Page:A History of Cawthorne.djvu/91

 historic times. It is not impossible indeed, that the yew trees which still wrestle on with life near Hillhouse, with others of their kind scattered on the route, were road-marks to shew the way to the few travellers of near two thousand years ago. These sunken lanes, often depressed many feet below the level of the fields on either side show the gradual wearing down of tread and traffic: they are not 'cuttings' at all, but only 'wearings,' and the deep depressions of near the summit of Gipsy Lane and in Dark Lane are such as, to use the language of geology, "postulate time." (See Edinburgh Review, April 1882: pp.392, 3, 4.)

The new Turnpike road of 1826, going East and West from one end of the Parish to the other, made several small deviations from the previous main-road: it cut off an elbow by what used to be the open common between Raw Green and Clough Green, and another on the 'Barnby-lane,' as it was called, near the Quarry Well.

A great change was made in the aspect of the Western part of the Township by the Gadding Moor Enclosure Act of exactly eighty years ago—42 George III.—the award and Plans of which are in the care of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Silkstone.

The only antiquities discovered in the Parish, beyond those connected with the Church, are a large number of silver coins, chiefly if not altogether of the Reign of Henry III., discovered on Bilcliffe (Bentcliffe) Hill. As no silver coin greater than a penny was struck in England before Edward the Third's 'groats'—grosses, or 'great' pieces—we may safely pronounce these to have been current pennies of the thirteenth century. A few of them were first found at the roots of some trees during a Fall of Timber there in 1852. About two years after, a search was made and an earthen vessel discovered which contained so many silver coins, that they were actually sold for old silver at Barnsley for £26. A few of them have happily escaped, some being now in the possession of Mr. Stanhope at Cannon Hall, and some of Mr. Wemyss at Cawthorne. The matter was kept as quiet as well could be by those who found them, for fear of a claim being made to them as "treasure trove."