Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/40

 or blocks. I only arrived on the scene a few days after it was destroyed and used up for concrete, but I obtained a sketch from the foreman, an intelligent man, to whom I am indebted for other help. The drain seems to have been constructed like that laid open at Birrens, which is engraved in the work cited above.

—The excavations at Wilderspool and Melandra afford a good idea of their construction in these little stations; two have been found and described by Mr. May at the former place, and at the latter locality an oven has recently been discovered by Messrs. Hamnett and Garstang, near the southern turret. At Manchester several ovens were laid bare in 1789 by Mr. Perry, cut in the rock, which, to conclude from the situation, appears manifestly to have been placed, as at Melandra and elsewhere, near the south-east angle. Close to, as in Wilderspool, he found millstones. Of these I have also recently discovered three large segments, two of coarse millstone grit and one of trachyte. Another such one is noticed by Mr. May at Wilderspool.

—A square well was discovered in 1830 a few yards to the west of the wall. It had four upright posts at the angle, closed in with other logs and floored in the same manner, the logs 5 inches to 6 inches diameter, and a number of boulders or ballistæ were found at the bottom. Whitaker (see p. 360) speaks of another well outside the station which was in evidence in 1764–5. It was sunk for several yards into the rock. "When the little alehouse, which now stands opposite the gate of the Castlefield, was erected, upon opening of the ground