button to main menu  Camden's Britannia, edn 1789

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Page 200:-
"[Har]venburne till it fall in Eske and through Eske to the foot of Terras, and go up Terras to the foot of Reygill and up the Reygill to the Tophous and so to the standing stone and to the Mearburne head, and down Mearburne to it fall in Lyddal at the Rutterford, and down Lyddal to it fall in Eske and down Eske to it fall into the sea." It was in length eight computed miles of the country and in breadth four miles. The subjects of both kingdoms commonly depastured their cattle on it in the day time, but were to remove them before the sunset, on the peril that should ensue [a].
  Beaucastle.
  Bew Castle
"Bowecastle longing to the king, 10 mile east from Carluel on Kirkebek. Near about it be found Briton brikes with entayled work and portraitures in the old foundations [b]."
  APIATORIUM.
  Apiatorum
  roman inscription

Here was probably the Roman station APIATORIUM [c] mentioned in an inscription found in Northumberland and now in the library at Durham, Pl.VII. fig.8. the Maiden way leading to it [d]. The inscription which Mr. Camden saw in the church seems to be at Naworth [e]. There is another serving also as a head-stone to a grave, at the bottom of which it was found. See Pl.XI. fig.10.

... CAES TA ...
... ... ...
... G II AVG ET XXV ...
... II CNC IR ...
... V ... PR PR
Perhaps,

Imp. Caes. Trajan.
Hadriano Aug.
Leg. II. Aug. et XX V. V.
Sub Licinio Prisco
Leg. Aug. Pr. Pr.
or the last two lines,

Ob. Vic. No. Pr. Lic.
ML. Aug. PR. PR.
erected by the Legio 2da Aug. in honour of Adrian, whose wall while building they might cover [f]. Mr. Horsley was told of another, which had the word Templum distinct, but was broken and lost [g]. Both the church and castle are surrounded by a dike and foss.
The place has its name from Bueth its owner at the Conquest. The castle was demolished 1641.
  Bewcastle Cross
No correct drawing has yet been made of the curious cross, whose inscription is in Runic characters. George Vertue shewed four to the Society of Antiquaries 1746, which I have not been able to recover. It is one entire square freestone about 15 feet high, washed over with a white oily cement: each side two feet broad at bottom tapering up. On the west side is a figure of a man with a hawk on his arm, and over him a long inscription, of which bishop Nicolson could find but six or seven lines, and only five letters visible; but Mr. Smith [h] found nine lines with many well known Runic letters, and many characters not so intelligible, but equall perfect. On another side a figure of a saint or apostle with a nimbus, and above him the Virgin and child, both their heads in nimbi. On the north side is the chequer work, alluded to by Mr. Camden, and common on early crosses [i], and under it the fair characters engraved Pl.XIII. fig.1. Bishop Nicolson read this Rynburn, and explained it of the magical Runae or Ramruner, which Wormius and Arngrim Jonas say differed totally from the common Runic letters, and were much used as spells and charms, producing either good or ill effects according to the will of the parties who used them. Such charms appear to have obtained among the borderers so late as the close of the last century; a neighbouring gentleman having shewed the bishop a book of them taken out of the pocket of a moss trooper, containing, among other things, a certain remedy for the ague, by applying certain barbarous charms to the body. His lordship offers another explanation, making the 3d and 4th letter [ - runes] instead of [ - runes] which will make the reading Ryceburn in the old Danish, Coemiterium or Cadaverum sepulchrum. For though the true old Runic word for Cadaver be usually written [ - runes] Hrae, the H may be easily omitted, and then the difference of spelling the word here and on the monuments in Denmark will not be material. As to what he says of the "chequer work being a notable emblem of the tumuli or burying-places of the antients," it is not easy to understand him, and such an inscription on a cross in a church-yard would be superfluous. On the east are only flower-work, foliage, grapes and birds. On the south, flourishes and the inscription in Pl.XIII. fig.2. out of which, imperfect as it is, the bishop makes Gag Ubbo Erlat i.e. Latrones Ubbo vicit, confessing at the same time how little affinity this sense has with the foregoing, however agreeable to the manners of the people hereabouts both before and in his time. On the south side was also the inscription in Pl.XIII. fig.3. An inscription from this cross has been sent by Spelman from lord William Howard to Wormius, who published it in his Mon. Dan. p.162-168; see Pl.XIII. fig.4. which he reads thus, q.d. Reno satu Runa stiuod. i.e. Rino lapides hos Runicos fecit; but as he says, these were in epistylio crucis. When bishop Nicolson was here again on his visitation 1703, he tried to make out this on the west side; but though it promised fair at a distance he could not make out even this inscription. I take them to be those given on the head of the cross 1615 [k], part of it now a grave-stone, though bishop Nicolson considers them as part of the ruins of the inscription over the head of the figure on the west side, plainly confounding the transverse piece of the cross with the upright of the cross itself [l]. These make the 3d line fig.4 being copied from a slip of paper inserted in Mr. Camden's copy of his Britannia, ed.1607, in the Bodleian library before referred to, accompanied with the following note:
"The imitation of the Pictishe stone taken out by impression or printing the paper within the very letters of the stoane. I receaved this morning a ston from my lord of Arundell, sent him from my lord William. It was the head of a cross at Bewcastle: all the letters legable ar ther on on line. And I have sett to them such as I can gather out of my alphabetts: that like an A I can find in non. But whither this may be only lettres or words I somewhat doubt." See the third line Pl.Xiii. fig.4.
[a] Burn, p.xvi.
[b] Lel. VII. 72.
[c] Horsl. 354. 233. Northumb. lxxvii.
[d] Ib. 151.
[e] Ib. 271. Cumb. xlv.
[f] Cumb. xlvi. p.270.
[g] P. 270, 271.
[h] Gent. Mag. XII. 1742, 132. 318. 529.
[i] See Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland.
[k] Cott. Lib. Dom. xviii. 7.
[l] Nicolson's letter to Mr. Walker. G. Armstrong in Lond. Magaz. Aug. 1775. Burn, II. 478.
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