Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/320

 A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE spindle-whorls and disks of earthenware and lead, bone and bronze pins, iron nails, an iron bracelet, part of a circlet of bluish glass, and other small objects and bones of men and animals including the grave and skeleton of an infant. These remains were found partly in the floor of the cave amid traces of firing and ashes, partly in the deposit of stalagmite, chiefly near the entrance of the cave. The coins, one each of Nero, Nerva, Hadrian, Trajan, and Pius cos iii, with the familiar 'Britannia' reverse one or two each of Claudius Gothicus and Tetricus, indicate an occupation ending in the latter part of the third century, and the fibula? appear to fall within the same dates as the coins. The general abundance of remains, the number of bones and the amount of ash and charcoal, as Prof. Poulton has observed, implies a long occupation. 1 (d) The Kelco or Kelcowe cave, near Giggleswick, was explored about 1850. It yielded fibulas, coins of the time of Vespasian, and potsherds (one bit of Castor ware). Its occupation does not appear to have been very extensive. 2 (e) Kirkhead cave is in the breast of a steep hill on the eastern shore of Cartmel promontory. It was explored about 1864-5, an d yielded a coin of Domitian a few inches below the surface, a ' trefoil- shaped ' fibula in bronze, bones of animals and men, etc., near the surface, and lower down traces of prehistoric man. 8 (f) The limestone range of Mendip contains many caves. But few of them were occupied during the Roman period, and none, as it seems, for any length of years. The Burrington caves, excavated at various dates since 1795, have yielded skeletons, charcoal, animals' bones, potsherds, and a set of (?) Roman dice,* but the age of the objects is doubtful. A few scattered Roman objects have been detected lately in a cave above Cheddar. A hoard of some 300 third-century coins was found about 1852 just outside Wookey Hole. 6 Lastly, the Uphill cave, when explored in 1826, yielded a coin of Julian, some potsherds and bones of sheep and goats, and in 1846 a late fourth-century hoard was found there.* (g) In Devon, the caves at Torquay and Brixham ha/e been found to contain a few Roman remains. Kent's Hole, near Torquay, amidst a mass of earlier and later material, has yielded a Roman fibula (found in the rubbish outside), a bit of Samian and some ruder Romano-British potsherds, bone combs, the stem of a spoon and one or two such trifles (found 1 See especially Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, p. 102 ; Proc. Sac. Antlq. (first series), iv. in ; Speight, Craven and N.tV. Yorks. p. 325 ; Poulton, Torks. Geol. Soe. Proc. vii. (1881), 351-368 ; Boyd and Shuffreys, Littondale (Leeds, 1893), p. 21 (rude cut of a fibula) ; Ecroyd Smith, Lanes, and Ches. Hist. Sac. Trans, v. (1864), 208; Arch. Journ. xv. 160 (bracelet); information from Prof. Poulton ; remains in the Leeds Museum, the Nat. Hist. Mus. at Oxford, etc. Torks. p. 141. 3 Ecroyd Smith, Lanes, and Ches. Hist. Soe. Trans, v. (1864), 225 ; J. P. Morris, in Memoirs read before the Anthropol. Sac. of London, ii. (1865-6), 354; Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, p. 125 and references given there. 1 Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, p. 296, Journ. of the Geol. Soe. xviii. (1852), 115, etc. 6 Rutter, p. 78, Boyd Dawkins, Cave Hunting, pp. 294, etc. ; Gent. Mag. 1846. ii. 633. 240
 * Ecroyd Smith, Lanes, and Ches. Hist. Sec. Trans, v. (1864), p. 207 ; Speight, Craven and N.W.
 * Rutter, Delineations (London, 1829), p. 117 ; Boyd Dawkins, Somers. Arch. Journ. xii. (2), 169.