210 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1909 
privileges of Rome itself; above all, it was one of the very few places 
in the kingdom which possessed the full dignity of a city. On the 
south-eastern side of the town is a steep embankment (cut through by 
the M. and S.W.J. Railway) which is still known as ‘‘ the city bank.” 
Fifteen hundred years have passed since it ceased to be a rampart of 
a Roman city. Most of the vestiges of the Roman occupation of the 
town have been exposed by digging. In the museum, which we owe 
to the beneficence of a former Ear] Bathurst, and in the splendid 
collection of Roman remains which the late Mr Wilfrid Cripps has 
housed in his residence, are thousands of relics which have been 
brought to light by the use of the pick and spade. The existence of 
the basilica was unknown until Mr Cripps, by astute and logical 
reasoning, located it, and then by careful study exposed its foundations. 
The name of the ‘‘ Roman Rampart” still clings to it, and it stands a 
silent witness to the ancient glory of the town, and to the reality and 
power of an empire which now exists only in name. 
Of the English conquest of Cirencester, as narrated by Mr Sawyer, 
we get our first insight in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In 577 the 
King of Cirencester joined himself unto the King of Gloucester and 
the King of Bath, and went forth to give battle to the West-Saxon 
invader on the Southern Cotteswolds. This entry in the old record 
is the first bit of light that is thrown upon the story of Gloucestershire 
after the departure of the Roman forces. Apparently, when the 
dominating and unifying rule of the Romans had gone, the Britons of 
Gloucestershire, like their kinsmen elsewhere, went back to the 
tribal life of the pre-Roman period. There seems, however, to have 
been enough of kinship between the Gloucestershire kingdoms for 
co-operation against a common foe. But their joint forces were no 
match for those of the West-Saxon. On the field of Dyrham—where 
the most momentous battle in Gloucestershire history was fought— 
the three Kings were slain, their followers killed or routed, the power 
of native resistance was broken, and the Cotteswolds were won fot 
the English folk. 
In the settlement which followed the conquest, the Foss Way 
played a part with which Cirencester has an interesting connection. 
For nearly all its course through this county the Foss Way is a parish 
boundary. The only exception is at Cirencester. There the town is 
astride the road. This agrees with the general principles of Roman 
castrametation. That the English settlers did not apply to Cirencester 
what Mr Sawyer termed their Foss Way boundary principle is an 
evidence that the English town grew up on the foundations and over 
the area of the Roman city. Subsequently it extended beyond the 
Roman boundary in all directions, but a part of the enlarged area still 
bears a name which suggests some interesting archeological enquiries. 
In Words and Places Dr. Taylor lays stress on the ethnological value 
of the modifications of the Latin word ‘‘castra.” In purely Saxon 
districts, he says, the form ‘‘ chester” is universal ; in Anglian King- 
doms it becomes ‘‘ caster”; in Mercia, which, though mainly 
Anglian, was subject to a certain amount of Saxon influence, it is 
