Page:VCH Staffordshire 1.djvu/225

 ROMANO-BRITISH STAFFORDSHIRE station on the conjectured Roman road from Derby, which runs through Stoke-upon-Trent and continues in a north-easterly direction. At Rocester is another Roman site near the same road. Romano-British villages existed at Wetton and Uttoxeter, and a settlement probably adjoined the cemetery discovered at Yoxall. There are some indefinite records of settle- ments at Madeley and Tettenhall, but they are too vague to enable zn^ opinion to be formed regarding them. Besides these there are numerous camps generally attributed to the Roman period which appear mostly to lie in the valleys of the rivers. Along the western side of the River Dove below Dovedale there are camps at Okeover, Rocester, and Uttoxeter ; in the Trent valley, at Stoke-upon-Trent and Stone ; in the valley of the Churnet, at Leek ; in the valley of the Penk, at Teddesley Hay and Shareshill ; in the valley of the Stour, at Kinver and Kingswinford ; and in the valley of the Smestow River at Seisdon. These may possibly have been used during the early part of the Roman occupation and afterwards abandoned, or may have been Romano-British villages. But most of them probably are not Roman at all, and in hardly any have Roman objects been found. The spade alone can decide their origin and use. The limestone region on the border of Derbyshire contains numerous caves of various forms and sizes, which have at different times provided habitations for men or beasts. The best known of these belong to pre-historic ages, but a few of them have been found to contain in the upper and lower strata of their floors traces of habitation dating from the Roman period.* The most important of such caves in Staffordshire are ' Thor's Cave,' 10 near Wetton, ' Thirse House ' at Alton, and that known locally as ' Old Hannah's Cave ' near Redhurst. 11 The explanation usually offered of the cave life of the Romano-British period is that fugitives took refuge in these caves in the fifth or sixth century, when fleeing from the English invaders. 12 But, as Professor Haverfield has pointed out, the evidence of date from the remains found contradicts this theory, as hardly a trace occurs of anything later than the third century. The objects also in the more important caves imply a tolerably long occupation, and a more plausible explanation is that in some hill districts cave life formed a feature of Romano-British civiliza- tion. Here, apparently, some of the poorest and wildest of the hill-men lived, probably largely on robbery. Plot mentions that as late as 1680 Thirse House Cave at Alton or Alveton was definitely occupied, and doubt- less many parallels could be cited from even later ages. 13 Sepulchral mounds or barrows exist in great numbers over Staffordshire. Many were scientifically excavated by Mr. Bateman and Mr. Carrington between 1848 and 1858. In these tumuli were found numerous varieties of remains, chiefly Celtic, but including a sufficient number of Roman objects to show that the barrows were occasionally used, or perhaps re-used, for sepulchral purposes during the Roman period. 14 Only four hoards of coins have been recorded in the county, one at Tatenhill of thirty gold coins dating from B.C. 29 to A.D. 96 ; one at Rowley 9 y.C.H. Derb. , 233. 10 See Wetton in Topog. Index. 11 N. Staffs. Field Club, xxxiii, 105. " Green, Making of Engl. 67-68. " Haverfield in V.C.H. Derb. i, 242. Besides the caves in Derbyshire and Staffordshire others occur in the limestone hills of Craven in West Yorkshire, also near Arncliffe, Settle, and Giggleswick, and two in Devonshire. " Bateman, Ten Tears' Diggings, Int. xii, xiiu I 185 24