Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/95



We have no accurate knowledge of the old inhabitants of Lancashire at this period. In a general way we know that the west coast, from about the Mersey to the Lune, was occupied by the Segantii, while towards the slopes of the Pennine chain, and between the hills of Manchester and Leeds and Sheffield, we had the south-western Brigantes.

The former clustered, and were settled, in the estuary regions of the Ribble, Wyre, and Lune, which gave them great security, and made it difficult to dislodge or attack them. Agricola had to grip them from the two sides, from the land and sea concurrently. Casting our eyes on a map of the Roman roads to the shore lines we at once perceive that the part between Liverpool and Walton is singularly devoid of any known roads or stations. It has been argued before, most convincingly, by Jos. Boult, that the Mersey was formerly a pure freshwater lake, and that the marshes of Bidston and Wallasey were connected with those of Bootle and Crosby; that in Roman times the Mersey had no distinct existence, its estuary being of much later date, and that it was included most likely by Ptolemy with the Ribble, Alt, and the minor streams in the Æstuarium Belisama; that the Seteja has to be sought between the mouth of the Dee and the shore line of the Wirrall. However that may be, we know that at Dove Point, on the Cheshire coast, the Romans were in full evidence in the present neighbourhood of Great Meols, as shown by the multitude of objects discovered in the old forest surface, consisting of pottery, great quantities of