ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE 



vie with that. Its basins were doubtless fewer and smaller, but the 

 type appears to be the same. 



Round the healing springs there naturally gathered a small settlement 

 or village. Traces of this have been encountered at various times on the 

 low hill which rises south and south-east of the baths, some 60 or 70 feet 

 above them. The first discovery came in 1787, when Rooke noticed 

 here some ' little banks of earth ' and ' an oblong tumulus,' and, on 

 digging, uncovered some masonry. He describes this masonry as an un- 

 mortared wall, enclosing a rectangle of 22 J by 46 feet, and crowned 

 originally (as he supposed) by a superstructure of well-dressed stone ; part 

 of a Roman tile, a Roman potsherd, and some nails were found in clearing 

 this out. The use of the building cannot now be determined. Rooke 

 thought it a temple, but for this there seems no good reason. He gives 

 the position as on the top of StainclifF, which corresponds to the present 

 Terrace and Terrace Road. 1 



Other remains have been found much more recently, in the same 

 quarter but slightly further east, in the course of building operations. 

 In particular the con- 

 struction of Holker 

 Road, Silverlands, has 

 brought to light many 

 Roman antiquities dur- 

 ing the last two years 

 (19034). Structural re- 

 mains are few. They 

 are described as consist- 

 ing of an area of 30 by ., ,, 



. a j f Fie. 27. RESTORATION OF SAMIAN BOWL FOUND NEAR SILVERLANDS, 



30 feet, floored With un- BUXTON. (Probably of the first century A.D.) 



dressed local limestone, 



some tiles and bricks indicative of a building not far off, and three 

 gritstone hearths about 5 feet in diameter planted on the floored area. 

 Smaller objects abound. The Samian includes an embossed bowl of 

 first-century type, stamped inside OF F NTI, Officina Ponfi* several 

 bits of embossed bowls assignable to the second century, the hough of 

 a plain vessel stamped CF CALVI, and many less noteworthy pieces. 

 Commoner kinds of pottery are more frequent, as well as fragments of 

 glass (including part of a square glass bottle), bits of lead, iron nails, 

 querns, whetstones, bones of animals, and a flint arrowhead of leaf shape. 8 

 The coins known to me are a denarius of Augustus (Cohen 189, B.C. 20) 

 and a First Bronze of Trajan.* 



With these recent finds in Holker Road we may connect some 

 scattered discoveries. Half of a Roman milestone was found close by, 



1 Rooke, Arch. ix. 137, with plans of site and building, which are practically useless. 



* ThePonti bowl is of the form numbered 29 by Dragendorff and Dechelette ; its foliation most 

 resembles Dechelette, plate vi. 1-5. The piece is in the collection of Mr. Micah Salt. See fig. 27. 



3 Stukeley, Iter. Borcale, p. 28, mentions arrowheads as often found at Buxton. 



* Information from Mr. Salt, who possesses most of the objects and very kindly gave me full access 

 to them ; letters by Mr. W. Turner, 25 March 1903, in the local press and in the Reliquary, 1904, 

 p. 54 ; personal knowledge. 



I 225 29 



