Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/26

12 direction of the banks and slopes which embrace the west, south, and east side of the fort. "For the greater safety the northern bank of the river was carefully scarped, and the long stroke of the pickaxes appeared in 1764 for the whole compass of the bank, upon the face of the rocks which are below the present edge of the water, and descended nearly to the original surface of it within 1½ yards from the stony bed of the river. Deep in the artificial soil, with which the face of the bank was covered, were found in 1765–6 a fibula, an urn, a coin [ . . . Reduci ... an Aug. Cos], and an unguent bottle of black glass in a little hollow upon the rock. Along one particular part of the margin, from the eastern boundary of the field beyond the mouth of the subterranean Bridgewater tunnel, the rock was cut down either into a very sharp descent or into an absolute perpendicular, and it extended along the whole semicircular margin of the river. About 20 yards to the east appeared in 1766 a large flight of rude stairs leading to the river, viz., seven steps about three yards long, from ¾ yard to 1 foot in breadth and from 10 inches to 4 inches in depth, and very visibly worn away in the centre. The lower part of them had been actually cut down into an absolute perpendicular."

On the west was the natural barrier of a lofty bank (see Green's Map), forming a sharp slope of 50 yards to the swampy ground below it. It extended in one continuous line up to the present Water Street, and envelops the whole southern wall from its western to its eastern angle. Beneath this bank and rampart spread out a morass, or marshy ground, about 100 yards in breadth and 300 yards in length, beginning at the margin of the Medlock on