ROMANO-BRITISH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



The brief allusions of other 18th-century antiquaries (Horsley, Gibson, 

 Gough, Pointer, Throsby) do little more than echo this account, though 

 Gough adds on Stukeley's authority that urns were often dug up on the site."^ 

 In 1788 it was visited by Bishop Bennet of Cloyne and Mr. Leman, who 

 were tracing the course of the Fosse. After passing the tumulus they found 

 that the road descended the hill to a field called ' Herrings ' or ' Black Field,' 

 the site of Vernemetum."' The bishop mentions that coins were found 

 here, but gives no particulars. The tumulus itself, which seems to be a 

 Celtic work,"' is marked on the Ordnance Map, but not named, nor do the 

 other names recorded by Stukeley appear there. The drawing given by 

 Stukeley"" shows the relative position of the village, the Roman station, 

 and the Fosse as seen from the little eminence marked as Wells Hill. 



A later writer mentions a tessellated pavement found at the church in 

 1829 and afterwards incorporated in the floor of the north aisle, but it is 

 doubtful if this was Roman.*'^ 



Mr. Bellairs, writing in 1898, aims at placing Vernemetum at Six Hills, 

 two miles to the south over the border, on a supposed cross-road from Der- 

 ventio by Leake to Durolipons in Huntingdonshire,^*' but the received 

 identification of Willoughby is defended against him by Mr. Whatmore.^ 



133 



(4) LITTLEBOROUGH (sEGELOCUM) 



Besides the three villages or stations on the Fosse Way, there is a 

 fourth site in Nottinghamshire which we are justified in regarding 

 as a place of permanent occupation in the form of a ' static ' or a village. 

 Curiously enough this, although the smallest, has actually yielded the most 

 remains ; but as at Brough, there is now little or nothing visible above the 

 surface. 



The identification of Littleborough with the Segelocum or Agelocum — 

 as it is less correctly spelt — of the sixth and eighth routes of the Antonine 

 Itinerary, is due to Camden.^** He had once been inclined to place this 

 station at Idleton or Eaton,^*' but the situation of Littleborough on the 

 military way, and the Roman foundations and coins found there induced him 

 to alter his opinion. A branch of the great Ermine Street, leading from 

 Lincoln to York, used to cross the Trent here by a Roman ford,^^* and the place 

 is, according to the Itinera, fourteen miles from Lindum, equivalent to twelve 

 or thirteen English miles. In 1879 a Roman milliarium was found at Lincoln, 

 the inscription on which ends with the letters a'l"S"M'P" xiiii. This, according 

 to several writers, with whom Professor Haverfield concurs, is to be read as 



"' Bateman in Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, viii, i86, refers to this 'on the authority of the imaginative 

 Stukeley.' Horsley, Brit. Rom. ^jy ; Gibson's Camden, i, 435 ; Gough, ibid, ii, 401 ; Pointer, Brit. Rom._ 

 41 ; Thoroton, Hist, of Notts, i, 71, 149. 



"' Nichols, Hist, and Antiq. ofLeic. i, p. cxlvii ; Antiq. xxxviii, 296. 



"' Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, viii, 186 ; cf. V.C.H. Notts. 1, 315. 



"" Op. cit. pi. 91. '" Bailey, Ann. of Notts, iv, 366. '" See above, p. 11-. 



'^' Notts, and Derb. N. and Q. vi, 83, 99 ; see also V.C.H. Leic. i, 217. 



"* Britannia (ed. 1607), 413 ; Gough's Camden, ii, 404; see also Wesseling, Fet. Rom. Itin. 474; 

 Thoroton, Hist, of Notts, (ed. Throsby), iii, 292 ; Horsley, Brit. Rom. 434 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, viii, 392; 

 Antiq. xxxviii, 295. 



"* Britannia (ed. 1586), 311. "' See above, p. 9. 



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