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SOME TRACES OF ROMAN AND SAXON OCCUPATION 

 OF THE DISTRICT OF RISBURY. 



By T. Davies Bdrlton, Esq. 



This paper, which has been undertaken at the request of the Committee of our 

 Club with some diffidence, merely aims at placing on record some local facts 

 that have been observed, which, as time goes on, it might be more difficult to 

 collect, but to which now perhaps persons present may be able to add. 



The early history of England up to the period of its complete subjection to 

 Ecghbert in the beginning of the ninth century (A.n. 829) is involved in much 

 obscurity, as is shown by Mr. Green in " The Making of England." It is nevertheless 

 of the highest interest and importance, for "it forms," he says, "the period 

 during which our fathers conquered and settled over the soil of Britain, and the 

 age in which their political and social life took the form which it still retains. " 



The Romans had occupied the country as aliens and conquerors, as the 

 English have occupied India ; neither killing nor driving off such natives as would 

 live peaceably under their rule, but encouraging their presence, giving them the 

 blessings of security and peace, and introducing amongst them their own high 

 civilization ; incorporating them as much as possible with themselves, and sending 

 them to fight for the Empire in other parts of the world, as the natives of Thrace, 

 Gaul, and Africa, fought the Roman battles here. 



After an occupation of some four centuries the Roman military and official 

 classes were withdrawn from Britain (a.d. 411), owing to the difficulties brought 

 upon the Empire by the advance of the Barbarians on Rome. The succeeding 

 four centuries, of which the written record is so slight, are those with which our 

 discoveries have to do, and in connection with which Mr. Green says : — "Archaeo- 

 logical researches on the sites of villas and towns, or along the line of road, or dyke, 

 often furnish evidence more trustworthy than written chronicle ; while the ground 

 itself, where we can read the information it affords, is, whether in the account of 

 the conquest, or that of the settlement of Britain, the fullest and most certain of 

 documents." 



There can be no question from its direct course on the map, and also from its 

 structure, as ascertained in several places, that the road is Roman which leads from 

 Bowley's Field by Patty's Cross, Stretford, Shuttock's Field, Broadstone, Black- 

 wardine, HoUywall, Hill Hole, Bowley, Bodenham, Preston Wynne, past 

 Lugwardine, and so on by Mordiford to Ariconium, near Ross— which was the 

 Merthyr Tydvil of the Romans. This road is named in the Itinerary of Antonine, 

 and was probably formed at a later period. It passed through the town now to 

 be considered. 



Blackwardine is the only name that history gives to the place on which 

 tradition has ever stated that a town formerly existed. Its remains still blacken 



