Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/70

 covered with about 4 feet of rubbish. At Gratrix's warehouse, on the site of which many great Roman or Anglo-Saxon discoveries were expected, no finds or foundations were discovered.

So much has been fabulated about Alport that a few words must be devoted to the discussion of its etymology. Professor W. W. Skeat informs me that: "Ald is the Northumbrian and old Mercian spelling of what we now spell old. 'Port' is very common in early English. The sense 'town' is as old as Edward the elder and Athelstan; it is not, however, a true English word, being borrowed from the Latin. Port also occurs in the sense of gate, but this is unusual and only found in quotations from the Gospel or the Psalms, where the Latin version has porta. Practically it need not be considered. For port in the sense of road I find no authority whatever. It follows that Aldport almost certainly means old town or old village, and such a form may easily be as old as 900." Our earliest reference is: Alde Parc, 1282; Alde Porte, Al-Ald-Aldeport, 1320–2.

In 1322 it covered an approximate area of 95 acres, as described in Mamecestre, and comprised, according to John Palmer, the whole area between the river Irwell and the Tib, and between the Medlock and the present Quay Street, which practically coincides with the boundary lines of Roman Manchester, excluding, of course, the Hulme fee.

In the earlier maps of Berry and Casson (1750) we find a small block of buildings, then a farmstead, called All Port Town, which extends across the present Deansgate into Camp Street.

The almost total absence of Roman pottery, &c., during