Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/113

 CHAPTER IX

LINCOLN, THE CATHEDRAL AND MINSTER-YARD

The city of Lincoln was a place of some repute when Julius Cæsar landed 55. The Witham was then called the Lindis, and the province Lindisse. The Britons called the town Lindcoit, so the name the Romans gave it, about 100, "Lindum Colonia," was partly Roman and partly British. The Roman walled town was on the top of the hill about a quarter of a mile square, with a gate in the middle of each wall. Of their four roads, the street which passed out north and south was the Via Herminia or Ermine Street. The east road went to "Banovallum"—Horncastle (or the Bain)—and "Vannona"—Wain-fleet—and the west to "Segelocum"—Littleborough. The Roman milestone marking XIV miles to Segelocum is now in the cathedral cloisters.

This walled space included the sites of both cathedral and castle, and was thickly covered with houses in Danish and Saxon times. We hear of 166 being cleared away by the Conqueror to make his castle. The Romans themselves extended their wall southward as far as the stone-bow in order to accommodate their growing colony. Their northern gate yet exists. It is known as "Newport Gate," and is of surpassing interest, as, with the exception of one at Colchester, there is not another Roman gateway in the kingdom. Only last October the foundations of an extremely fine gateway were uncovered at Colchester, the Roman "Camelodunum"; apparently indicating the fact that there were two chariot gates as well as two side entrances for foot passengers. The Newport Gate is sixteen feet wide, and twenty-two feet high, with a rude round arch of