ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE 



sington Moor to Buxton. That is, however, obviously a part of some 

 larger whole. It must have led from Buxton to some other Roman site, 

 and as its direction southwards points towards Duffield and Little Chester, 

 it is difficult not to suppose that it once led to Little Chester. Arguments 

 of this kind are, however, as dangerous as they are easy, and it is desirable 

 when employing them to emphasize their weakness. 



(e) BUXTON TO BROUGH (BATHAMGATE) 



The Roman road from Buxton baths to Brough fort is probably the 

 most famous of the Roman roads in Derbyshire. It bears a name, Bath- 

 gate or Bathamgate, which may well have been given it in Saxon times. 1 

 It attracted the attention of topographers even before Camden, and the 

 first writer on Buxton, the physician John Jones," mentions ' an highway 

 forced ouer the moores, all paued, of such antiquity as none can expresse, 

 called Bathgate.' It has frequently been traversed by curious antiquaries, 

 like John Whitaker, Pegge, and Bray, who have left us full descriptions, 

 and except perhaps near Buxton, its course is well known. Probably it 

 started from Silverlands, where a milestone was found in 1862, marking 

 the distance of 10 (or perhaps u) miles to Anavio or Brough (p. 226), 

 ran through Fairfield in a north-north-easterly direction for nearly two 

 miles, and then turning north-east made straight for Brough. The reason 

 for this northerly deviation from the direct line between Buxton and 

 Brough is plain. The direct line would have crossed the gorges of Ash- 

 wood Dale, Peak Dale, and Dam Dale. The northerly deviation avoids 

 the first and cuts the other two higher up their course, where they are 

 not profound or precipitous. The line of the road through Fairfield 

 is not now discoverable. Old paving and a very doubtful milestone 

 (p. 226 note) were found in 1878 at the Bull's Head Inn, near the Green, 

 and other paving has been noted near, 3 but these traces are fragmentary. 

 From the point where the road turns north-east, doubt ceases. Its course 

 is plain past Peakdale and the Peak Forest Railway Station (where it is 

 obliterated by quarries), Small Dale and Hernstone Lane Head, to another 

 Small Dale above Bradwell. It then drops into the Bradwell Valley, coin- 

 cides with the present Stretfield Road, and thus reaches Brough. Its course 

 is generally distinguishable by its remains. Sometimes these form, as 

 Whitaker enthusiastically puts it, ' a long straight streak of vivid green, 

 sweeping over the purple-brown surface of the heath.' Sometimes they 

 show distinct traces of its ancient metalling, which Bray describes as 



1 Jones (1572) and Camden, the first writers to mention it, say Bathgate. Pegge says the natives 

 in his day (about 1767) styled it Bathomgate, and that form, spelt Bathamgate, seems usual now. If 

 correct, it preserves the Saxon plural inflexion ( om or an). But Mr. W. H. Stevenson tells me that 

 this inflexion normally vanishes, and that philologically Bathgate is the proper form. As we have no 

 instance of the name older than 1572 and no instance of Bathamgate older than 1767, certainty is 

 unattainable. But it is possible that between 1572 and 1767, some Anglo-Saxon scholar had perverted 

 the tradition ignorantly. It would not be the only case where the dictum of a learned man had got 

 abroad the countryside. 



z Benefit of the auncient bathes of Buckstones (London, 1572, not paged). 



8 Turner, Derb. Arch. Journ. xxv. 161. 



I 249 33 



