the walls, covered with brushwood, existed above 
ground over a considerable part of the area. ‘*‘ In the second decade of the pre- 
sent century,” says Mr. Hardwick (Archwological Journal, Vol. xiv., p. 83) ‘‘the 
site, which was a complete wilderness of decaying walls and débris, was cleared.” 
Mr. Hardwick adds ‘‘ The stones having been removed from the surface as deep 
as the plough penetrates, very good crops of corn are now raised. The land is 
loose and friable, and as fine asa garden. In the drought of summer, the lines of 
the streets and foundations of houses are quite visible in the verdure. ‘he prin- 
cipal street runs in a direct line through the town from east to west, and was 
twelve or fifteen feet in width, with a gutter along the centre to carry off refuse 
water, as is traceable by the difference in the growth of crops. The streets appear 
to have been gravelled. No doubt many of the buildings were of timber, for along 
the lines of streets, at regular distances, the plinths in which the timbers were 
inserted, have been taken out, the holes being cut about four inches square, the 
plinths measured two feet in each direction, and lay two feet beneath the present 
surface.” The exterior walls, however, certainly remained until a much later 
period. 
““The only trace of exposed Roman walls that my fifty years’ knowledge can 
recall,” says Mr. J. J. Reynolds, ‘‘was removed by my uncle, Mr. John Hardwick, 
about the year 1861, when the fences were thrown down. It then formed a 
raised fence with scrub growing about it. It occupied a small portion of the 
north side, and carried the Kenchester footpath. Not a ploughing season passed 
in those days without a share or two being broken against some buried stone- 
work.” 
When the site was first cultivated, and for some years afterwards, a great 
