Volume 1

The gentleman's magazine library : being a classified collection of the chief contents of The gentleman's magazine from 1731 to 1868. Romano-British remains / edited by George Laurence Gomme.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The gentleman's magazine library : being a classified collection of the chief contents of The gentleman's magazine from 1731 to 1868. Romano-British remains / edited by George Laurence Gomme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Cumberland. Bewcastle. [1792, Part II., pp. 1074-1075.] The church and castle of Bew-castle, anciently Bothe-castre, or. Bueth-castre (see Camden), situated in the vicinity of the Roman Maiden Way, between Haltwhistle and Jedburgh, seems to have been built on the ruins of a large Roman city, about 200 yards square, encompassed with a deep and broad ditch and wall. I ie foundations of houses, and the course of the streets, all along t e area, may still be traced. A heavy gloomy castle, now also in ruins, together with the church, the parsonage-house, and some other buildings, have all clearly been built out of the stones of this ancient city, or station. Some Roman altars have lately been dug up at it. Leaden pipes have also frequently been found in the fields, leading from a copious well of fine water; and to the west, about hal a mi e distant, there still are some remains of the fortifications. A few years ago, as some labourers were trenching a small piece of ground for a garden, they dug up the hearthstones and floors ot several houses, and several cubes of tesselated pavement; but, as there was then no person in the neighbourhood who had any knowledge or taste for antiquities, no farther search nor inquiry was made. The place, indeed, has never been explored with that care and skill which it certainly merits. _ . Not more than ten years since, in digging a grave, the remains ot a sword and some coins were found. There is reason to believe they were curious and valuable. Unfortunately, the gravedigger «ave them to a dealer in coins in Carlisle,_ who said he would get them examined by a judge, and then give either the value ot them, or return them. We cannot learn that he did either. It is much to be regretted that neither this place nor the Roman antiquities at Netherby have ever been traced and examined with due care and skill. No county in the kingdom, probably, affords so ample a field for antiquarian research as Cumberland; but adequate motives to engage people in moderate circumstances to undertake so tedious and laborious an investigation have never been proposed to the natives of the county; and, unhappily for us, we are too remote, and perhaps too poor, to engage the attention ot our more opulent fellowr-citizens of the South, unless by our lakes and mountains, which casually attract some transient touristy who, however, seldom have leisure to hunt after antiquities. [See Note 3.J Burd-Oswald. Vsend you herewith an inscription on a stone in the south-east wall of Naworth garden, unpublished.
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