CHAPTER XIII.

From existing monuments, from contemporary history, traditional geographical position of the town, and from the religion, laws, and manners of the people, who in very early periods inhabited it, in claiming for Nottingham the honour of having been an ancient British city, without any unwarrantable presumption, we might consider our case as fully established, therefore very few words in discussing this sixth and last proposition may suffice. Carlton and Carrington are old Celtic names, given to them by the ancient Britons in very remote periods, in the time of the Druids, and point them out as having been high places, on which they erected their Carns. The same remarks apply to Arnold. Colwick, and Bullcote, which come from "Bol," one of the Hebrew names of Baal, very clearly point out the height of Colwick wood, &c. as having been consecrated in ancient time as high places of Baal. Then there is Bulwell, or Baalls-well, or the Well of Baal, which was undoubtedly a spring held in the highest veneration, from some pretended miraculous powers its water possessed, and according to the custom of those remote times, it, like the Trent, was adored as a god, and worshipped as a Baal. The vulgar tradition concerning it, as a gentleman, H. D. has informed us, is, that a wild bull, gallopping along, smote his head with tremendous violence against the rock and died on the spot, which caused the waters miraculously to gush out. From which it would appear that the Priests anciently taught the people a story concerning its origin, in its main features, similar to the narrative of the rock in Rephidim, which, when Israel were in the wilderness, Moses smote with his rod, and water flowed out, a miracle which it would appear was well known to the Druids. Basford was probably called "Baals Ford," or "The ford of Baal." Woollaton, by a slight change in its orthography, becomes "Baals Town," and whoever contemplates its woody height, and compares it with the adjacent hills, cannot hesitate in drawing the conclusion, that it also was one of the high places of Baal. And whether we consider Bramcote to be derived from Abarim, or Bamah, a high place, the venerable and ancient Cromlech, which after the lapse of more than two thousand years, still stands bearing its silent but mournful testimony to the once practised rites and superstitions of a heathenish idolatry, that for

TOPOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE

63

centuries has been numbered with the past. The fact that from the earliest records there was a place dedicated to divine worship within the precincts of the castle, seems to favour the idea that the Druids offered their sacrifices there, and Malin Hill, by the slightest change in its orthography, becomes Baalim Hill, pointing out the sacred enclosure to which it leads, and with which it anciently was conjoined, where now that most venerable, and time-hallowed pile, the church of St. Mary, lifts its reverend head, was the spot on which idolatry erected its cathedral, and on the very ground that has almost from the beginning of the christian era, through all succeeding generations, been consecrated to the worship of the one true and living God-that has been the scene of episcopal splendour and magnificence, had, in the days of heathenism, been the rendezvous of every idolatry. Molech, Chemosh, and Ashtaroth, a place of Baal-Berith, Baal-Zebub, Baal-Zephon, BaalGad, a troop of Baals. For they built them high places, and had images and groves on every high hill, and under every green tree (a). These are crimes not more justly chargeable upon Israel, than upon the ancient idolatrous inhabitants of Nottingham. In old language Ashre, plural Ut and Im, signifies grove, groves, also a grotesque, and lascivious, fabulous creature, represented in heathen mythology as half a man and half a goat, called Pan, or Cham, and always seen laughing, because of the son of Noah, from whom it was derived, who laughed and made sport when he saw his father's nakedness. This was an object of idolatrous worship in Canaan.(b) We may easily guess what impurities were indulged in his service. The setting up this image, and celebrating its libidinous feasts in the courts of the house of God, are mentioned as the ne plus ultra of the wickedness of the Jews, and the immediate cause of their being carried into captivity. This idol was also worshipped in Britain, and from the word Ashre, a grove or wood, do we derive the name of Sherwood, as being both natural and appropriate, and containing the ancient name of this ancient British city. We are the more confirmed in this opinion, because, notwithstanding in the time of the Saxons, from which period Nottingham lives a subject of historical memory, though the orthography is somewhat altered and Saxonized, yet even in their day the name as we have seen on the authority of Dr. Thoroton was descriptive of a grove or wood, a place sheltered by trees, and such in those days was

(a) 1 Kings xiv. 23. (b) Leviticus xvii. 7.

every British city. The same thing precisely was signified by the Saxon name, which we ascribe to the Celtic or British, which Celtic name still lives unaltered in the receding grove called Sherwood; and according to the changes that have taken place in the name of the town, from Celtic to Saxon, and from Saxon to English, "a place sheltered by trees," that is a grove or a wood, is the same thing, unchanged to the present day, constituting the true etymology of Nottingham. Now when we consider the very remote ages in which the Celtic language was employed, that gave names to many places around, and the yet more ancient Hebrew names with which our own language and locality still abounds, turn which ever way we may there is a crowd of witnesses in support of our position, existing monuments, contemporary history, tradition, religion, laws, and customs, geographical position, topographical nomenclature, &c. such is the force of authority, and the clearness of evidence which warrant the assumption and confirm the claim of Nottingham as having been a city inhabited by the Celtic Britons, (b) and consequently of a very remote antiquity, even prejudice itself must admit.

(b) Three Celtic spear heads were dug up in the neighbourhood of Nottingham, when the workmen were forming the Grantham canal. Two of them were for many years in the possession of Mr. Tatham, who has since gone to reside in America, and it is supposed has deposited these ancient reliques in the Museum at Liverpool. A third is now in the possession of Mr. Carr, engraver, Hounds' Gate. It is made of copper and tin, and notwithstanding it must have lain for 2000 years buried in the earth, it is uncorroded, its extreme edges very sharp: a beautiful specimen of ancient workmanship.

THE ROMAN PERIOD.

65

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

Julius Cæsar never having penetrated further than Verulam, (St. Albans) into the north east, therefore, Nottingham and this part of the island could have been little affected by the Roman authority in his days, but continued to be inhabited by the Coritania, (or woodland-men), who stood next in power, rank, and strength, to their neighbours, the Brigantes, who occupied all the counties in the northern circuit of England, and were the most numerous and powerful of all the British tribes that possessed the island before the invasion of the Romans, A. D. 43. About 98 years from the landing of Cæsar in Britain, after the Romans had vacated the stations they had founded in this country, for several years the Emperor Claudius sent over an army under the command of Plautius, who was shortly succeeded by Suetonius Paulinus, a man of fierce and determined spirit, who after having subdued the British forces, under Boadicea, their queen, pushed forward his conquests over a great part of the country; and conceiving the power of the Druids over the natives was inimical to the establishment of the Roman authority amongst them, published a decree, abolishing their rites and ceremonies, and many thousands of the Druids were put to the sword; and afterwards Nottingham and the county were brought under the control of the Romans, by whom they were comprised in the consular province of Maxima Cæsariensis.

The great Camp on Holly-hill, near Arnold, is supposed to have been the central depôt of the Roman forces in this district, as from its greater elevation, all the exploratory camps are easily distinguished, and its vicinity to Nottingham gives great weight to the opinion of Dr. Gale, that the Roman station, Causennis, occupied

K

the site of Nottingham; and, notwithstanding Mr. Baxter and others may have contested this opinion, it exactly agrees in distances with the rout laid down by Antoninus in his itinerary, written in the second century. The rout from Godmanchester to Littleborough, set down by the Roman Emperor, who appears very anxious to settle both the names of places, and also their distances from each other with precision, but the changing of their names afterward by the Saxons, Danes and Normans, has, confessedly, surrounded the statement of Antoninus with uncertainty.

The rout commenced at Duroliponte, now Godmanchester, in Hunts, to Agelocum, Littleborough, distant from each other 105 miles. Antoninus' description of the rout, with the Roman names attached, and the distances from place to place, with Dr. Gale's interpretation,——

EMPEROR ANTONINUS.

DR. GALE.

From Duroliponte to Durobrivis, 35 miles From Godmanchester to Brigcasterton,

In the above there is an exact coincidence between the Emperor and the Dean, as to distances, and we receive it accordingly, as in our judgment correct, notwithstanding what Mr. Baxter and a few others have advanced on the contrary, we give the Doctor's own words. (a) Nearly every record relating to Nottingham during the period at present under review, has perished in the long lapse of time intervening to the present day; therefore, our

(a) Causenna itaq; lego, per illas autem intelligo Nottingham. De illa Cambdenus: “A præruptis Saxis in australi parte fluviolum Linum de spectatet Casturm sublime in rupe surget. Nec dubito quin operolæ illæ cryptæ, concamerationes, cavernæ subterranæ e vivo Saxo excisæ, romanam loquantur magnificentiam, uti ut illæ aliæ quæ Devæ et Isca Silurum celebrantur eosdem Authores habuerint, adde his supputationem distantiæ, a Causennis ad Durobrivas (Not tingham et Bridgcasterton) pulchre cum numeris Antonini concordare, uti etiam cum illis quos inter Causennas at Lindum locat. Causennis aliter Gausennis rectius Gosennis vel Govennis. Ceven et Govennæ et Covennæ sunt rupes conglomeratæ. In Comitatu Eboracensi rupes prope Otte'y dicuntur the Cheven. In illo Cantii, oppidum Savennoc, (i. e.) Chevennoc ito dicitur a vicinis collibus. Gevennus est tum mons tum fluvius in agro Monmouthensi unde Gobanium Antonino. Saxonibus fuit oppidum hoc Snottingham Speluncarum Tomus. Britanni, in anti. quis Kaf vel Kaou Caverna. Si itaq: minus arrideat conjectura nostra quæ Gauvennas a Ceven deduxit, originem istius dictionis a Kaff vel Kaou petas licet quod non minus nostram confirmabit Sententiam du situ hujus Stationis. Iter Britanniarum Commentariis illustratum. 1709, p, 95,

96.-GALE,