Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/59

Rh eternize their memories." And, further on, "I need say no more to prove this custom to have been a very common one amongst the Romans, as it was also used by the Pagan Britons, Saxons, and Danes. The Goths, or Anglo-Saxons, made their tombs very like the Roman tumuli." As is now well known, the author of the "Eboracum" is in error when he alleges that barrow-burial was a common practice amongst the Romans; and, knowing as he did, that it was used by the ancient Britons, the Saxons, and the Danes, one feels surprised that, without direct evidence of any kind, he should have concluded that the tumuli around York are not only all sepulchral, but that they arc all likewise of Roman origin.

Mr. Davies, in an interesting paper read at the Evening Conversation Meeting of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, a few years ago, threw out the suggestion that Lamel-hill and Siward-houe are both Anglo-Saxon barrows, founding this view on etymological grounds, which, however, it hardly seems needful to reproduce here; especially as, in respect to Lamel-hill, Mr. Davies himself now concurs in regarding as untenable the etymology which he proposed.

So far as I am aware, Drake is the first author who mentions Lamel-hill under that name. The contemporary writers, to whom we are indebted for what we know of the long siege which York sustained in 1644, in describing the battery which was placed on this hill, mention it by no particular name. Rushworth calls it "a hill near Walmgate Bar;" Sir Henry Slingsby, "the windmill hill as the way lies to Heslington;" and Hildyard, "the mill hill above St. Laurence Leyes, without Walmgate Bar;" and in another place, "Heslington Hill." What degree of antiquity must be assigned to the name of Lamel-hill, would thus appear very doubtful; though, from the silence of these writers, we cannot positively conclude that the name did not exist at the time they wrote. Drake's notice of this tumulus is as follows: "South of the Hospital of St. Nicholas is a round hill, known by the name of Lamel-hill, on which a windmill has stood, from whence it must have took its name; Lamel- hill being no more than le Meul, the Miln-hill, called so by the Normans." We can hardly, I think, but concur in regarding this derivation as doubtful.