A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



tions themselves. A freedman could not be a legionary, and the name in the second inscrip- 

 tion is evidently not that of a Roman citizen. Some inscriptions on similar objects — part of a 

 hoard found some 50 miles west at Stony Stratford in Bucks.— make it clear that they are 

 all to be connected with temples and in our case with the worship of the Celtic representatives 

 of Mars and \'ulcan. M. Homolle [Daremberg and Saglio, Diet, des Antiq. s.v. Donarium, fig. 

 2539] considers that they were votive leaves for hanging up round a shrine. Somewhat similar 

 leaves, but uninscribed, were found at Dodona [Carapanos, Dodone et ses mines {1S7S), 11, 

 pi. xlix] and elsewhere [Bulletin de Corres. Hellenique, xii (1884), p. 49, fig., p. 50]. The British 

 .Museum possesses three silver plaques dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus, from Heddernheim, 

 near Frankfort, which are not unlike the Barkway plates in shape and ornament, and they 

 are certainly votive objects. One piece has two httle holes for riveting it to a wood or 

 other tablet, and no doubt the Barkway plates were also fastened or applied to something 

 more substantial. [Zangemeister, Bonner Jahrbiicher, cvii, 61-5, pi. vi, 2 ; also Brit. Mus. 

 Guide illustrative of Greek and Roman Life (1908), 40, fig. 26]. It is interesting to observe 

 that, while the Hertfordshire hoard was found only a mile from Ermine Street, the 

 Buckinghamshire find lay close to \^'atling Street, and it seems probable that both had 

 been stolen or taken from wayside temples or shrines now destroyed and hidden a little 

 distance away by thief or priest [MS. Min. Soc. Antiq. (1745), v, 2; xxxiii, 303; Royal Soc. 

 Letters and Papers, Decade i, no. 356; Phil. Trans, xliii (1746), p. 349, plates i and ii ; 

 hence Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough, 17S9), i, 341 ; hence Brayley and Britton, Beauties of Engl, 

 and Wales (1808), vii, 184; Clutterbuck, Hist, of Herts. (1827), iii, 361; Cussans, ibid. 

 EdzLinstree Hund. (1S72), 24; Figured in Lysons, Reliq. Brit. (1813), ii, pi. xl, xli, xlii, 1-3; 

 Daremberg and Saglio as above. See also Corp. Inscr. Latin, vii, 84-6 ; V.C.H, Bucks. 

 ii, II; and Corp. Inscr. Latin, vii, 80-2]. 



Benington. — Roman coins found here [Ransom in .Irch. liii, 254]. 



Berkhampstead, Great. — Stukeley records Roman coins from the castle, and especially from 

 the court within it, and concludes it is a Roman site [Itin. Curios. (1724), 109, (1776), 116; 

 hence Salmon, Hist, of Herts. (1728), 119, who, however, suggests that they belonged to a 

 collection of a mediaeval lord of the castle and came originally from Verulam]. A later 

 record mentions quantities of Roman coins found here at various times [MS. Min. Soc. 

 Antiq. 1 81 3, xxxiii, 233], while recently a Roman lamp was found at the gasworks. 



Bishop's Stortford. — Salmon quotes 'Roman coins of the Lower Empire' found in the castle 

 garden ; he saw one of Marcus (a.d. 161-80). Gough was told that some copper coins had 

 been sold some time before he visited the town. Coins of Vespasian, Trajan and Hadrian 

 found here were exhibited in 1867. Bishop's Stortford lies on the road from Colchester to 

 Braughing and at the crossing of the River Stort [Salmon, Hist, of Herts. (1728), 271 ; hence 

 Cough's Tours in the Bodleian (MS. Gen. Topog. e. 19), fol. 300 ; and Camden's Brit. 

 (1806), ii, 70; Brayley and Britton, Beauties of Engl, and JVales (1808), vii, 214; Reynolds, 

 Itin. Antonini (1791), 464; Essex .Ir.h. Soc. Trans, (ist ser.), iv, 185]. 



A small chamber about 6 ft. square, drained by a square hole in the floor just below the 

 centre of one of the walls, was found extending a considerable depth below the surface when 

 excavations were undertaken at the castle and prison about 1850. It was considered Roman 

 because some Roman bricks were found in the wall at the drain-hole, and 'a few pieces of 

 rude Roman vases' mixed up with many mediaeval objects, but the evidence would do 

 equally well for a mediaeval structure. It is just possible that it belongs to some Roman 

 bath buildings [Clarke, East Herts. Arch. Soc. Trans, i (i), 54]. 



BoviNCDON. — Sec Hemel Hempstead. 



BoxMOOR. — See Hemel Hempstead. 



Braughing. — On the east of Ermine Street and Braughing, a little to the north-east of the junction 

 of the Quin and Rib streams, the ground rises steeply, making a little chff some 50 ft. high, 

 running north and east. Some 15 yds. to 20 yds. within this ' promontory' Salmon in 1728 

 records in a field called ' Larksfield ' the south-west corner of a ' camp.' He observed two 

 ramparts, 10 yds. apart, running west from the road to Barkway, making a rounded corner at 

 the south-west, and triple ramparts running north again to the end of the field. He could 

 trace it no further, but the configuration of the ground suggested an oblong shape, 

 extending as far as ' Down Field ' and the road and including ' Saffron Ground,' an area of 

 some 40 acres, cut into two from east to west by Hull Lane. A gateway existed on the 

 south side, which was defended by further earthworks. 



Leman about 1815 noticed ' the remains of a vallum of regular shape.' Cussans states 

 that in 1870 " a wide and deep ditch was still visible for a great part of its course.' He 

 supposed Salmon's earthwork to be the mound on Lark's Hill now covered with trees. The 

 bounds of the fields as shown on the O.S. map are rectangular and might have followed the 



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