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in process of consummation in nearly every country in England, 
which substituted for the badly made and ruinous parish roads 
of the country that splendid network of turnpike roads which 
was to play such an important part in fostering and developing 
the commercial energies and resources of England, It is my 
main purpose, within the limits of a short paper, to give some 
account of the state of our roads, particularly in our own neigh- 
bourhood, before the great change was made by the ‘“‘ turnpiking ” 
of the roads, but it would leave my paper even more imperfect than 
it necessarily is, were I to omit all reference to those great road 
makers, a people whose innovations were as far-reaching and 
beneficent in their way as the work of our modern engineers—I 
mean the Roman conquerors of Britain. 
It was the fate of the Roman people, that to their work of 
conquest there was no finality. They could not stop. If the 
rich plains of Southern Italy became the prize of their prowess, 
they could not, if they had wished, sit down and enjoyit. They 
had to guard their conquests on the Po and the Arno against 
the incursions of northern barbarians, and that led them to the 
conquest of Gaul and Germany, and ultimately to the invasion 
of Britain. In Britain itself they could not, if they had wished, 
rest satisfied with the possession of the southern and more fertile 
parts of the island, for if they bound to themselves by a just rule 
and useful public works the tribes of these parts, it became a 
constant necessity to fight and fight again, until by the strength 
of their military positions they could either conquer or hold in 
check the wild tribes of the Brigantes and the Caledonians. 
That, I think, was the raison d’étre of the numerous roads and 
camps which crowd certain parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. 
The Brigantes, the warlike people whose territory included 
Lancashire and Yorkshire, were a constant trouble to the 
Romans and a terror to the loyal tribes who received the Roman 
tule and civilisation, until the campaigns of Vespasian’s generals, 
Cerealis and Agricola, reduced them to subjection or made them 
impotent by the establishment of fortified camps garrisoned by 
Roman soldiers. The year 79 of our era, seems to have been that 
in which Agricola by wise and prudent conduct, more even than 
by war, was able to plant these necessary strongholds in the 
country of the Brigantes, and with a power so strengthened to 
press forward against the Caledonians. 
Mr. Watkin, in his Roman Lancashire, places Mancunium 
(Manchester), Bremetonacez (Ribchester), and Galacum (Over- 
borough), on the list of Agricola’s forts. He thinks that the 
fortress at Colne was of a later date. In Yorkshire one of the 
earliest stations was Isurium (Aldborough), and later there were 
stations established nearer to us at Ilkley, and Slack, near Halifax. 
Of the roads which connected these fortresses of Agricola and 
