Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/165

 and projecting 4 feet southward beyond the church foundations.

At Chetham College we observe, 5 feet below the undisturbed ground large blocks of undoubted Roman mortar, indicating the existence of compact foundation walls, similar to those of the north wall of the castrum in Deansgate; fragment of a roof tile, and below, at a depth of 7 feet, the existence of a Roman boulder-paved road, which again rests on a much older artificially, rock-cut fosse. The Roman road, in its turn, is slowly sanding up, and lying apparently waste and disused; in the sand we have the gorse bush, which could then take root and grow upon it; we have the elder and bramble, which could drop its berries, and allow its sun-dried, puckered seeds to insinuate themselves in the accumulating layers of sand drift. We notice again above the roots and seeds pieces of Roman mortar that had been flung there from a destroyed building. Twenty-three inches above the deposit of sand we find blistered charcoal and burnt bones, indicating perhaps a recurrent incursion of Hunt's Bank.

We see what a promising field is awaiting future research in these quarters, and how within the last few years evidence has been steadily accumulating to prove the territorial occupation by the Romans of Hunt's Bank. I think we are now on sure ground, and the spade, which is now busy at all points round this ancient area, may be the means to throw further light upon a number of other points which have to be fully worked out yet. This refers specially to the direction of the Ribchester Road. On my "Map of Roman Manchester," I provisionally made this road to slant from the deanery, where it is last tracked to, to a point at Cathedral Street, as I took the Roman patch discovered here as an indication of the main road,