A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



A Lindo Segelocum millia passuum quattuordecim, thus agreeing exactly with the 

 Itinerary.^" 



At the ford, to which allusion has been made, the bank was sloped away 

 on either side to form an easy descent to a raised causeway, 1 8 ft. wide, in 

 the bed of the river. The greater part of this, which was held up by strong 

 stakes and paved with stone, was removed in 1820 to facilitate navigation, 

 but at low tide large loose stones may still be seen in the channel.'^* Frank 

 Lambert, a servant of the Trent Navigation Company, who took part in the 

 removal of this ford, described it as ' paved with rough square stones, and on 

 each side of this road piles 10 or 1 2 f t. long were driven into the bed of the 

 river, and pieces of timber from one to the other, giving support to the 

 whole. The timber was all black oak . . . but soon rotted when exposed 

 to air.' ^^"^ There is still a ferry here, and a portion of the paved descent was 

 visible on the Nottinghamshire side as late as 1868, when Dr. Trollope 

 wrote on Ermine Street.^^" He thought the causeway probably dated from 

 the time of Hadrian's visit to Britain in a.d. 120, and recorded the fact that 

 a large bronze coin of this emperor, bearing a figure of Justice on the reverse, 

 was found in a cleft of one of the piles. 



Camden, in describing the site in his 1607 edition, writes as follows: — 



The river collecting itself runs from hence due north among a number of villages, and 

 has nothing remarkable on its banks till it comes to Littleborough^ a small town strictly 

 answering to its name ; where as the most usual ferry is at present, so it was formerly that 

 famous station or mansion mentioned more than once by Antoninus, and called in different 

 copies AGELOCUM and segelocum. This I had before sought for in this neighbourhood 

 without success, but am now clear I have found it, both by its situation on the military way, 

 and because an adjoining field shows evident traces of walls, and daily in ploughing yields 

 innumerable coins of Roman Emperors, which being often turned up by the hogs (^a«j 

 quia porc'i eruncando saepius detegunt), are called Swines Pennies [porcorum denarios) by the 

 country people. ^'^ 



In the early part of the 18th century foundations and pavements were 

 seen in the river bank, from which Roger Gale, crossing in 1 70 1 , had extracted 

 a ' Samian urn ' containing burnt bones and a coin of Domitian.^'^ According 

 to Gale and Horsley the Romans had a ' camp ' on the east side of the river, 

 where coins were frequently found, but no remains of it were visible in 1723 

 when Mr. Ella, vicar of Rampton, described the antiquities of Littleborough 

 in a letter to Stukeley.^^^ The station itself is generally believed to have been 

 on the west side of the Trent, where traces of a wall and fosse still exist (see 

 plan, fig. 5).^'* Stukeley says it was of square form and surrounded only by a 

 ditch. "^ Great foundations of buildings lay near it in a field between the 

 village and the river, and part of the channel, according to the inhabitants, 

 had once been occupied by the Roman town.^'° Some of the materials of 



"' Arch. Journ.xxxvi, 283 ; xxxvii, 139 ; Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. xv, 13 ; Ephm. Epiff: vii, 33S,no. 1097 ; 

 Antiq. xxxviii, 295 ; Codrington, Rom. Roads in Brit. 153. 

 "' Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. ix, 167 ; Arch. Joum. xliii, 12. 

 '^' Nott. Daily Guardian, 20 Feb. 1877 ; Arch. Joum. loc. cit. 

 •'» Assoc. Arch. Soc. Rep. ix, 168 ; Stevenson, Bygone Notts. 4. 



>"5nVa»wa(i6o7), 413, translated in Gough'sed. (1806), II, 396. „ „ ,, , 



'^' Gale, Anton. Iter. Brit. 96 ; Stukeley, I tin. Cur. 93 ; Horsley, Brit. Rom, 434 ijourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc. 



'''"' "'^See below '^ Arch. Joum. x\^n, ,2. 



'" Loc. cit. See the plan or view given by him, pi. S7- •^''il- 



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