A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



the Trent/* but in the latter he appears to be mistaken." Stukeley, who 

 travelled here in 1722, wrote that from Brough the Fosse 'goes extremely 

 strait to Newark between hedge-rows, it is in very ill repair ; nay, in some 

 places they dig the very stone and gravel out of it to mend their streets.' '* 

 Its course through this town is parallel with the river, along Northgate, 

 Castlegate and Millgate, the direct line being lost for a short distance in the 

 last-named thoroughfare. 



Beyond Newark there is a slight turn ; then the road runs for 

 two and a half miles in another straight line through the parishes of Farndon, 

 Thorpe, and East Stoke, where it nears the banks of the Trent. Here we 

 are on the debatable ground where the missing site of Ad Pontem must be 

 sought. Concerning this the theorizing has been endless, from Gale to the 

 present century. 



It has already been noted that this name, occurring in the sixth Itinerary, 

 is omitted from the eighth, although both obviously follow the line of the 

 Fosse. Moreover, the actual distance between the two stations on either side, 

 Crococolana and Margidunum, is given in both routes the same, viz. fourteen 

 miles." It has been suggested — though it is obviously unlikely — that no 

 such independent point as Ad Pontem ever existed, and that the phrase 

 ad Pontem was merely a note added to Margidunum (East Bridgeford) to 

 mark the point of digression from the Fosse to a supposed bridge over the 

 Trent there, for which purpose a notice was affixed by the side of the road, 

 and that some transcriber, mistaking the note for the name of a separate 

 station, halved the mileage to make the numbers correspond.^* Several early 

 antiquaries'^' identified Ad Pontem with East Bridgeford, until Horsley 

 corrected this error. It is, however, worth noting that a road runs at right- 

 angles to the Fosse from Margidunum down to the river,'" and that this road 

 has been held to be Roman. 



Horsley, however, pointed out that the mileage as given in the Itinerary 

 inevitably fixed Ad Pontem at about three miles from Newark, and suggested 

 Farndon as a likely site." ' I went to view the ground,' he wrote, ' when 

 last at Newark, and did not think the situation or appearance very un- 

 promising.' Reynolds ^^ and Wright'^ agree with him in accepting this 

 view. The exact half-way between Brough and East Bridgeford is in Thorpe 

 parish, between Farndon and East Stoke. 



The question was again considered more than fifty years later, when Bishop 

 Bennet of Cloyne and Mr. Leman traced the course of the Fosse from Lincoln 

 to Devonshire, and agreed in fixing this much-disputed site at Thorpe,'* 

 where coins and pavements have been found. '^ Mr. Leman gives his reasons 

 in a footnote : ' Tumuli, appearances of the corners of a camp, and the 



" Op. cit. i, 92. " Sec pp. 7, 36. « //;„. Cur. 104. 



" Watkin in Nottingham Daily Guardian, 20 Feb. 1877 ; Jrch. Journ. xliii, 22. He calls it a ' mansio ' or 

 'mutatio.' Cf. Joum. Brit. Arch. Jssoc. xU, ^^. But he begs the question when he explains the name as 

 ' the point for branching off and crossing the river.' 



" Standish in Thoroton Soc. Trans, vii, 37 ; Notts, and Deri. N. and Q. iv, Dec. 1896, p. 183 



» Stukeley, Gale, and Salmon ; see below, p. I 5 ; also Standard, 31 Oct. 1884, for a later advocate of 

 this view. 



^ See under Bridgeford, p. 17. 3i ^rit. Rom. 438. 



» Iter. Brit. 26+. 33 q^j^^ j^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ 



" Nichols, Hist, and Antiq. of Lett. 1, cxlix ; ' not far distant from the present turnpike gate.' 

 " See Index. 



