A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



spindle-whorls and disks of earthenware and lead, bone and bronze pins, 

 iron nails, an iron bracelet, part of a circlet of bluish glass, and other 

 small objects and bones of men and animals including the grave and 

 skeleton of an infant. These remains were found partly in the floor of 

 the cave amid traces of firing and ashes, partly in the deposit of 

 stalagmite, chiefly near the entrance of the cave. The coins, one each 

 of Nero, Nerva, Hadrian, Trajan, and Pius cos iii, with the familiar 

 'Britannia' reverse one or two each of Claudius Gothicus and Tetricus, 

 indicate an occupation ending in the latter part of the third century, and 

 the fibula? appear to fall within the same dates as the coins. The general 

 abundance of remains, the number of bones and the amount of ash and 

 charcoal, as Prof. Poulton has observed, implies a long occupation. 1 



(d) The Kelco or Kelcowe cave, near Giggleswick, was explored 

 about 1850. It yielded fibulas, coins of the time of Vespasian, and 

 potsherds (one bit of Castor ware). Its occupation does not appear to 

 have been very extensive. 2 



(e) Kirkhead cave is in the breast of a steep hill on the eastern 

 shore of Cartmel promontory. It was explored about 1864-5, an d 

 yielded a coin of Domitian a few inches below the surface, a ' trefoil- 

 shaped ' fibula in bronze, bones of animals and men, etc., near the 

 surface, and lower down traces of prehistoric man. 8 



(f) The limestone range of Mendip contains many caves. But 

 few of them were occupied during the Roman period, and none, as it 

 seems, for any length of years. The Burrington caves, excavated at 

 various dates since 1795, have yielded skeletons, charcoal, animals' 

 bones, potsherds, and a set of (?) Roman dice,* but the age of the 

 objects is doubtful. A few scattered Roman objects have been detected 

 lately in a cave above Cheddar. A hoard of some 300 third-century 

 coins was found about 1852 just outside Wookey Hole. 6 Lastly, the 

 Uphill cave, when explored in 1826, yielded a coin of Julian, some 

 potsherds and bones of sheep and goats, and in 1846 a late fourth-century 

 hoard was found there.* 



(g) In Devon, the caves at Torquay and Brixham ha/e been found 

 to contain a few Roman remains. Kent's Hole, near Torquay, amidst a 

 mass of earlier and later material, has yielded a Roman fibula (found in 

 the rubbish outside), a bit of Samian and some ruder Romano-British 

 potsherds, bone combs, the stem of a spoon and one or two such trifles (found 



1 See especially Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, p. 102 ; Proc. Sac. Antlq. (first series), iv. in ; 

 Speight, Craven and N.tV. Yorks. p. 325 ; Poulton, Torks. Geol. Soe. Proc. vii. (1881), 351-368 ; Boyd 

 and Shuffreys, Littondale (Leeds, 1893), p. 21 (rude cut of a fibula) ; Ecroyd Smith, Lanes, and Ches. 

 Hist. Sac. Trans, v. (1864), 208; Arch. Journ. xv. 160 (bracelet); information from Prof. Poulton ; 

 remains in the Leeds Museum, the Nat. Hist. Mus. at Oxford, etc. 



* Ecroyd Smith, Lanes, and Ches. Hist. Sec. Trans, v. (1864), p. 207 ; Speight, Craven and N.W. 

 Torks. p. 141. 



3 Ecroyd Smith, Lanes, and Ches. Hist. Soe. Trans, v. (1864), 225 ; J. P. Morris, in Memoirs read 

 before the Anthropol. Sac. of London, ii. (1865-6), 354; Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, p. 125 and 

 references given there. 



* Rutter, Delineations (London, 1829), p. 117 ; Boyd Dawkins, Somers. Arch. Journ. xii. (2), 169. 

 1 Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, p. 296, Journ. of the Geol. Soe. xviii. (1852), 115, etc. 



6 Rutter, p. 78, Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, pp. 294, etc. ; Gent. Mag. 1846. ii. 633. 



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