URE. 65 



found here. There was a custom in this place, earlier than the 

 Conquest, to blow a horn every night at nine o'clock. 



From Ripon to Boroughbridge and Aldborough the general 

 line of the Ure is to the E.S.E., and a little below the river joins 

 the Swale. The twin towns of Boroughbridge and Aldborough 

 formerly sent two members each to Parliament, a sufficient 

 proof of their importance in our early English history. Both 

 probably were important long before the Anglians crossed the 

 sea ; Aldborough undoubtedly was the Roman Isurium, and it 

 was probably placed near a British town of earlier days, to which 

 the yet standing monoliths called the Devil's Arrows bear durable 

 testimony. 



If, as is probable, Isurium was an earlier station of the Romans 

 than Eburacum, and this Roman camp was fixed near the British 

 capital of the time, Cartismandua reigned here, and her name, 

 or the name of her city (Cathair-ys-maen-ddu), seems to typify 

 the great stones, near which, on the removal of the bridge from 

 Aldborough after the Conquest, Newborough, afterwards Bo- 

 roughbridge, was gradually peopled or repeopled. 



The great monoliths at Boroughbridge have caught the atten- 

 tion of all our topographers, and speculation has not been idle as 

 to their history and uses. The stones, which have doubtless been 

 extracted from the great rocks of Brimham, or Plumpton, have 

 been conjectured to be of artificial composition; the furrows 

 on the sides, which are merely the effects of 2000 years of rain, 

 have been supposed to be the flutings of columns, fitted to 

 imaginary capitals or busts. They have been called marks for 

 four roads meta3 of a chariot race, trophies of victory, and we 

 might add other such fancies if it were proper to delay without 

 necessity our pleasant journey on the banks of the Ure. 



Leland, describing his visit to Boroughbridge, says : 



" There I passed over a great Bridge of stone on We (Ure). 

 The Toune is but a bare thing ; it stondith on Wateling-Streate : 

 almost at the very end of this Towne cummith a litle broke a 



F 



