A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



The iron and coal fields of Staffordshire, which attract so large a 

 population in the present day, were little if at all known during the 

 Roman occupation. Iron ore was possibly smelted in the district during 

 the late Celtic age, in evidence of which some smelted ore has been found 

 in barrows, probably of this date, at Alstonfield and elsewhere,* but nothing 

 has hitherto been discovered to indicate that it was worked here in the Romano- 

 British period. The Romans apparently used coal as fuel in this country, 

 but there is no evidence that the Staffordshire coalfields were known to them. 



Lead-mining was carried on actively in Derbyshire by the Romans, and 

 there is some evidence that this mineral was worked in the northern part of 

 Staffordshire, which forms a portion of the same beds. At Wetton there 

 appears to have been a Romano-British village where lead ore and the 

 remains of a smelting furnace are said to have been found. 6 This village, 

 being within the lead-mining district, may have been a miners' settlement, 

 and from the objects found in it the inhabitants appear to have been poor 

 and probably of the labouring class. One pig of lead was discovered beside 

 Watling Street, at Hints in the south-east of the county, but from the inscrip- 

 tion upon it there is no doubt that it came from the Flintshire mines and had 

 no connexion with the locality in which it was found. 6 



What is now known as potter's clay is not found in Staffordshire, 

 and though there can be little doubt that clays indigenous to the county 

 were used for pottery discovered at Viroconium and on other Roman sites, 7 

 there is no evidence in favour of its local manufacture on any considerable 

 scale, as at Castor in Northamptonshire, or at Upchurch, and in the New 

 Forest. It has been thought that indications of ancient kilns have been 

 discovered at Burslem, but whether they were Roman is altogether uncertain. 

 Pieces of rough pottery are said to have been found in digging foundations 

 in the neighbourhood, but again there is no certainty as to their Romano- 

 British origin. 8 



We are no better off with regard to the agricultural resources of the 

 middle and south of the county. As yet there have been found none of the 

 villas so frequently discovered in the south of England, which formed the 

 country houses of the wealthy, and the farm-houses of the agricultural class. 



The most important of the permanent settlements of the Romano- 

 British period in the county is Letocetum often, but incorrectly, called 

 Etocetum now Wall, at the crossing of Watling Street and Rycknield 

 Street. From the remains found this would appear to have been one of the 

 more important ' stations ' along Watling Street, and perhaps even a small 

 walled town with buildings of considerable size. 



The actual site of Pennocrucium, a station on Watling Street which is 

 placed at Stretton, is not definitely known, and there is nothing apparently 

 above ground to indicate its position. It was probably only a small posting 

 station, such as existed elsewhere along the Roman roads, without 

 masonry walls or earthworks. The name survives in Penk and Penk- 

 ridge. At Chesterton there is a large camp which may have formed a 



Bateman, Vestiges, 76, 77, &c. 



Bateman, Ten Tears' Diggings, 194-6 ; Carrington, ReRq. v, 20 1 ; Intellectual Observer, vii, 391. 



See Hints in Topog. Index. 



Wright, Celt. Rom. Sax. ; Jewitt, Ceramic Art in Great Brit. 32. 



Aikins, Hist. Manchester, 524-6 ; Ward, Hist. Stoke-on-Trent, 24. 



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