Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/46

 to Hewitt Street, bounded on the east by Watson Street, on the north side, and by Rowe Street in Gaythorn on the south side, as proved by the recent excavations in connection with the Great Northern Railway. We have seen already that foundations were discovered in Whitaker's time at the corner of Trafford Street (Crown Inn), running 14 yards in length; also, close by, a Roman well, and in 1840 at the same spot a large hoard of Roman coins, mostly of gold and silver. Mr. Esdaile also speaks of some stone structure, not far away, on the banks of the adjacent Tib, and we have further attestation by the marvellous number of Roman objects I have obtained from the area under discussion at almost every footstep, particularly in Gaythorn and Knot Mill Station. Here again the ornamental Samian pottery of the second century type prevails; at Gaythorn Row Barritt reports the discovery in 1788 of a lump of Sal ammoniac, together with a Roman coin of Tetricus (267–272), and some bronze rings, one with a blueish fluted bead on it. The number of finds, from Knot Mill Station up to Rowe Street and across the Rochdale Canal tunnel to Trafford Street, are almost unmatched for variety and intrinsic value. The Roman soil at Gaythorn, which overspreads the original pre-Roman yellow soil as a stratum of 3 feet thick, is packed with pottery of every description, iron nails, charcoal, lead, broken tiles, fragments of glass. Along the railway arches of the Altrincham line, between Gilbert Street and Mount Street, the excavations in August, 1897, which were carried down to a depth of 17 feet in the gravel, have incidentally demonstrated a change of the bed of the Tib since Roman times.