ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE 



They are also, in two out of three cases, doubtful in point of date ; but 

 they demand mention here. 



Bat House Cave is near Ambergate and Alderwasley, situated high in 

 the cliff above the valley of the Peatpits brook near its opening into the 

 Derwent. It is not a true cave but a group of fissures in the Millstone 

 Grit rocks. A mass of stone has moved forward, another mass has fallen 

 out, and there has remained an irregularly triangular cavity, some 25 feet 

 high, roofed by the less disturbed upper strata. This cavity was 

 excavated in 1884 by Mr. C. B. N. Dunn and Mr. Thos. Crozier (both 

 since dead), and various remains were obtained from the lower part of a 

 deposit of mixed earth, six feet thick, which forms the floor of the place. 

 Among these remains was a Roman fibula re- 

 sembling those found in other caves (Fig. 40) 

 and assignable to the second or early third 

 century ; potsherds, including Upchurch ware ; 

 some flints, apparently unworked ; a bronze and 

 iron pin of doubtful age, and a tiny bit of 

 ' raddle ' or oxide of iron, thought by its finders 

 to have served as rouge, but equally likely to 

 have been used for polishing metal objects. 1 

 Some of the potsherds were taken to be pre- 

 Roman, and may be connected with a stone axe 

 found in 1876 just outside the cave. No bones 

 or refuse heaps were noticed. Certain grooves 

 or holes in the sides of the cave were thought 

 by one observer to indicate a wooden barricade 

 near the entrance and a floor of an upper storey, 

 but this is very doubtful. The cave, it is plain, 

 was occupied during the Roman period and 

 probably during the same part of it as the caves 

 already described. But the occupation was, in this case, slight or 

 perhaps only temporary. 8 



FIG. 40. FIBULA FROM BAT 

 HOUSE CAVE (f). 



(e) RAINS CAVE (BRASSINGTON) 



Rains Cave, so styled from the owner of the land, is a small cavern 

 in the Longcliffe, a high ridge of hill above Brassington, between 

 Wirksworth and Matlock. It was carefully examined in 1888 and 

 following years by Mr. J. Ward and others. Some of the objects 

 found in it rude wheel-made pottery and turned spindlewheels have 

 been considered Roman. But none can be quite definitely assigned to 



1 Compare 'the piece of red war paint' found at Wetton (Staffs.) in 1852 (Lombtrdale House 

 Cat. p. 163) and the ' red ochre ' found on Harborough rocks, Derb. Arch. Journ. xii. 115, and at Thirst 

 House. 



* J. Ward, Reliquary, v. (1899), p. 77. Mr. A. F. Hurt of Alderwasley very kindly showed me a 

 MS. report by the late Mr. Dunn, and also the fibula and raddle mentioned above, some flints (probably 

 unworked) and parts of a pre-Roman and of a Roman urn, which are in his possession. A brief 

 reference to the finds occurs in Bulmer's Hist. Tofog. Directory of Derb. (1898). 



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