Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/201

 i 7 z - THE HISTORY Book L pellation of Cafter which is given to another of them in an an- tient record, by the concurrence of feveral Roman roads at a third, and by the great uniformity in the afpeft of all of them ; they appear to have been fix of thofe tumultuary forts, as Ve- getius calls them, which the Romans generally made at a little diftance from their ftations and for the greater fecurity of their cattle and their convoys And the Romans fixed them, as thefe are fixed, in the moft advantageous fites that the places afforded, fortified them, as thefe are fortified, not witn'a ram>- part of ftone or even of earth, but only with large ditches, and lodged a final 1 garrifon in them 3. One of thefe Chefters is mentioned by Richard in his iixth Iter, and is called from its pofition Fines Maximae & Flavian It was placed on the foutherly fide of the Merfey, on 'the jig^t .band of the road, and about mufquet-fhot from the bridge This the^ nature of the ground along the banks of the Merfey fufficiently evinces of itfelf, that being the only ground, in the neighbourhood of the road and upon the. margin of the river .which the Romans could ever have fele&ed for the fite of a fta.- tion* And this the voice of Tradition very remarkaly confirms* affeiting in its own wild way of detailing the circumftancesi oft a fad,, that the ftones of the cattle at Manchefter were once traof r ported to that part of the ground which is now; denominated Scholefr's Field in order to conftruft a church with them,. and that they were afterwards removed away in a fupernatural main- ner and within the period of a (ingle night; The. fite is a riling ground of gravel and marl, now divided into two fields - and muft have been once denominated, as the nearer of them jU flili called,, the Rie or River Fidd V This is ftill bounded by a long deep broad ditch upon one fide,, the na*- tural hallow having been greatly widened by the Romans, and now ranging, in a> regular even* line more than twenty yards, in breadth and three in depth*. And this was formerly . bounded.. by die. Red or Read brook, which flowed dire&ly under the bank and along the hollow, but is now intercepted by the courfe of the new canal ? by the river Merfey, which re- ceived