A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



ended when they were conquered by the Saxons. The Britons, as they 

 fled before the invaders, took refuge in hiding places and fastnesses, and 

 for a passing moment occupied the caves which their neolithic pre- 

 decessors had haunted. Some such company, perhaps, taking refuge in 

 the ravine of Creswell, has left behind at the entrance to the Church Hole 

 Cave the ashes of its fires and a few objects of use or ornament. Among 

 them a bronze brooch in the form of a harp is especially noteworthy. 

 There were also found ' a bone awl, a square polished bone like a die cut 

 in half, ornamented with circles on all sides but one, numerous fragments 

 of grey lathe-turned Romano-British ware, a fragment of a whetstone, a 

 black flint strike-a-light.' l 



If the above account is correct, these objects belong to the end of 

 the British period, but it is possible that we are dealing with a burial place, 

 such as those which line the Fosse Road out of Newark. The presence 

 of the ashes, of human bones, of pottery, of personal ornaments, is, 

 perhaps, more easily explained in this way than by supposing that the 

 caves were occupied as dwellings. 



The circular ornament upon the die is an interesting trace of a 

 familiar Celtic decoration, and anticipates the favourite geometrical 

 motive of the Irish illuminators of manuscripts. 



THE CAVES OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



Now that we have surveyed the course of prehistoric time as far as 

 our somewhat scanty resources will permit, we can take up a problem 

 which has much interested local antiquaries, namely, the age of the 

 caves which are found at various places in the county. In addition to 

 the caves of Creswell, there are some rock surfaces which have been 

 hollowed out and used as dwellings in the neighbouring town of Mans- 

 field. They are towards the top of the rise leading from the town in 

 the direction of Southwell. The same sandstone formation presents in 

 Nottingham and its neighbourhood an opportunity for numerous excava- 

 tions. The northern escarpment of the Trent on both sides of the 

 Castle Rock has been honeycombed with dwellings and hollows of 

 various kinds. 2 Some of these caves are probably as old as Roman times, 

 or even older ; but the evidence for their antiquity is meagre, and in the 

 end reduces itself to a passage in Asser, in which the historian gives the 

 British name of Nottingham as Tignocobauc, and translates it ' dwellings 

 of caves.' 8 But the Britons themselves dwelt by preference in hill 

 settlements, and although it is believed by some that the Druids some- 

 times taught in caves, this was a special custom, and does not prove a 

 common usage. In view of all this we cannot ascribe a very early 

 origin to the excavations in the church cemetery at Nottingham.* 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxxiii, 603 ff. 



' Trans. Thonton Soc. (1897), 37 ; Notts, and Derb. Notes and Queries, vi, 17, 35. 



3 Guest, Origines Celticae, i, 360 ; Notts, and Derb. Notes and Queries, ii, 87. 



4 Oliver, Shadows Departed, 13. 



igo 



