68 RIVERS. 



the enclosure, near the south-east angle, is an artificial hill 

 called Studforth. 



Leland gives us the following notice : 



" Aldeburge is about a quarter of a mile from Boroughbridge. 

 This was in the Romanes tyme a great city on Watheling Streate 

 called Isuria Brigantum, and was walled, whereof I saw vestigia 

 sed quadam tenuia. It stode by south west on We (Ure) river. 

 Thecompace of it hath been by estimation a mile." "There be 

 now large felds fruitful of corn in the very place wher of the 

 town was ; and in these felds yerely be found in ploughing many 

 coynes of sylver and brasse, of the Roman stampe. There hath 

 been found also sepulchres, aqua ductus, tessellata,pavimenta, &c. 

 There is an hill on the side of the feld wher the old town was 

 caullid Stothart, as if it had been the kepe of a castle." (i. 102.) 



Mr. Gough describes the walls as 4 yards thick, founded on 

 large pebbles laid in a bed of blue clay. " To the foundations 

 on this clay is in many places four or five yards deep. Almost 

 in the centre is a hill called Borough Hill, which seems to have 

 been a sort of citadel, where mosaic pavements have been found, 

 and foundations of a large building with bases, &c., engraved in 

 Drake's Eboracum." 



To the numerous examples of tessellated pavements which have 

 from time to time been discovered at Aldborough, the present 

 owner, Mr. Lawson, has made remarkable additions, and with 

 much taste and liberality has preserved them from injury, and 

 gratified the public by allowing easy inspection . So many coins, 

 gems, busts, and other bronzes, vases, glass vessels, pavements, 

 sculptures, and frescoed walls of houses, have been laid open 

 by excavations within the Roman walls, as to give rather the idea 

 of an easy and luxurious city, than of the stern war-camp which 

 we know Eburacum to have been. And this is perhaps not a 

 false notion ; for, planted at first close to Isu Brigantum, the 

 water town of the tribe, it may have gradually relaxed its warlike 

 aspect, and assumed, as we know from Tacitus happened in other 

 cases, the milder aspect of colonial life. 



