96 The Place-Name Crichlade: a Suggestion. 
are the outlines of evidence as to the condition, or even the existence, 
of this little town in earlier centuries ? 
Briefly they are these, Its name is, I believe, Celtic. Its 
situation was on the Roman Road from Corinium, or Duro- — 
cornovium, near Cirencester, that branched at the Nythe Farm 
(marked Nidum on the Ordnance Map), near Wanborough, one 
fork leading to Silchester, the other to Cunetio (Mildenhall, near 
Marlborough). Placed about half-way between these points, it 
was at an appropriate spot for the first station out from Corinium. 
It was surrounded by a rectangular mound or vallum, still traceable, 
_ that once was, no doubt, surmounted by a palisade, and from its 
form was presumably Roman. 
Its name, if Celtic, would imply a Pre-Roman existence as an ~ 
inhabited place. 
The Antonine Itinerary (Editio Wessling) gives in the thirteenth, 
iter from Isca (Usk) to Calleva (Silchester) only six intermediate — 
stations, and the total distance as cix m. p. (millia passuum, Roman 
miles), whereas the distances recorded from station to station 
amount to only ninety Roman miles. The length of a Roman 
mile was about one thousand six hundred and eighteen of our 
yards. It is evident that one or more stations must have slipped 
out of the record of this iter. It gives the distance from Gleyvum 
(Gloucester) to Durocornovium (Cirencester) as xiv m. p.; from 
Durocornovium to Spine (Speen, close to Newbury) xv m. p.; and 
from Spine to Calleva xv m. p. Now the distance from Cirencester 
to Speen, measured on the Roman road, would be about forty 
Roman miles, instead of fifteen as given by the iter: evidently, 
then, there is a hiatus in this part of the record. Possibly xv. 
is a mistake for vl. or xlv. That Cricklade was actually a 
Roman station will be seen by the position of the circumvyallated — 
town adjoining, but, as was not unusual, just off the Roman — 
road, being close to it on the south. It continued to be a ~ 
fortified place in Saxon and Danish and in Norman times, for it 
was one of the towns in which money was coined from the reign | 
of Athelstan II. onward, ¢.c., from the latter part of the tenth into 
the twelfth century; and it was only in walled or fortified towns 
