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running the length of the old churchyard and for some distance below it, supports 
the soil that elsewhere has been thrown east, so as to fill up partially the fosse; it 
is called the ‘‘ Ditch Wall.” The southern embankment is more difficult to trace 
out. It seems to have been made obliquely, from west to east, along the river 
front. It begins at an angle of about 100° from the west end, running in the 
direction of the embankment at the eastern corner. Then a large portion seems 
to have been removed to make Mill Lane and the buildings on each side of the 
entrance to the lane. The rest of the intervening ground beyond Front Street 
now forms the lawn of Leintwardine House, and it has been so much altered in 
making terraces and the carriage drive, that whilst these changes have left the 
eastern embankment still distinct, they have removed that on the south side, 
which should join its lower end. The earth, however, is still there, and the 
ground higher than it otherwise would be. 
Two entrances may still be traced clearly. One which entered obliquely 
through the western embankment, just above its lower end, which may be called 
the western entrance; and the other a direct entrance on the eastern side, 
between the upper boundary wall of the Leintwardine House property, and the 
Primitive Methodist Chapel, below Church Street. This eastern entrance is more 
clearly proved, also, by the fact that up to 150 years ago the space, from the break 
in the embankment to the Watling Street Road, was unowned and unoccupied, 
and those who have now possession of it have no other title to it than that which 
length of occupation affords. It is very probable that there were also entrances 
north and south, at either end of the present Front Street, but this is purely 
conjectural. 
The fosse, or outer line of the entrenchments, almost throughout the whole 
extent, still forms a division of property, and thus also curiously marks out to the 
present day the extent of the fortifications of the old Roman town. 
It has long been observed by local builders and others, when sinking wells, 
digging foundations, or making cellars, that throughout the inner area, at a depth 
of from four to five feet below the surface, a stratum of ashes and burnt material 
is met with; and from one foot to eighteen inches below this again, a second 
stratum of ashes and charcoal is found. ‘‘ Wherever graves have been dug in the 
churchyard, to the depth of eight feet,” says Mr. Banks in his paper, “ two layers 
of ashes and charcoal intermixed with tiles, broken pottery, bronze articles and 
coins, have been passed through. A few years since, on the restoration of the 
church (1865), a drain was cut through the eastern entrenchment, but no trace of 
the ashy layers was found outside the enclosure. The remains, from time to time 
found, were generally thrown away as rubbish, or dispersed, until Mr. Evans 
commenced his observations. Among the articles which he bas secured are 
half of a stone hand mill, or quern, pierced with a hole; the upper part of an 
earthenware pounding mill with alip or rim; fragments of Roman pottery; a 
bronze ring ; and a third brass of Constantine the Great, with a square altar on 
the reverse. At the north-east corner of the enclosure, some grains of wheat in a 
charred state were found at the depth of a few feet, in excavating the foundations 
of a cottage; and on the south-west, fragments of thick brown pottery, apparently 
