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Home, Gordon, 1878-1969

"The Evolution of an English Town"

Fragments of a wooden pole
11 feet long, and of four spokes, could be traced as well as the complete
iron tyres of both wheels, and portions of a hub. These remains, together
with small pieces of bronze harness fittings, are now carefully arranged
in a glass case in Mr. Mitchelson's museum at Pickering.
There is a mill just to the south of Pickering known as Vivers Mill, and
near Cawthorne there is a farm where Roman foundations have been
discovered, known as Bibo House. Both these names have a curiously Roman
flavour, but as to their origin I can say nothing.
The three or four plans of these camps that have been published are all
inaccurate; the first, in Drake's "Eboracum," being the greatest offender.
General Roy has shown camps B and C in the wrong positions in regard to A,
and even Dr. Young, who himself notices these mistakes, is obliged to
point out that the woodcut that is jammed sideways on one of his pages is
not quite correct in regard to camp C (marked A on his plan), although
otherwise it is fairly accurate.
A small square camp is just visible in a field to the east of Cawthorne;
there is an oval one on Levisham Moor, and others square and oval dotted
over the moors in different directions, but they are of uncertain origin.
There can be little doubt that subsidiary camps and entrenchments would
have been established by the Romans in a country where the inhabitants
were as fierce and warlike as these Brigantes, but whether the dominant
power utilised British fortresses or whether they always built square
camps is a matter on which it is impossible to dogmatise.


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