A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



Stukeley, I tin. Cur. i, 58 ; Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough), ii, 385]. The site of the Roman town 

 appears to have been on high ground north of Watling Street, extending from a line running 

 north in a field called Castle Croft on the east to the brook just beyond the village pound on 

 the west ; the northern limit appears to have been to the north of a field called ' the Butts,' 

 and so in a line eastward. This would give an area of about 30 acres. Indications of earth- 

 works may perhaps be traced here and there along these lines. Unlike the usual practice of 

 the Roman period the town does not stand at the actual crossing of the two Roman roads, 

 but is about half a mile from the point where Watling Street crosses Rycknield Street. 

 Unfortunately, we know very little of the Roman town ; from time to time excavations 

 have been made, but no plans having been preserved they have yielded us practically no 

 information. 1 It is conjectured that Letocetum was a walled site, as foundations of a 

 wall about II ft. thick, traced for 50 yds., were discovered by the late Colonel Bagnall 

 in 1887 in Castle Croft, which could scarcely have been other than the east wall of the 

 town, but the report on the excavations gives neither the exact site nor direction of the 

 wall [Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xlvi, 228]. Probably it was this same wall which was 

 referred to by Stebbing Shaw, writing about 1752, who stated that by the side of the road 

 going northward from Wall to Pipe Hill (probably Wall Lane) the Roman walls were then 

 to be seen extending for 100 yds. made up of ragstone with sloping courses of bonding 

 tiles held together with very strong white mortar. The best portion of the wall was in 

 Stebbing Shaw's time to be seen in the garden of Mr. Thomas Jackson [Stebbing Shaw, 

 Hist. Staffs, i, 1 8, 19, 356]. The only pieces of Roman wall now showing above ground 

 are at the points marked A and B on the accompanying plan, and apparently belonged to 

 some important building. Although a considerable quantity of Roman remains, including 

 some tesserae and the base of a column, have been found on the south side of Watling Street, 

 there is great doubt whether the Roman area extended across the road. There is no evidence 

 that the tesserae and base were in situ, and the other remains discovered indicate rather the 

 site of the cemetery, which undoubtedly extended along Watling Street to the east of Wall 

 [Plot, Nat. Hist. Staffs. 401 (1686)]. 



Probably the greater part of the remains have been found in the field called ' the Butts,' on 

 the west side of the site. Erdeswick, writing in the sixteenth century, speaks of walls being 

 visible here which were afterwards carried away for building purposes. Writers of the 

 eighteenth century mention walls 3 ft. thick, 12 ft. high, running equidistant 12 ft. apart, 

 forming rooms 'like square cellars' [Stukeley, Itin. Cur. i, 58 ; Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough), 

 ii, 385 ; Erdeswick, Surv. of Staffs, (ed. Harwood), 301; Stebbing Shaw, Hist. Staffs, i, 18, 19]. 

 Plot, in 1686, mentions that in the field called 'the Butts' he was shown two pavements 'one 

 above another at least 4 ft.,' the uppermost (which lay within 18 in. of the surface) being 

 made for the most part ' of lime and rubble stone ' ; and the lowermost ' of pebbles and gravel 

 knit together with a very hard cement about 4 in. thick laid upon a foundation of Roman 

 brick ; and under them boulder stone of a foot thick or more.' Above the uppermost of 

 these Roman coins were often found, and he was shown three, one of Nero (A.D. 54-68), one 

 of Domitian (A.D. 81-96), and one undecipherable [Plot, Nat. Hist. Staffs. 401]. In 1887 

 some excavations were made by Colonel Bagnall, and in the lower part of ' the Butts,' 

 south of the footpath across the field, several chambers were discovered, each about 6 ft. 

 square with floors of layers of charcoal. A large quantity of roof-tiles and common pottery, 

 some blue-grey, some red and whitish yellow, and some with potters' marks ; tiles with 

 PS on them (now in the Lichfield Museum) and animal bones, quantities of wall-plaster, 

 with stripes of red, brown, and green, many oyster and snail shells, fragments of Bangor slates 

 perforated with holes for nails, many iron nails and some circular earthen pipes about I J in. 

 in diameter were also found. Near these chambers, in a hedge, was discovered a large worked 

 stone with a hole in the middle where a hinge might work, and not far off what is thought to 

 have been a road made of common pebbles {Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc. (Ser. i), xlvi, 22731], 

 It is said in Lomax's Guide to Licbfield that a man employed in draining the land near Wall 

 mentioned that he often found coins and other relics, and once, where the church now is, he 

 found 'a figure of earthenware as big as a man, but a woman's figure in a strange dress 

 with a man's cap like a soldier's helmet ; we broke it in pieces to mend the bank of the 

 drain.' The coins were said to be of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37) an< ^ otners > ' n gW, silver, and 

 copper. Not far off, but whether within or outside the Roman town is not stated, a farmer 



1 These finds are recorded by ' Antiquary ' in a letter to the Staffs. Advertiser in 1859 ; by Col. Bagnall 

 in a communication to the Birmingham and Midland Institute in 1873, and by Mr. J. T. Irvine in the 

 Journ. of the Brit. Arch. Assoc. for 1890. All three accounts appear to be substantially the same, and to note 

 the same discoveries. 



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