Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/121

 9 i THE HISTORY. BookL outfide, and coloured over with a green-blue dye. And within one or two fields from the caftle was lately discovered a. brazen Celt, hollow in the blade, and carrying a loop at the head ' The region of Saddleworth indeed, of which the fiteof Caftle- fliaw is a part,, now belongs to the county of - York, But it muft evidently have beqn originally difmembered from Lanca? (hire, being even now a cfrapelry. in one of our Lancashire pa% rifhes, and the greater of this double range of hills moft naturally forming the barrier betwixt the Siftuntii and the Brigantes * The Britons Ending a fite at Cambodunum that was very well calculated for a fortrefs, being fcreened from the violences of the weather by the high grounds around it, and yet no* ways liable to be infulted from them, being 1 well provided with water; and very capable of defence, thery placed their fortrefs upon it; It muft then have been encompafled on every fide by the foreft which covered this particular region of the moors to thefe later ages* and which has given the denomination of Foreft-hill to a neighbouring height. And here the Romans for the fame rea- son afterwards planted a ftationary town. This appears from its remains to have been confiderable. This appears from Richard to have even obtained the honourable privilege of the Jus Lati- num IS. And this muft have given the chearful afpe& of cul- tivation to thefe now fable waftes, and muft have made the bufy hum of men to rcfound amid thefe now dreary fblitudes. But it was deftroyed very early in the period of the Saxons. The voice of Tradition, which fpeaks fo loudly at the fites of fome Roman towns, is either abfblutely filent or very faintly whifpers at thisf, though fcarcely a fingle relique perhaps appears at the former, and though the remains are equally numerous and refmarkable at the iatter. And the town was certainly, as Cambodununft has been generally fuppofed to have been, the famous Campodonum of'Bede, and was levelled to the ground during thewafteful in- vafion of Cadwallarcn and Penda in 633 and within a few years only after its firft fubmiffion to the Saxons. With the Romans began the glory of this hilly region. And nearly with the Bri- gantes it was abfolutely terminated for ever ' Horfeley