The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright ; with numerous engravings on wood.

Thomas Wright

Date:: 1902

Credit: The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright ; with numerous engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

104/588 (page 84)

$of none of the monuments already described, are found in groups, or singly scattered, over many parts of our island. Some of these appear to be natural formations, others have been set up at different periods for various purposes, and others are pro- bably the remains of cromlechs and circles. Geologist^ and antiquaries seem now generally agreed that the rocking-stones are not works of art, but that they are the result of natural causes, and that they have been classed erroneously among Druidic remains. In the neighbourhood of Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, there are masses of scattered rocks which in the same manner have been erroneously supposed to be Druidical. In some cases a few scattered stones are the remains of circles or avenues. Single stones belonging to a long avenue of this kind are still traced here and there in a line from the foot of the hill on which Kits-Cotty House stands, across the valley to the opposite chalk-hills, a distance of five miles. Celtic antiquaries have given to these single stones the names of peulvun {i. e. stone pillar), and menhir (long stone). They have no doubt been erected at different periods, and for different purposes. Some, as I have just observed, are the last remains of cromlechs. Others are sepulchral monuments, often of the Roman or post- Roman period, which is proved sometimes by inscriptions. Several such inscribed stones have been found in Wales and Cornwall ; and there is a celebrated one near Joinville, in Trance, with the inscription in Roman characters, vi ROM AH vs istatili F (Viromarus the son of Istatilius). Two, found in the neighbourhood of Neath, in Glamorganshire (the Roman Nidumj, have severally the inscriptions imp. c. fla. val. MAXIMINO INVXCTO AUGUS [to], and IMP. M. C. PI AVON 10 victorino augusto, and were perhaps boundary-stones or mile-stones. There is a rough uninscribed stone of this descrip- tion, perhaps a boundary-stone, standing on the common at Harrowgate, in Yorkshire, concerning which the inhabitants can only tell you, that ‘ the oldest man that ever lived theie knows nothing about it.’ A single stone, or peulvan, in the department of the Haute-Marne in Trance, is said to beai a Latin inscription, stating that it marked the ancient limits of the Leuci. That such stones marked the sites of battles, or were memorials of celebrated events, is a mere assumption. Al- though the stones of the so-called Druidic monuments are in general rough and untouched with a tool, some instances aie known, as in the extraordinary sepulture of Gavr’inis in the Morbihan (Brittany), and at New Grange, in Ireland, where they$