Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/173

 This fosse was filled up with sand and levelled, at a later period, to allow the super-construction of the posterior Roman boulder road. It is not likely that the Romans originally made this fosse to pitch their improvised camp on this comparatively narrow strip of ground enclosed between the bank of the Irk and the termination of the Chetham College Library; it is more feasible that the Britons, when encountered by the Romans, were found in fortified possession here.

The persistence of trying to fix upon Castlefield as the British nucleus has added to the difficulty of explaining the various names by which the station, in their Latinised forms, is known, and consequently the etymologies proposed have so far signally failed to answer the physical conditions involved. Mr. Henry Bradley has quite recently viewed the question of its etymology from a purely grammatical and philological point, which is only one of many other sides to look at it. He is apparently unacquainted with the topographical and strategical features of the place he discusses, and, considering that he works on incomplete data and knowledge to help him to form a definite conclusion that would relieve us and add light, his destructive attempt lands us in a position worse than ever. For his contentions I refer readers to his paper in the English Historical Review (July, 1900), from which it is evident that his premises are built upon the old assumption which postulates the Deansgate castrum as the site. He distinctly says the name hardly fitted the low-lying settlement at Castlefield. As to the other points he raises, I completely differ and join issue with him. I uphold that the rocky mass of Hunt's Bank gave rise to the name and that it furnishes all the elements for an unforced explanation. I may, therefore, be permitted to go a little more minutely into