Page:The History of Essex.djvu/11

 British temple. — Qf their religious buildings I have never heard but of one, at Knavestock British track- Common, which is of the kind called Alata; but their trackways (or communi- ways. # cations between one British town and another) abound in every part of the county; such ^fifst, between Lexden and London; secondly, between Lex- den and Cambridge; thirdly, between Lexden and Tasborough; fourthly, be- tween Lexden and Veroldm; and fifthly, probably also between Cambridge and London. — The green lane, seen near Romford, might have been a branch from the first towards Maiden, and the trackway bearing from Brentwood, by Wickhouse, Wayfield, and Stanford, towards Tilbury, might have connected the ports at Witham and Writtle with the British fortress of Durobriv. in Kent ; while others no doubt led from the towns of Durolit. and Cuesaromag. to Verolam; and from Casaromag. to some fortress on the Bret, in Suffolk. £e n $omaiML ^ s soon as R omans, under Claudius, had completely conquered this part They removed of England, they removed the capital of the Trinobantes from Lexden to Col- fromLexdento Chester, as being a site more suitable to their military tactics; and there is no Colchester. pi ace j n the Island which still retains such perfect marks of Roman occupancy as this place does, in its form, in its walls, its tessellated pavements, its bricks, and its coins. Its distance* also from London fixes, without a possibility of a Other Roman. * stations at doubt, its claim to be the first colony of the Romans. — Besides this important Atchesterford. port, we have two others equally certain, at Sturmere and at Chesterford, though at present we are unacquainted with their original names: of a fourth, fifth, and sixth, Durolitum, Caesar omagus, and Canonium, we know the names, although we may doubt of their precise sites, while we are confident that they stood not far Near Romford, from Rumford, Chelmsford, and Kelvedon: first, from their respective distances near chcims- ^fag given in the itineraries of Richard and Antonine, both from Colchester as nearKeiredon. we jj ag L on( j 011 . secon dly 9 from their having near each of them tumuli, (the indubitable marks of an adjoining station ;) and, thirdly, from their all standing on a known Roman road: a seventh, though notv lost in the waters of the Black- Effancester. water, Othona, was the parent of EfFancester, so often mentioned in our older At Harwich, chronicles ; an eighth guarded the mouth of the Stour at Harwich; and there at Dnnmow, is reason to suppose that there might have been a ninth at Dunmow; possibly a at On*ar, tenth at Omar; an eleventh near Halstead; while the supposed twelfth of Ad near Halstead. ~ 41 are, from London to Durolitum XII or XV miles ; from Durolitum to Caesaromagus XVI miles ; from Csesaromagus to Canonium XV miles; and from Canonium to Camalodunum Colooia VIII miles. Digitized by Google
 * See the 3d Iter of Richard of Cirencester, and the 9th of Antonine, where the several distances