201 
faithful legion, consecrated it to Fortune, and thus dis- 
charged his vow faithfully and willingly — "votum solvit 
lubens inerito."* The altar had been discovered on the 
western side of a building, which proved to be a Irypocaust. 
The remains were found within what proved to be the pre- 
cincts of a Roman station. Whitaker, in his history of 
Manchester, estimates the four closes which constitute the 
Eald, or Old Fields, at twelve or fourteen acres. He also 
relates that there " had been pieces of thick glass, urns, 
bones, and slips of copper, and crowded foundations of 
buildings, discovered, some a yard in thickness, and all 
composed of strong stone and cement.' ' He also states that 
" two fields had been cleared, but the other two remained 
entirely filled up with them." And he says that " the farmers 
had frequently broken their ploughs in all." He also gives 
his testimony to the fact that this quarry of Roman remains 
is placed upon the course of the military way from Man- 
chester to York. He says again that * a great quantity of 
Roman bricks had been discovered in the foundations, some 
long and some square, and all of a beautiful red. The 
latter were frequently twenty-two inches in the square, and 
found in the floorings of the houses ; as in some was dug up 
a thick crust of brick, rudely scored in squares, in imitation of 
tesselated work, and in others a pavement composed of pounded 
brick and very white mortar. Near the eastern side of the 
area, where three stone ledges and three lordships now meet, 
and whence a long line of houses appears, from the discovered 
foundations, to have extended towards the north, were lately 
found three coins of brass, — " two were lost," the third he 
describes. There were also discovered two inscriptions — one 
" REBURRHUI," and the other " OPUS."f 
* This centurion was, no doubt, in command of a detachment of the sixth 
legion at Cambodunum. 
+ Whitaker, pp. 128, 129. 
