Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/42

 remaining space, described by the eastern ditch, the Medlock, and the south-east and south wall, was covered with a number of large and extensive buildings. Enclosed as they were by the northern and eastern ditches and the steep banks of the Medlock they were well protected and defended on all sides. Whitaker marks the position of these buildings on his "Ground Plot of Manceinion," taken August 8th, 1765, with the letter A (in his fanciful way, he calls them British foundation). The groundwork was found ½ yard below the surface. The more northerly building measured 16 yards by 12 yards, the walls were 6 feet thick and the remaining height 3 feet, the door "which almost covered the whole side" looking north. The foundation walls consisted of three layers of common boulder stones, bedded in clay, a little lower in the field, and running for 30 yards to 40 yards together the same foundations were found, and a single layer of small boulder stones, bedded in clay, resting on the plane of the rock (pages 24–5, vol. i.). The purpose or nature of these large official buildings cannot be given now.

Crossing Deansgate, and where the Crown Inn is situated (see vol. ii., p. 84, 1775), just behind the Roman well (already described) and apparently by the Buxton road, on a plot of land then called Alport Field, was discovered in 1776, "a long line of disjointed foundations, commencing nearly from the well, extending 1 yard in breadth, 14 yards long, and 2 yards in depth, consisting of unhewn stone, broken bricks, and adhering mortar."

—"A little above the ancient ford of the Medlock, the sluice of a mill was accidentally discovered about twenty-four years ago (1747). There, on the margin