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start of Cumberland |
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Page 173:-
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BLATUM BULGIUM. Bulness.
Beginning of the Wall. Subterraneous trees.
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Blatum Bulgium
Bowness-on-Solway
Hadrian's Wall
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frith, now dividing England and Scotland as formerly
the Roman province and the Picts. On this little cape stands
that antient town BLATUM BULGIUM (perhaps from the British
word Bulch which signifies separation or division),
from which Antoninus as from the furthest point and boundary
of the province begins his Itinera through Britain. The
inhabitants now call it Bulnesse, and it is a very
mean village, though it has fortification, and as evidences
of antiquity, besides traces of streets and ruined walls, a
harbour filled up, and a road said to have run hence along
the coast to Elenborrow. A mile beyond this, as may
be seen by the foundations when the tide is out, begin those
famous Roman works the Vallum and Wall, formerly the
boundary of the Roman province, erected to keep out the
barbarians, who, in these parts, were continually, as the
writer says [y], barking at the Roman empire. I was at first
surprised at their raising such great fortifications here,
when there is so large an aestuary for near eight miles; but
I find now, that when the tide is out the water is so low,
that robbers and marauders might easily ford over. The roots
of trees, covered with sand, at a little distance from the
shore, and often uncovered by the wind at ebb tide, prove
that the form of this coast has undergone an alteration. I
know not whether it is worth while to mention here the
stories of subterraneous trees without branches frequently
dug up here, discovered by the dew, which is observed never
to fall on the ground under which they lie.
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Drumburgh c. Burgh on
Sands. 1307. Morvilles called de Burgh upon
Sands. Liber Inq.
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Drumburgh
Burgh by Sands
Edward I Monument
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Lower down on the same frith, more inland, is
Drumbough castle, formerly belonging to the lords
Dacre, and antiently a Roman station. Some, contrary
to all distance, will have it to have been CASTRA
EXPLORATORUM. There was also another Roman station, which
has now changed its name to Burgh upon sands, whence
the neighbouring country is called the Barony of
Burgh, which Meschines lord of Cumberland gave to
Robert de Trivers, and from him it came to the
Morvilles, of whom the last Hugh left a daughter,
who, by her second husband Thomas de Molton had
Thomas Molton, lord of this place, whose son Thomas,
by marriage with the heiress of Hubert de Vaulx,
added Gillesland to his other estates, all which came
at length to Ranulph de Dacre by marriage with Maud
Molton. But nothing has rendered this little town so
remarkable as the immature death of Edward I. who here ended
his days after triumphing over all his enemies: a most
renowned monarch, in whose gallant soul the spirit of God
found an abode worthy of it to match the state of royalty
not only with courage and wisdom, but with personal
comeliness and dignity of body; and whom fortune in the
prime of life exercised in many wars and most difficult
events of state, while she was training him for the British
sceptre, which, after he came to the crown, he so managed by
the reduction of Wales and conquest of Scotland, that he may
justly be accounted one of the glories of Britain.
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Solway frith. ITUNA.
Eiden r.
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Solway Firth
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Below this Burgh, in the frith itself, the
inhabitants say the Scots and English fleets engaged, and,
on the retreat of the tide [z] their cavalry, which seems as
extraordinary as what Pliny [a] relates with astonishment of
a similar place in Caramania. This frith is called Solway
frith by both nations from Solway a Scotch town
on it. But Ptolemy more properly calls it ITUNA. For the
noble river Eiden, which waters Westmoreland and the
inner parts of this county, pours the largest quantity of
water into it, still mindful of the obstruction it met with
from the heaps of Scottish bodies in 1216 drowned in it in
their return from England loaded with spoil, when it whelmed
that band of marauders in its stream [*].
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Eimot r.
Ulsewater. Dacre c. Barons
Dacre.
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Eden, River
Dacre Castle
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The river Ituna, or Eiden, in its way to this county,
receives from the west the river Eimot from the lake
Ulse before-mentioned, near whose bank, on the little
river Dacor, stands Dacre castle, well known
to us for giving name to the family of the barons
Dacre [b], and mentioned by Bede [c] as having in his
time a monastery, as also by Malmsbury [d], because
Constantine, king of Scotland, and Eugenius, king of
Cumberland, there put themselves and their kingdoms under
the protection of Athelstan the Saxon.
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Artur's table. Penrith.
Old Penrith. PATRIANAE
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Penrith
Old Penrith
roman inscription
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Not much higher, and but a little way from the confluence of
the Eimot and Loder, where is a round
fortification called by the inhabitants Arthur's
table [e], stands Penrith, q.d. if derived from
the British language, Red Head, or Hill: for
the soil and the stones of which it is built are of a red
colour; but it is commonly called Perith. It is a
small market town of some note, defended on the west by a
royal castle, repaired t. Henry VI. with the ruins of the
neighbouring Roman fort called Maburg, has a very
handsome church, a spacious market place, with a wooden
market house for the use of those who assemble there,
adorned with bears and ragged staffs, the arms of the earls
of Warwick. It belonged formerly to the bishops of Durham,
but bishop Anthony Bec growing insolent through his
excessive wealth, Edward I. as we read in the register of
Durham "took from him Werk in Tividale, Perith, and the
church of Simondburne." For the use, however, of the town,
W. Stricland, bishop of Carlisle, of a famous family in
these parts, cut, at his own expence, a chanel from
Pete-rill, a rivulet, on whose bank is Plumpton
park [f], a large park appropriated by the kings of
England antiently for deer, but wisely disposed of by Henry
VIII. for men's habitations, being almost on the borders of
England and Scotland. Near this I saw the great remains of a
ruined town, which they, from its neighbourhood, called
Old Perith, and I should think PETRIANAE. That the
Ala Petriana was here appears from a fragment of an old
inscription erected by Ulpius Trajanus, a veteran of the Ala
Petriana, which, together with others that I copied here, I
have subjoined:
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#x002A; annos.
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D.M.
AICETVOS MATER
VIXIT A [*] XXXXV
ET LATTIO FIL. VIX
A XII. LIMISIVS
CONIV. ET FILIAE
PIENTISSIMIS
POSVIT.
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173.*
Hist.Mailros.
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[y]
Ammianus Marcellinus
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[z]
reverso aestu, when the tide came in. G. which
would make the battle a real wonder, whereas there was
nothing extraordinary in their fighting on the sands at the
ebb. H. reverso is into the sea.
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[a]
N.H. VI.26.
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[b]
See a more particular account of them in Hurstmoncaeux, c.
Sussex, vol.I. 202.
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[c]
E.H. IV.22. Lel. Coll. II. 152.
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[d]
de gest. reg. Ang. II. 27.b.
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[e]
See before in Westmoreland, p.162.
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[f]
antiently called Haia de Plumpton or the
Inclosure of Plumpton.
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... ...
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gazetteer links
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-- "Barony of Burgh" -- Barony of Burgh by Sands
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-- "Bulnesse" -- Bowness-on-Solway
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-- "Dacor, River" -- Dacre Beck
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-- "Dacre Castle" -- Dacre Castle
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-- "Drumbough Castle" -- Drumburgh Castle
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-- "Eiden, River" -- Eden, River
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-- Hadrian's Wall
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-- (monastery, Dacre)
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-- Penrith Castle
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-- "Penrith" -- Penrith
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-- "Pete Rill" -- Petteril, River
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-- "Plumpton Park" -- Plumpton Park
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-- Maia
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-- "Castra Exploratum" -- Concavata
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-- "Old Penrith" -- Voreda
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-- "Solway Frith" -- Solway Firth
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