Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/141

 .*ra T H E- HUTORY Bookl. -Romans. Here the Douglas forms a large crook in its channel, here a brook discharges its little urn into it, and here are natu- ral or artificial banks on the (ides. - Here, clofely adjoining to the •fite, is a conftderatye barrow ; and tradition {peaks of a consider- able battle near it, in which a great officer was (lain, many of the foldiers were cut to pieces, and the Douglas ran crimfbnfed with the blood to Wigan, And htere, and here only along the whole bank of the river, are all thefe advantages to be found W^ted. Thi9 fite comprehends two fields, the one of which is pecu- liarly denominated the Rie*Hay, and the othet is called the Smithy-field, and both of which contain an area of feren or le- ven and a half ftatute-acres *. Lying within a large curvfc of the Douglas and at the union of a fmall brook vvidi it, they hare the channel of the fbraaer- and ks fteep bank of five fix and fe vet* yards in height for the whole of the northern fide and for a part of the eaftern, and the ceurfe of the latter ami its fteep hank of two four and five yards hi height upon the weftera. And oH the fbuth muft have been a ditch, winding from' the estremitjr of the weftern benk along the fide of the neighbouring flhoW, and going, I foppofe, acrofs thp prefen* road obHquely .to the high bank of the river below the barrow. Thus iituated, the ftation appears plainly to be the Gficctum of Richard and Antonine- and the Rhigodunum of Pta&emy. Both the former and the latter have been hitherto ibppofcd to be the Ribchefter of the prefent times. But I have formerly fli«tf n the fuppofition to be falfe concerning Coccium. And the- fuppofi- tion concernihg Rhigodunum is dire£tly contrary to the tefifi- mony of Ptolemy. The relative pofition of the towns in Ptolemy are nearly as in- accurate in general as his abfolUte pbfitione are/ Thus*, to can- fine my observation to Rhigodunum in particular, that ftatton is placed by Ptolemy both thirty miles to the eafl: of Vinmqvium or Binchefter and as many to the weft of Devana. or Chatter %. when it is certainly, according to all the antiquarians and to truth, confiderably to the well of the former and to the eaft of the latter. But