ROMANO-BRITISH STAFFORDSHIRE 



unknown. It is impossible that it can have been situated at Chesterton, 

 as by the course of the itinerary it must have been somewhere to the 

 west in Shropshire. The reason for identifying Mediolanum of the tenth 

 itinerary with Chesterton is that its position agrees approximately with 

 the distance given by Antoninus (nineteen Roman miles) from Condate 

 (Kinderton in Cheshire), the previous station; but it is improbable that there 

 should have been two stations of the same name comparatively near to one 

 another. 9 The remains as yet discovered at Chesterton do not indicate more 

 than the existence of a large rectangular camp of an (as yet) undetermined 

 age, lying on the west side of the road leading from Audley to Newcastle- 

 under-Lyme, here called Newcastle Street, which road may here be part ot 

 a Roman highway from Stoke-upon-Trent to Kinderton. The evidence as 

 to its identification with Mediolanum, however, is wholly inconclusive. 



INDEX 



ALSTONFIELD. In 1845 a large barrow called 'Steep Lowe" was opened near Alstonfield. It was 

 about 50 yds. in diameter, 15 ft. in central elevation. A skeleton, two iron spear-heads, a 

 drinking cup, some smelted iron ore, animal bones, and three Roman coins were found. The 

 coins were third brass, one of Tetricus (A.D. 768-73), one of Constantine (A.D. 306-37), 

 the third was undecipherable. Later, other objects, probably of an earlier period, were 

 found. [Ante, ' Early Man ' ; Bateman, Vestiges of Antiq. of Derb., 76-7.] In the following 

 year two barrows were opened in Stanshope Pasture, near Dovedale, in the same parish. One 

 contained coarse pottery, calcined bones, and flint ; the second a few fragments of a human 

 skeleton and some pieces of Samian ware. Bateman records that this is the only instance of 

 Samian ware being found in a sepulchral deposit in the counties of Derby and Stafford 

 [Bateman, op. cit. 86]. 



ALTON. In 1725, about 900 yds. from Alton Castle, were found three gold coins, one of Vespasian 

 (A.D. 70-7) ; one of Titus (A.D. 79-81) ; and one of Domitian (A.D. 81-96). Plot mentions 

 that a cave at ' Alveton ' called ' Thurse House 'was inhabited as late as 1680. It was of 

 the same type as the limestone caves of Derbyshire, and ' Thor's Cave ' [see Wetton. Plot, 

 Nat. Hist. Staffs. 172 ; V.C.H. Deri, i, 233, note i]. 



ARELEY. (See UPPER ARELEY.) 



BARR. (See GREAT BARR.) 



BILSTON. Coins are said to have been found here [Willmore, Hist. IVahall, 25]. 



BRANSTON. On the summit of a hill (called Sinai Park) in the village are the remains of a 

 ' Roman camp.' Stebbing Shaw and others have endeavoured to identify the site with the 

 station of Ad Trivoman mentioned by Richard of Cirencester, though not by Antoninus, but 

 the evidence of a Roman station either of this name or on this site is very problematical 

 [Stebbing Shaw, Hist. Staffs, i, 21 ; Reliq. ii, 208]. 



BURTON-ON-TRENT. Stukeley supposed that a Roman station was situated here, but no record of 

 the discovery of Roman remains has been made, except the somewhat indefinite statement 

 that in pulling down the old bridge over the Trent in 1876 it was found that the buttresses 

 were built on oak piles, and some of the older stones were thought to be Roman [Pitt, Hist. 

 Staffs., 41 ; Burton-on-Trent Nat. Hist, and Arch. Sac. v, pt. i, p. 4]. 



CALLINGWOOD. (See TATENHILL.) 



CASTERN. (See ILAM.) 



CHESTERTON. The distance given in the tenth tier of the Antonine Itinerary from Mediolanum to 

 Condate (Kindeston), 19 Roman miles, has been thought sufficient to justify the identification 

 of Chesterton and Mediolanum, but as has been stated under the heading of 'Roads' in this 

 article, the evidence of such an identification, as far as our present information goes, appears 



9 There is probably an error in the distance in this section of the second itinerary (f.C.H. Shropt. i, ' Roman 

 Remains '). The Mediolanum of the second iter was on the road from Viroconium (Wroxeter) to Deva 

 (Chester) between Rutunium near Roden in Shropshire and Bovium, probably near to Stretton in Cheshire. 

 Mediolanum was described by Ptolemy as a town of the Ordovices, which would also place it west of 

 Staffordshire. See further Chesterton in Topog. Index. 



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