By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jachson. 29 



met with in any record before that time : but, in that reign we 

 come, all at once, upon a castle and two churches. That the town 

 itself first came into existence at that time, I am far from saying. 

 One of our old Chroniclers, quoting another still older, says that 

 at this place Malraud, a very remote British King before the Roman 

 occupation of Britain, built a castle. It may have been so, and 

 that is all that can be said. Of Roman residence there are un- 

 doubtedly some indications ; not so much upon the site of the main 

 town as in one of its suburbs, on that interval of ground which 

 lies between St. James's Church on the Green, and Wick. The 

 word " Wick," in Latin vicus, is one that very often, though not 

 always, marks a Roman dwelling, and it does so happen in the 

 present case that upon that side of the town have been discovered 

 from time to time the greater part of the antiquities that are 

 considered to be Roman. 



In the year 1699 a blue earthen vessel 18 inches high, and 10 

 inches deep, was found at Southbroom, on ground belonging to Sir 

 John Eyles. It contained several hundred Roman coins of the 

 Empire, mostly copper, some mixed metal, others washed with 

 silver. But as one swallow does not make a summer, so the 

 discovery of one pot of money does not prove the existence of a 

 Roman town or village. The owner was quite as likely to hide 

 his treasure some way off in a field, as in his own garden. But 

 when the first discovery is followed b}' others, the case is altered. 

 Very soon afterwards a number of earthen vessels of strange shape 

 were found near the same spot: and in the year 1714, a collection 

 of curiosities turned up, still more to the purpose. Near the ruins 

 of an old house on the Green, one AVilliam Cadby, a gardener, dug 

 up 21 pocket household-deities, such as were called by the Romans, 

 Penates. They had been carefully interred in a large urn, holding 

 6 English gallons, and the urn had been inclosed in Roman tiles, 

 secured with Roman cement. Some of these little images, about 

 3 or 4 inches long, are still preserved in the British Museum. 

 They have been engraved several times : and in Moll's Atlas they 

 are represented on the margin of the map of the counties of Wilts, 

 Hampshire, -and Dorset, the publisher kindly giving as his reason 



