A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



this place.' The only complete piece of pottery was ' of a singular make, with 

 an Emperor's head embossed upon it, the same with that which Dr. Gale had 

 given us the figure of, found at York.' ^** Coarse grey ware was also met 

 with, which Mr. Ella considered to have been made at ' one of the most noted 

 Roman potteries in this island, Santon near Brigg in Lincolnshire.' '** 

 Mr. Hardy possessed 'a large urn with the face of a woman on the 

 outside.' ^" It is singular that no traces of tessellated pavements should have 

 been found. 



In 1 7 1 8 two wrought stones of coarse gritstone, one part of an altar, the 

 other supposed to be sepulchral, were dug up from a sand-pit near White's 

 Bridge. The discovery is recorded by Gough, Ella, and Stukeley. The last- 

 named says : ' two altars, handsomely moulded, are set as piers in a wall on the 

 side of the steps that lead from the water-side to the inn ; on one is the 

 remnant of an inscription lis aram dd.'^" Ella says they were placed so that 

 the inscriptions were not visible ; further that ' the one appears to be a 

 sacrificing altar from the Discus on the top ; the mouldings are all entire and 

 clean as if new cut, yet no inscription in the field, tho' it is very smooth and 

 plain.' He supposes an inscription had been purposely erased ; but notes 

 the LIS ARAM DD. Watkin, in 1877, repeats this, suggests that lis is part of 

 the word cancellis, and adds that the altar was exhibited to the Society 

 of Antiquaries in 1759.^" He contributes the further information "' 

 that at Osberton Hall there was a Roman altar, bearing an inscription 

 not yet deciphered, and found at Littleborough. It appeared to him different 

 from that found in 1718. He 'thought there was iom on the capital,' 

 and iiRAT in the fifth line (on a sunk panel on the face of the shaft). 

 He gives the measurements of this as 3 ft. 2 in. high, 22 in. broad at the 

 capital, and i6j in. broad at the centre.^*' 



Subsequently Professor Haverfield suggested that these two were one and 

 the same, and having examined the Osberton stone found it was so. ' The 

 stone,' he says, 'is a well preserved sandstone altar, 3 ft. i in high, with 



a panel 15 in. square. The only traces 

 of lettering are some faint marks fill- 

 ing two-thirds of the last or pen- 

 ultimate line : lipair/^^. No trace of 

 IOM is visible, and the seven letters 

 given were merely scratched in, not 

 necessarily by a Roman hand. For 

 the rest, the panel was smooth as if 

 it had never been inscribed.'"' An 



Fig. 6.-DRAWINC or Oculist's Stamp foi;nd iUuStration of the altar is given in 



AT Littleborough ng. 3. 



"' Gale, j^nton. Iter. Brit. 23. It is a ' Face-urn ' like one from Lincoln in the British Museum, the upper 

 part roughly modelled as a human head. 



'" Compare Phil. Coll. (1681), 4, 88, and Stanford's Guide to Lines. (1903), 222. 



"' Stukeley, op. cit. 94. It is probably the one described above. 



"' Cough's Camden, ii, 404 ; Bibl. Tofog. of Brit, iii, 128 ; Stukeley, I tin. Cur. 94 ; cf. Family Memoirs 

 (Surtees Soc), iii, 149 ; Jssoc. Arch. Sec. Rep. ix, 168. 



>« Soc. Antiq. MS. Min. i, 88. "? From Mr. F. J. S. Foljambe, M.P. 



"« A'o/A Daily Guardian, 18 Jan., 5 Feb. 1877 ;Arch. Joum.xnl, 352;ixxv, 63; xliii, 13 ; Ephem.Epigr. 

 iii, 120, 71, iv, 199, 673 ; White, Worksop, 99 ; Thoroton Soc. Trans, v, 24. 



'" Ephem. Epigr. vii, 335, no. 1097 ; Arch. Joum. xlix, 232. 



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