Excavations on the so-called Via Julia, and on Lansdown. 
By A. Tric—E Martin, M.A., F.S.A. 
(Read February 6th, 1906.) 
The course of the fourteenth Iter of the Itinerary has never 
been precisely determined. The stations are as follows: 
Isca Silurum, Venta Silurum, and then apparently the Severn 
is crossed, for the next station is Abone (g miles), then 
Tvajectus (9 miles), then Aque Solis (6 miles). 
I shall not detain you with a discussion as to the identifica- 
tion of these stations.* I shall only state that on the whole 
there is strong evidence for assuming that the route was 
across the Severn from Caldicot Pill, near Caerwent, to the 
junction of the Trym and the Avon at Sea Mills. This would 
have been A bone or (as Mr. Haverfield ingeniously conjectures) 
Abone Trajectus, and, the name of the next station having 
disappeared, the gap has been filled by splitting Abone 
Trajectus in two. This station by the mileage might be 
Bitton, where there is a rectangular camp and other Roman 
remains, and the mileage of the next stage agrees also with 
the distance of Bitton from Bath. 
Assuming then that this was the course of the Iter, we 
have to determine how it came to Bath. Mr. Scarth was, I 
believe, the first to identify it with the grass lane between 
North Stoke and Weston, which is now used only as a bridle 
path. 
In the maps of the Ordnance Survey this lane is called the 
Via Julia, and it is, perhaps, worth while to repeat that. what- 
ever be the character of this lane, there is no authority for 
the name, except that of the notorious Bertram, who produced 
the forged Itinerary of Richard of Cirencester. Bertram no 
doubt had borrowed the name from the rhyming couplet of a. 
monk named Richard of Necham, who wrote in the thirteenth 
century. The lines are as follows :— 
Intrat et auget aquas Sabrinz fluminis Osca 
Preceps ; testis erit Julia strata mihi. 
They may possibly preserve some genuine tradition, but 
the name would in any case only certainly apply to some 
road at the junction of the Usk and the Severn. 

*See Proceedings of the Clifton Antiquarian Club, i. 58. 
