Where Romans roamed

I RECENTLY read that the British Museum in London had just opened a new gallery costing £1.76 million.

lt is devoted to a discovery of Roman coins and artefacts dug up in a Suffolk farmer's field near the village of Hoxne.

Fifteen thousand coins were found ,including 569 gold. The rest were silver and other artefacts were also recovered. There is a very delicate silver toothpick in the shape of an ibis, which was one of the most sacred birds of the ancient world.

What, you might wonder, has this got to do with us who live north of the Wash. Actually, quite a lot as the Suffolk hoard has caused historians to alter their theories of life in Roman Britain.

It is now thought that, as the Roman Empire was attacked by the Barbarians, Rome's position looked far from safe.

It might well have been that rich people moved to Britain and hid their treasures there. From the 1960s onwards more and more motorways and housing estates have been built and their excavations have led to more treasures and other interesting artefacts being dug up. At one time text books were suggesting that the population in Roman Britain was only one million. The latest estimates now suggest around five million. Another change in emphasis is to examine where the Romano-British towns and forts were situated. Experts now believe that much of Roman Britain was peaceful and that villas were constructed in countryside areas, especially in idyllic spots close to springs and rivers which were then unpolluted and full of fish.

Obviously, Lancashire was closer to Hadrian's Wall, where the Scots tribes threatened danger, than those counties to the South East, where the main ports to Europe were situated. We have, however, lots of super places to walk in the footsteps of the Romans. For us in East Lancashire there is only one place to start and that is at Ribchester. Here the fort and the bathhouse have both been excavated, while the Roman Museum there is excellent by any standards. In the 19th century a helmet was discovered. The original is now in the British Museum but a splendid replica is on view at this museum in Ribchester.

Much of the stone from the fort was pinched during the construction of the Norman church while other substantial sections of the fort now lie buried under the waters of the River Ribble which has altered its course over the centuries. All this goes to show that you cannot take history for granted. New discoveries are made all the time and this is why the new gallery in London is so exciting.

Other fascinating Roman connections in Lancashire include a tiny remnant of a small fort at Walton-le-Dale, which once guarded the crossing near the confluence of the rivers Darwen and Ribble. The substantial fort at Lancaster has still not yet yielded up all of its secrets.

These are facts, while the presence of a major port between Fleetwood and Knott End by the Wyre Estuary is said by some historians to be "not proved." I'm going to stick my neck out because the Roman historian Ptolemy marked such a port on his map. If this eminent gentleman can be positive then, I would suggest, so can we! If you want to go further afield in search of Roman history in the North then why not visit Chester, York and Hadrian's Wall? There are also minor settlements in Yorkshire at Otley and Ilkley and at one time there was an important encampment near to the Tempest Arms hotel at Elslack, near Skipton. My final word, however, has to concern Ribchester because the Ribble was an important waterway for the Romans.

They would have been able to navigate small vessels as far as Ribchester and from there a network of roads spread out to link with York and Chester. The River Lune was likewise navigable for small craft and this is why Lune Caster got its name.

There are likely to be exciting times ahead for students of Roman history and we in Lancashire have our share of fascinating places.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.