Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/89

 and population enjoyed their full share of opulence and comfort, and, to judge from the enormous amount of pottery and articles found by me alone over a comparatively small area of the suburbs, the accumulation of the articles of daily life must, during a busy occupation, extending over three to four centuries, have become very great. Much has been lost during the last fifty years by indifference and ignorance, but what is left is sufficient to form a slight picture of the interesting life in Mancunium in its best days. When the place was more fully established, roads and by-roads were made which facilitated intercourse and traffic to Buxton (Aquæ) for taking the hot springs; pigs of lead were carried both by land and river from the Deceangi in Flintshire; salt was obtained from Northwich (Salinæ); slate from Wales and the Lakes; millstone blocks, for building purposes and querns, were quarried at Castleshaw and Blackstone Edge, and coal from the outcrops at the banks of the higher Irwell; the masons fetched their sandstone blocks from Collyhurst to carve and inscribe their altars and commemorative stones; and the traders of Samian and other ware, journeying from the Rhine and Gaul across the channel to London and by the Second Iter up to the north, dropped their loads at Wilderspool, Melandra, and all the many Lancashire stations. Castor ware is rare both here and at Wilderspool, for Durobrivæ, one of the chief places of manufacture, was on an iter (the fifth) which lay outside the direct connection with the Second Iter; white-ware is not so common; while coarse black or Upchurch ware is found at every step. Some of the commoner pottery appears to have been made in the locality.