Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/72

 and may refer to the time of the struggles between Eadwine and Æthelfrith.

The recent excavations, at the end of April, 1900, at the east side of Deansgate, along the Great Northern Railway, for the erection of shops between Dyer's Lane and Fleet Street have offered an excellent opportunity for examining a large space of ground, of which the lower strata of original soil have been left undisturbed, thus preserving and allowing a study of the Roman deposit.

We have on the top: 55 inches of modern soil and old brick foundation, (a) 33 inches of cultivation soil (Roman), (b) 17 inches of trodden ground (Roman), 14 inches coarse sand (river gravel), and at the base the red rock.

(a) Consists of a light, sandy clay, free from any other admixture or accumulation, and showing the presence of little roots (casts and the outer bark), with scarcely any or only sporadic Roman crockery; it has all the appearance of cultivated ground. Below, in (b), the upper surface of the 17 inches is rather stony, and made of tough clay, which apparently had been traversed and trodden and tightly pressed. In it we have a good many fragments of black, grey, and red ware of large size, and parts of Samian bowls and dishes and some Roman mortar, it is much mixed with charcoal and also contains bits of iron in it, pieces of wood, and a seed of Atriplex patula was found at the bottom of the underlying sand, which, of course, formed the original surface. This section shows again in a striking manner the constant change of level. Practically, in Fleet Street the original level was 7 feet below the present flags. At the Wesleyan Chapel in Old Trafford Street Roman pottery in