Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/13



is a natural craving in the human mind to pry into and to master the secrets of the remote past; to deal with records of a period prior to written annals, and to supply the want of ancient historical details by inferences drawn from its reliques, such as votive tablets, sacrificial altars, sepulchral memorials and other vestiges, and thus to be made acquainted with a state of society, and a class of enterprises which the world once saw, but which it will never see again. To gratify such a feeling of inquisitiveness this investigation of the Maiden Way was undertaken.

Mr. Bainbridge, in his account of the Maiden Way on the south side of the Roman wall, says that it came from Kirkby There, in Westmoreland, to the Carvorran Station. I think it, however, very possible that there may have been a branch from it direct to the Birdoswald Station. I have examined the ground very closely, and although I could not find any remains of an unquestionable character, I found some traces on the south side of the river Irthing. These pass on the east side of the Bushnook and Shawfield farmhouses, and on