button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 20:-
Saxons arriving soon after, raised on these ruins the town that remains to this day. Hence it may be inferred, that the present town of Lancaster stands on a magazine of Roman-British antiquities; and this is often verified by digging under ancient houses, where Roman remains are frequently found, and where it appears that the earth has been removed.- Beside what Dr. Leigh mentions, there are many recent instances that prove the conjecture.
  roman altar?
In the year 1772, in digging a cellar, where an old house had stood, in a street or lane, called Pudding-Lane (almost in the centre of the town) there was found, reversed in a bed of fine sand, above five feet underground, a square inscribed stone, of four feet by two and a half dimensions. A foot and two inches were broken off the lower corner on the right hand side, so as to render the inscription obscure, but the remaining letters were very plain, elegantly formed, square, and about three inches high. The inscription had consisted of eight or nine lines, of which six are entire and of easy explanation; the loss in the seventh is easily supplied; but the eighth must be made out by the common style of such votive stones. The elegance of the characters pronounces them to be the work of the best times; but the two small letters in the
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button -- "Longovicum" -- (roman fort, Lancaster)

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