Bronze Fibula from 

 (British Museum) 



Skegby 



A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



Skegby. — A Roman bronze fibula of 2nd-century 

 type was found here, and is now in the 

 British Museum, acquired 1873 ; length 

 2Ain. See fig. 16. 

 Southwell. — There seems to be reason to 

 suppose that this ancient city, the ' Civitas 

 Tiovulfingaceaster' of Bede, contains the site 

 of a small Roman settlement. Dickinson, 

 indeed, sought to prove that it was the 

 missing station of Ad Pontem (see p. 7), 

 ' the centre of four great roads from Lincoln, 

 Leicester, Nottingham, and Mansfield,' but 

 in interpreting that term as ' the station on 

 the road to the bridge ' {sc. from Mar- 

 gidunum), he only darkens counsel, as the 

 bridge must then be looked for west or 

 north of Southwell [Dickinson, Antiq, in 

 Notts, i, 88 fF. ; Expl. Obs. 5, with map at 

 end of part i ; cf. Horsley, Brit. Rom. 439 ; and Gough, Camden, ii, 402]. 



Dickinson, however, records the discovery in I 793 of a tessellated pavement five or six 

 feet below the surface on the east side of the archbishop's palace, with which were found some 

 fragments of urns. Shortly before, a small vault, composed almost entirely of Roman bricks, 

 had been found on the north side of the church, and when from time to time some of the 

 more ancient buildings were pulled down, it was generally seen that Roman bricks formed part 

 of their foundations [Dickinson, loc. cit. ; Brayley, Beauties of Engl, and Wales, xii (i), 256]. 

 A few Roman corns had been found in the town before Dickinson's time, two of which he 

 describes as small copper coins of the reigns of Constantius and Magnentius (a.d. 291-312) 

 [ibid.]. 



Though there are no records of Roman remains in that part of the town known as the 

 Burgage, which Dickinson believed to be a camp occupied by the Romans, he may be correct 

 in that supposition, but it is of oval, not rectangular, form [see op. cit. for a plan of the course 

 of the fosse ; also F.C.H. Notts, i, 304, where it is classified as a camp of Class C]. Dickinson's 

 account is corroborated by that of a more unprejudiced antiquary. Major Rooke, who was 

 present when some discoveries were made by the vicar of Southwell in his garden. Stones, 

 apparently forming part of a wall, were found 5 ft. below the surface, and near them fragments 

 of painted plaster, a few pavement tesserae, and some pieces of Roman tiles resembling those 

 found at Mansfield Woodhouse (p. 32) \^Arch. ix, 199]. 



Another pavement has been found quite recently in the gardens at the residence, but the 

 writer who describes it states that, though pre-Norman, it is certainly not Roman. In this he 

 appears to be wrong. The pavement is described as ' of rude and coarse work, simple in design, 

 viz. square spaces of about eleven inches each way, composed of stone tesserae of a greyish- 

 blue colour, surrounded by a double row of red tesserae made of chopped-up tile relieved by 

 four of the blue tesserae at each corner of the square.' Rough as it is, it is clearly Roman ; 

 such pavements are not found in mediaeval buildings.' This writer further maintains that 

 there are no grounds for ascribing a Roman origin to Dickinson's pavement of 1793, or to 

 another found thirty years ago in the garden of the house in Vicar's Court. He mentions tiles 

 found here 'of peculiar form, having both their edges turned up and shallow ornamentation on 

 their surfaces ; ' they are of the ordinary Romano-British types [A. M. Y. Baylay in Thoroton 

 Soc. Trans, v, 58 (with plate)]. 

 Stanford. — Camden states that Roman coins have been found here [Brit. (1607), 412 (not in 

 1616 edition, but see Gough, op. cit. ii, 395); see also Reynolds, Iter. Brit. 463; Lewis, 

 Topog. Diet. ; Arch. Journ. xliii, 38]. 

 Stoke, East. — There seem to have been traces of an encampment or post of some sort visible in 

 the 1 8th century. Stukeley mentions 'a Roman camp opposite to the church,' and Throsby 

 refers to a site here {Family Memoirs of Stukeley (Surtees Soc), iii, 151 ; Thoroton, Hist. Notts. 

 (ed. Throsby), i, 148]. 

 Styrrup. — In the Styrrup portion of the hamlet of Oldcoates, about two miles north-west of Blyth, 

 the remains of a Roman villa were found in 1870 during the erection of a Roman Catholic 

 church in the Manor Field. It had been noticed that Roman roofing-tiles and bones of 



' Mr. W. H. St. John Hope informs me that similar coarse Roman pavements have been found at 



Silchester. 



34 



