A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



That the British camps on the downs and highlands in the south and 

 east of the county were utilized during the Romano-British period we know 

 from the objects found in them, but whether for human habitation or merely 

 as cattle shelters cannot be stated with any certainty. As has been already 

 pointed out the inhabitants were probably for the most part occupied with 

 agriculture, although there was possibly a small population living on the 

 pastoral lands on the highlands in the south of the county. 



Of industries there is little evidence except the remains of what are 

 conjectured to be the sites of kilns at Leagrave Marsh and Toddington. 



The hoards of coins at Flitwick and Luton were of approximately 

 the same date of deposit, namely about a.d. 270, but it is impossible to 

 assign any cause for their concealment. It may have been on account of 

 some local disturbance, or the coins may have formed the booty of a 

 thief The last date in the cemetery at ShefFord carries us only some 

 forty years later, while the majority of the coins found there, and therefore 

 the greater number of burials, were of the middle of the second century. 

 With the exception of these three discoveries the evidence of the Roman 

 coins in the county tells us nothing. At Dunstable, Sandy, and Harrold 

 coins dating from the first to the early part of the fifth century have been 

 found, pointing probably to a continued occupation throughout the Romano- 

 British period. 



With regard to the pits or shafts found at Biddenham, Dunstable, and 

 Maiden Bower, the most likely explanation of their purpose is that they 

 were wells, and the quantity of pottery found in them is confirmatory of 

 this theory. If the immediate neighbourhoods were searched evidences of 

 Roman habitation would doubtless be found. They are deeper than the pits 

 found at Mount Caburn Camp in Sussex, to which they have been compared,* 

 and as to the suggestion of Mr. Coote that they were arcae finales or boundary 

 marks. General Pitt Rivers truly remarks, ' It does not appear evident to me 

 why pits intended only to serve in identifying a mark on the surface should 

 have been sunk to such a great depth.* ' It is quite likely that wells should 

 have become receptacles of rubbish, as the excavations at Silchester indicate. 

 The water level has so much altered since the Romano-British period that no 

 argument can be based upon it. 



The Roads 



Our chief written evidence of the Roman roads is the ' Itinerarium Anto- 

 nini,' a Roman road-book which gives the distances and ' stations' along various 

 routes in the empire. Its exact age and object are uncertain, and do not now 

 concern us ; its accuracy, which matters more, is by no means unfailing, and 

 it is sometimes more useful in testifying that a road ran in a particular 

 direction, as for instance from Colchester to Lincoln, than in telling us the 

 precise course of the road and the precise sites of the ' stations ' along it. 

 For our present purpose only one of the Itinerary routes is important. We 

 give the distances in the original Roman miles, thirteen of which may be 

 reckoned as equivalent to twelve English miles. 



Part of the route from Carlisle through Wroxeter and London to the 

 Kentish ports : Lactodorum (Towcester, Northants) to Magiovinium (Little 



* Arch, xlvi, 448, &c. ' Coote, The Romans in Britain, 107 ; Arch, xlvi, 448 &c 



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