A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



at the south-east corner of Hardwick Square, in 1862, and, a few yards 

 from it, at the same depth, a piece of Roman road-paving. Pottery was 

 found a little to the east when the Buxton and Ashbourne branch of the 

 North- Western Railway was built. Pottery has also been found in 

 Bennett Street on the south slope of the hill on the top of which the 

 other remains have occurred, and other discoveries have been made in 

 this quarter of Buxton ; for instance, some coins found in 1891 of which 

 no record survives. 



Special notice is due to the milestone. It is a piece of roughly 

 circular column, hewn out of local grit, 23 inches high and 91 1 inches in 

 diameter. It was found in June 1862, 3 or 4 feet underground, in a grass 

 field then belonging to Mr. Matthew Lees, at a point which (as indicated 

 to me on the spot) is close to the entrance from Silverlands and the south- 

 east corner of Hardwick Square into the present railway goods yard. It 

 passed first into the possession of Mr. J. C. Bates, of Buxton, and then of 

 Mr. Wright, of Wootton Court, Warwick ; by the latter it was pre- 

 sented to the Derbyshire Archaeological Society. The Society deposited 

 it first at Derby and later in the Buxton Museum, where it now is. The 

 lettering on it, well-shaped and averaging 21 inches in height, is : 



RBPOTCoS 

 PPANNIOISE 

 MPX 



Here we have only the lower part of the inscription. The beginning, 

 with the name of the emperor and some of his titles, has been broken 

 away and lost. The whole must have run [Imp. Caes .... Aug. pont. 

 max.] trib(unicia) pot(estate), co(ri)s(u/e), p(ater) p(atriae). Anavione m(illia) 

 p(assuum) x. That is : 'in the reign of ... Augustus, pontifex maxi- 

 mus, endued with tribunician power, consul, father of his country. From 

 Anavio (Brough) 10 miles.' 1 The name of the emperor and the date of 

 the inscription cannot be determined. Holder declares it earlier than 

 A.D. 114, but he has confused it with another inscription. The lettering 

 gives little clue, but perhaps suggests the first or second century rather 

 than any later period. From its phrasing the stone seems to have been 

 erected not at the original construction of a road, but subsequently, at the 

 opening of some emperor's reign.* 



1 Buxton Advertiser, \\ June 1862 ; Jewitt, ReRj uary, iii. 207 (April 1863), with inaccurate illus- 

 trations and renderings; Watkin, Arch. Journ. xxxiii. 51, and Derb, Arch.Journ.vu. 79; Htlbner, 

 Corp. Insc. Lat. vii. 1 1 68, and Epbemerii, iii. p. 139 ; Mowat, Bulletin Ipigrapbtque, v. 324 ; myself, 

 Ephemeris, vii. 1102, with misprint of the first letter R for ~K, tr. ; I have examined the stone myself. 

 Though much discussed, the reading seems fairly certain. Some read COS I or COS II, but this I 

 cannot see. The concluding numeral at the end is more doubtful. To me it seems X, but in some 

 lights XI looks plausible. As, however, the distance from Brough along Bathamgate to Buxton is barely 

 10 English miles (= a little less than 1 1 Roman miles) X is preferable. Watkin thought to read X 

 and inferred from the elevated horizontal line that II had perished ; but xn is epigraphically impossible 

 (though xn would be right), and the horizontal line is a mere accidental scratch. The reading Anavltne 

 ' (from) Anavio ' (instead of a Navionc suggested by Watkin) is confirmed by an Italian inscription 

 mentioning the Brittones Anavionenses (Corp. Insc. Lat. xi. 5213), and by the river name Anava in the 

 Ravennas (see p. 210). 



1 A second milestone is said to have been discovered some years ago under the Bull's Head Inn on 

 Fairfield Green, and to have been built up into a modern foundation (Deri. Arch. Journ. xxv. 1 6 1 ). But the 

 distance from Silverlands is not i ,000 yards, and till the stone is rediscovered we can hardly discuss its character 



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