452 MORTIMER: PRE-HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF FIMBER. 
" Peasborough" (which probably means road to the Camp), and a 
little eastwards along the same entrenchments the fields are named 
" Scaleborough." These, as well as the affix ber" in Fimber," 
plainly indicate the locality of a camp or fortified place. 
The iron spear-head (fig. 21) found in the dry summer of 1884 
in the mud at the bottom of the most easterly mere in the centre of 
the village, may have belonged to a Roman soldier ; whilst in the 
centre of the village, between the two meres, was a small hole which, 
when I was a boy, held water, it was then known by the name of 
well-hole, spring-hol^^, and frost-hole. This place, if examined, might 
prove to be a Roman well and yield relics of much historical value. 
In the York Museum is a fine cinerary Roman urn, of glass, ticketed 
" found near Wharram-le-Street, on the Roman road passing Fimber, 
in 1820, and presented by the Rev. J. "VV. Stillingfleet." In a straight 
line \\ miles S.S.E. from Blealand's Nook, in the direction of 
Beverley, is a little valley called " Thorndale," which is certainly on 
the Hue of this old Roman road from Malton to Beverley. Professor 
PhiUips saysf " thorn is seldom far from old camps or mounds of 
importance." From Thorndale this old road is in places distinctly 
traceable in a straight line towards Beverley. It crosses Tibthorpe 
Wold close to the farmhouse called " Angas Farm," where, in the 
year 1850, in excavating for a well on the north side of the house, 
several bodies were exhumed, but their positions were not observed, 
neither is it known whether they were accompanied with any relics 
or not. About one mile S.S.E. this old road is well shown, running 
obliquely over the north side of Bainton Heights, in a line with 
Bainton and Beverley. 
The existence of a Roman station near the site of our discovery 
is, to my knowledge, first intimated in 1847 by John Yonge 
Akerman, in his " Archaeological Index, page 148, where he presumes 
Fimber to be the site of Delgovitia. This site is also favoured by 
Prof. Phillips, J who is inclined to Derventio being at " Stamford 
* Anciently spelt " Fin-mere" without the 'b;' probably this was a local 
corruption, originating from the existence of two fine meres in the centre of 
the village, and that the present spelling is a survival of the meaning of the 
name. 
t Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-Coast of Yornshire, p. 242 
\ Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-Coast of Yorkshire, pp. 241-42. 
