84 



Coins fomrir nwt Iftarlforonj^. 



By the Eev. C. Soames. 



^jCp^ERHAPS few people are aware of the unusual number and 

 I* SH variety of coins which have been and are constantly being" 

 ■A. discovered within a very short distance of the town of 

 Marlborough. I have never kept any account of those which have 

 passed through my hands, but I am sure I am within the mark when 

 I say that for the last twenty years much more than one hundred 

 have annually been brought to me of Roman copper alone. The 

 great majority of the coins found in the neighbourhood are those of 

 the Roman Empire. As the Romans were the first foreigners or 

 colonists who have left any distinct traces of their occupation of 

 this country — an occupation which, dating from Julius Csesar's first 

 invasion of the island, extended over a period of more than four 

 hundred years — it is not surprising that the plough is constantly 

 turning up memorials of them in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 their chief settlements. 



The present parish of Mildenhall contains within it the site of a 

 very considerable Roman town, situated at the intersection of two 

 of their great highways running respectively east and west, and north 

 and south. Cunetium must have comprised both a Roman camp and 

 a Roman town, the former no doubt placed on the top of the hill to 

 the left of the London Road, where Folly Farm now stands, as 

 evidenced by a Roman pavement still to be distinguished in a 

 ploughed field a little way from the high road opposite Savernake 

 Cottage Hospital; the latter in the valley the other side of the 

 Roman road from Winchester to Cirencester, in a field called Black 

 Field, south of the river Kennett, in the occupation of Mr. S. Butler. 



There may be seen at all times of the year fragments of Roman 

 bricks and tiles and pottery, and if attentive search be made, coins 

 of various sizes and descriptions may be picked up, showing that it 



