Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/39

 20 TH E HIS TOR Y Bookl. ver, and its gentle declivity to the fouth or its collateral points, would give the Britons the whole undiminifhed refle&ed warmth of our Britifh funs. And fuch are almoft all the Britifh fortreffes mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus s. Surrounded as the Britifh fortrefles muft conftantly have been with the ever-hovering damps of the neighbouring woods, fiich a position was naturally dictated by prudence. And for this reafon, and for this only, muft the area of the Caftle-field have been pre- ferred by the Britons to the fite of the prefent church and /col- lege, the latter being fuperiour to the former in all the common requifites of a fortrefs, but being greatly inferiour to it in this. On the eaft and north were the advantages of fituation loft, the level of the area within being even with the furfoce of the ground without. Here therefore the Britons muft have funk a ditch and raifed a rampart. And at the fouth-eaftern angle of the Caftle-field, and upon the lower margin of the Medlock, was adhially a deep and narrow gulley that was cut through the iblid rock, and exifted to the year 1765. This was originally formed in all probability at the original formation of the Britifh ibrtrefs, a part of its eaftern boundary. And from this point the ditch feems pretty plainly to have mounted dire&ly up the little garden that now lies along the eaftern fide of the Caftle- field, the rocks on the right of the garden appearing evidently to have been cut away Hoping towards the weft, and the earth of it appearing as evidently from the rubbifh, that to the depth of feveral feet is mingled with it, to be merely adventitious, and muft have terminated (as I fhall immediately ihew) a little be- yond the upper end of the garden. The northern ditch conti- nues for the greater part of its original courfe, being carefully preferred in general by the Romans afterwards. And the extra- ordinary afped of its weftern termination, fb much more formi- dable than that of the Roman ditches, does of itfelf fufficiently befpeak the whole to be Britifh. The eaftern part of it, which muft have been terminated by the ridge that runs along the margin of the prefent road, has been long filled up by the Ro- mans, and no traces of it appear at prefent But where the prefer-