A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



the pigs may not have been sent down the Derwent by water to Little 

 Chester supposing the river was then navigable enough for the purpose. 

 But the incompleteness of our knowledge forbids us to speculate 

 much on such puzzles. The pigs of lead are almost our only definite 

 facts. We cannot point to any single mine which we know the Romans 

 to have used. Instances occur of Roman fibula?, pins, or coins said to 

 have been found in mines, as near Elton and at Longstone Bridge, or of 

 mining spades thought to be Roman, as at Great Hucklow and Tadding- 

 ton. But we possess no precise record of the circumstances under which 

 these various objects were found, and we cannot identify the spades as at 

 all certainly Roman. We must content ourselves therefore with the 

 scanty definite material which we have. And for this purpose I have 

 thought it desirable to conclude this section with an account of all the 

 pigs of Roman lead which are known to have come from Derbyshire. 

 That will show that, whatever its administration and whatever its length 

 of life, the Derbyshire lead industry really flourished in Roman times, 

 and supplied the most various parts of Britain with its products. On 

 the continent, we cannot trace the Lutudarensian lead pigs. But that 

 need not make us think that they were not exported. Rather, we may 

 conclude that the lead which reached the continent was passed into a 

 better system of traffic and was less likely to be lost before it found its 

 proper destination. 1 



LIST OF LEAD PIGS FOUND IN DERBYSHIRE OR 

 SMELTED THERE 



I. Found in April 1777, about a foot below the surface, on Cromford Nether Moor 

 in Wirksworth parish, on high ground west of the Derwent valley ; at first the property of 

 Mr. Peter Nightingale, given by him in 1797 to the British Museum. Weight, 127 Ibs. ; 

 dimensions at the top 3^ by 19^ inches, at the bottom 5^ by 22^ inches, thickness 

 3! inches. Inscribed on the top only : 



IMP . CAES . HADRIANI AVG MET LVT 



Imp(cratoris) Caes(aris) Hadriani Aug(usti), met(allf) Lut(udarensis) 

 Published by (i) S. Pegge, Archaologia, v. 369, misreading MEI . LVI hence Pilkington, 



i. 96 ; Davies, View, p. 74 ; Cough's Add. to Camden (1806), ii. 423 ; Reynolds, Iter, p. 436. 



(2) S. Lysons, p. ccvi, tacitly correcting MET'LVT ; from Lysons, Bateman, Vestiges, p. 1 34, 



and many more. (3) Httbner, Corp. Insc. Lot. vii. 1208, from personal inspection. I have 



examined the object myself. Fig. 30 (i). 



Another pig with a similar inscription is said to have been dug up in 1849 or 1850, on 



the banks of the river Carron at Camelon near Falkirk during the construction of the Midland 



(now North British) Railway. What became of it is not recorded, nor its weight and 



dimensions ; the inscription is said to have been 



IMP CAES HADRIANI AVG T M LV 



This I believe to be due to some mistake. It was published, as above, by Sir Daniel 

 Wilson in the second edition of his Archeeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland (1863, ii. 64). 

 It was also sent by him to Dr. McCaul, who included it in his Britanno-Rtman Inscriptions 

 (Toronto, 1863), p. 33 : from McCaul, Watkin, Archaol. Journal, xxxi. 354, and Htlbner, 

 Ephemeris, iii. p. 141. Wilson gives, as his authority, MS. notes by William Grosart, a local 

 antiquary of the time, and an article in the Stirling Observer, 19 September 1850. This 



1 Some items in Corp. Inscr. Lat. xv. (2) 7914 foil, have been connected with Britain, and indeed, 

 with No. 2 in my list. But it is an uncertain guess. 



230 



