ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



One more inscription was found at Littleborough before the close of 

 the 1 8th century. The Gentlemarfs Magazine for 1772 uo contains a letter from 

 ' C.D.' dated Southwell, 20 August, inclosing a drawing of a small, flat, square 

 piece of stone, which he supposed to be a tessera or token used by a Roman 

 centurion in setting the nightly guard. It is, however, obviously an oculist's 

 stamp, bearing the names of the medicines prescribed and perhaps also that 

 of the oculist himself. 151 The stamp is now missing but the drawing of it 

 given by ' C.D.' (fig. 6) enables us to read it : 



(a) LViinzLVCivcivbi T. A\nn\i ? stact(um) at clari(tatem) (' for clearness of the eye '). 



(b) BDIAJORICV . . dia\J>s]oricu(tri) 



(c) STATVS Sta[c]tu[m? 



(d) Vacat. 



TOPOGRAPHICAL INDEX 



ARNOLD. Two miles to the north-west of this village is a large camp, situated on the highest 

 ground in Sherwood Forest (508 ft.), and commanding the smaller camps near Farnsfield and 

 Oxton. The hill on which it stands, formerly known as Holly Hill, is marked on the 

 Ordnance Survey (6-in., xxxiii, SE.) as 'Cockpit Hill, site of encampment' {Arch, x, 378, 

 with plan ; Arch. "Journ. xliii, 41]. Whether ever occupied by Roman forces or not, the 

 camp is at all events of rectangular form \V.C.H. Notts, i, 292, with plan], 



ASKHAM. An urn containing bones and some silver and copper coins was found in 1850 by 

 Mr. I. Smith Woolley in a cutting of the Great Northern Railway. Fourteen silver coins 

 from this hoard were exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries, ranging from Julius Caesar 

 (B.C. 49) to Domitian (A.D. 96) [Proc. Sac. Antiq. (Ser. i), ii, 100]. 



AVERHAM. On Mickleborough Hill, to the north of the village, W. Dickinson saw ' traces 

 of Roman fortification, and in its relative situation symptoms of a Roman tier' (see pp. 7,36 for 

 the same writer's view that a road led thence over the supposed bridge at Winthorpe to 

 Brough) [Dickinson, Antiq. in Notts. 93 ; no description or details given]. 



BABWORTH. In 1802 ninety-one Roman coins, sixty-two copper and twenty-nine silver, were 

 found about 200 yds. to the south of Morton Hall. A stone set up on the spot to mark this 

 is indicated on the Ordnance Survey maps. The coins were exhibited at Nottingham in 

 1899 by their present possessor, Mr. W. H. Mason, who described the find to the Thoroton 

 Society and pointed out that the site was only a quarter of a mile from the Roman road 

 from Ollerton to Blyth. Coins have also been found at Osberton, just on the other side 

 of this road. The Morton Hall coins range in date from A.D. 54 to A.D. 180, and include 

 examples of Nero, Vespasian, Domitian, Domitilla, Trajan, Hadrian, Sabina, Antoninus 

 Pius, M. Aurelius, and the two Faustinas ; the majority are coins of Trajan and Hadrian 

 [Information from Mr. W. H. Mason of Morton Hall]. [Bailey, Ann. of Notts, iv, 

 196; R. White, Jforksop, 38; Thoroton Soc. Trans, iii, 2O, 24; Ordnance Survey 6-in., 

 xiv, NW.] 



BARTON-IN-FABIS. During the first half of the igth century tessellated pavements were, it is said, 

 sometimes met with beneath the soil of a yard on the glebe farm. In a field close by, which 

 from time to time showed square and comparatively barren patches on its surface, large stones 

 and remains of walls were also occasionally found. It does not seem, however, that any 

 attempt was made to investigate the site before April 1856, when the parish clerk struck 

 against the edge of a tessellated pavement in ploughing here. Excavations were immediately 

 begun under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Wintour, then rector, and part of a fine pave- 

 ment was disclosed one foot below the surface. This, which consisted of an oblong rectangle, 

 1 5 ft. by 10 ft., was supposed to have formed one-fourth of the whole pavement. It was 

 made up of red, white, and blue tesserae arranged in an outer border of red and then one of 



1M p. 415 ; Rom. Brit. Rem. i, 260. Gough was similarly puzzled by it (Camden ii, 404, pi. 14, fig. 5). 



"' Corp. Infer. Lat. vii, 1321 ; xiii (3), 597, no. 10021, 204 (Esperandieu, Signac. medic, orac. no. 84) ; 

 Monthly Journ.Med. Science, (1850,248 (Simpson, Arch. Essays, ii, 280), pi. 3,fig. 8 \Arch.Journ. vii,358 j 

 xliii, 1 4 (with cut) ;Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xx, 175 ; Philologus, xiii (1858), 164, no. 73 ; Grotefend, Stempel 

 der rim. Augenartzen, 125, no. 108 ; Revue Archiologijue, xxii (1893), 28 ; Nott. Daily Guardian, 18 Jan. 1877. 



2 3 



