A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



name, Ira, and the second half, Chester, is merely the term used in early 

 times to designate Roman sites of all kinds, and sometimes even sites that 

 are not Roman. The place has however long been known as a Roman 

 site. Camden mentions it ; Morton has much to tell of it, and in his 

 day, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the walls were appar- 

 ently still standing. Discoveries made by ironstone diggers in 1873—4 

 called fresh attention to the spot, and in 1878—9 some excavations were 

 carried out by the Rev. R. S. Baker, late rector of Hargrave.^ These 

 excavations were unfortunately not very successful. Only a tiny fraction 

 of the site (just ~ part) was thoroughly uncovered ; much was merely 

 probed with iron bars ; buildings accidentally encountered were not 

 traced out ; the excavators do not appear to have understood what they 

 were finding, and their records of the results are not at all satisfactory. 

 When the work was done the farmer who rented the field was permitted 

 to remove some of the foundations, and the difficulties of future explorers 

 have thus been seriously increased. We cannot therefore in the present 

 state of our knowledge offer any complete or final account of the place. 



The 'camp' itself forms an irregular oblong of about 20 acres (fig. 10). 

 It was surrounded by a stone wall 8 feet thick, of which Morton tells us 

 that ' the outcourses were, as usual, set flatways, while the inner part of the 

 wall consisted of stones pitched on end and inclining southward ' — not an 

 unusual feature in the town walls of Roman Britain. The angles were 

 apparently rounded ; but except perhaps for a puzzling circular founda- 

 tion 3 1 feet in diameter near the south-west corner (plan, h) we have 

 no indications of turrets or bastions. Foundations of the south and west 

 gates and traces of beaten roads leading to the south and east gates 

 were noted in 1879 (plan, g and d). Of the interior the northern or 

 lower part was thought by Mr. Baker to contain few buildings, though 

 roof slates were found especially towards the west gate (marked on the 

 plan by shading). A long trench dug between the east wall and the 

 eastern hedge of Burrow Field showed some pits or depressions with 

 flint arrowheads and scrapers — vestiges probably of occupation long ages 

 before the Romans. The southern or upper part of the interior con- 

 tained many buildings in stone. The plans which we possess of them 

 are confused and imperfect and permit no certain judgment, but the 

 indiscriminate grouping and irregular orientation show that they do not 

 belong to a fort, and the buildings themselves are certainly not of any 

 military type. Painted wall plaster found in 1879 (plan, m) and plain 

 brick and tile pavements, noted by both Morton and Baker, indicate 

 civilian dwelling houses. Possibly the building east of the letter k on 

 the plan may have been a shrine inside a little enclosure, and a sculptured 

 stone to be described in the next paragraph may have stood in it. But 

 it is rash to speculate further about a site which has been so little and 



1 Morton, p. 517, copied by Bridges, ii. 1 8 1, and Gough, JJJitions to Camden, ii. 282. For the 

 later finds see R. S. ^iVtr, Reports of the Aisociated Archit. Societies, xiii. (1875) 88-118, xv. (1879), 

 49-59. Mr. W. Hirst Simpson of Chester House kindly lent me a large map of the excavations on 

 the scale of 33 feet to an inch, with notes by Mr. Baker, from which I have derived some useful details. 



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