138 



Bishop's Cannings. 



or small coffin, a circumstance which has not hitherto been noticed 

 in Ancient British barrows. 



In the summer of 1852, as some men were employed in draining 

 a field in Round way farm, their spades came in contact with a 

 hard substance which proved, on opening the ground, to be a 

 leaden cist or coffin. It was rectangular in shape and much cor- 

 roded, and must have lain there undisturbed for many centuries, and 

 from its position (nearly north and south) was probably of the 

 Anglo-Roman period ; but this of course is only conjecture, as no 

 coins, personal ornaments, or pieces of pottery were found to indi- 

 cate the date, nor were any remains of the body found, except some 

 traces of phosphate of lime, usually discovered in earth which has 

 been in contact with animal matter. 



Another discovery of a leaden coffin was made in an open field 

 near Heddington, presenting exactly the same appearance as the 

 one at Roundway. In that instance also there were no remains of 

 the body, nor any clue to the time of interment, but in the same 

 field some pottery of a very early period was found. 



In 1787 was printed a poem called " Roundway Hill," by T. 

 Needham Rees, surgeon, of Devizes. 



Wick. 



This is now a suburb of Devizes. " Wic;" Saxon for village, in 

 Latin, vicus, is known in some cases to indicate a Roman site. A 

 discovery in 1699 of several hundred Roman coins on ground here 

 belonging to Sir John Eyles of Southbroom ; and another in 1714, 

 of a whole set of pocket household images or Penates (for which 

 see a plate in Waylen's Chronicles of Devizes, p. 279), close to the 

 site of the present Southbroom House; besides other relics men- 

 tioned by Stukeley as being continually found near Devizes ; lead 

 to a fair supposition that there were Romanized Britons here. To 

 what extent it is impossible to say : but perhaps this was the ori- 

 ginal village which afterwards under episcopal and royal patronage 

 grew up into the larger town. It is sometimes called "Vyse-wyke." 



Nursteed: about two miles south-west of Devizes, is perhaps a 

 corruption of New-stead — new place — but sometimes called Nurst- 



