Forbes, Dr. J. Russell, 93 Via Babuino, Rome
Frater, Geo., Esq., The Bank, Wrexham
Gardner, Alexander, Esq., Paisley
Hance, E. j\I., Esq., LL.D., School Board Offices, Liverpool
Irvine, W. Ferguson, Esq., 13 Rumford Road, Liverpool
Jones, Isaac Matthews, Esq., City Surveyor, Chester
Knocker, E. Wollaston, Esq., F.S.A., Castle Hill House, Dover
Lawrence, G. F., Esq., 55 High Street, Wandsworth, S.W.
Le Boeuf, Rev. T. H , Crowland Vicarage, Lincolnshire
Macmichael, J. H., Esq., High Roothing, Essex
Macdonald, Richard, Esq., Curraghmore, Portlaw, Ireland
Morris, Rev. Canon Foxley, Witney Rectory, Oxon.
Nicholson, J. Holme, Esq., M.A., Wilmslow, Cheshire
Owen, Rev. H. T., Valle Crucis Abbey, Llangollen
Payne, G., Esq., F.S.A., The Precincts, Rochester
Peacock, E., Esq., F.S.A.,-Rottesfcrd Manor, Brigg, Lincolnshire
Rimmer, A., Esq., Crooke House, Chester
Robinson, F. J , Esq., Gosling's Bank, Fleet Street, E.G.
Rowbottom, G. H., Esq., Manchester and Salford Bank, Manchester
Sanders, Rev. F., Hoylake, Birkenhead
Saunders, W. H., Esq., High Street, Portsmouth
Swann, Miss, 141 Woodstock Road, Oxford
Sykes, Rev. Slater, Millom, Cumberland
Williams, F. H , Esq., Chester
Wilkinson, Bristowe, Esq., Lauercost Road, Tulse Hill, S.E.
Wilkinson, J. P., Esq., City Surveyor's Office, Manchester
Winslow, Rev. W. Copeley, D.D.
Wood, J. M., Esq., 113 Balfour Road, Highbury, N.
Wright. W. Aldis, Esq., M.A., Cambridge.
Wright^ W. H. K., Esq., The Free Library, Plymouth
Yates, G. C, Esq., F.S.A., Swintou, Manchester
XXI
©ouorarp JToreign iflembers.
Arbellot, M. L'Abbe, Limoges
Ardant, Monsieur Miiurice, Limoges
Boutelou, Don Claudio, Seville
Bover, Don Joaquin ]\Iaria, Minorca
Brassai, Professor Samuel, Klausenberg, Transylvania
Brugscli-Bey, H., Gratz
Cara, Signor Gaetano, Cagliari
Carrara, Professor, Spalatro
Cassaquy, Monsieur Ponciu, Seraings-sur-Meuse, near Liege
Cesnola, General Luigi Palma di, Xew York
Chalon, M. Renier, President of the Royal Numismatic Society of Behjium,
Brussels
Coste, Monsieur, Marseilles
Courval, Le Yicomte de, au Chateau de Pinou, near Chavignon
Dassy, Monsieur, Marseilles
Delisle, Monsieur Leopold, Hon. F.S.A., Paris
Delgado, Don Antonio, Madrid
Durand, Monsieur Antoine, Calais
Dubosc, Monsieur, St.-Lo, Normandy
Dupont, Monsieur Gustave, Caen
Dupont, Monsieur Lecoiutre, Hon. F.S.A., Poitiers
Fillon, Monsieur Benjamin, Fontenay-le-Comte
Forbes, Dr. J. Russell, Rome
Formaville, JNIonsieur H. de, Caen
Gestoso, Sefior Don Jose, Seville
Habel, Herr Schierstein, Biberich
Hefner von Alteneck, Herr von, IMunich
Hildebrandt, Herr Hans, Stockholm
Jones, T. Rupert, Esq., F.R.S.
Kehelpannala, Mr. J. B. Pohath, Gampola, Ceylon
Klein, Professor, jNIainz
Kohne, Baron Bernhard, St, Petersburg
liCnoir, ^lonsieur Albert, Paris
Lindenschmidt, Dr. Ludwig, j\Lainz
Mowat, Mons. Robert, Paris
Nilsson, Professor, Lund
.Reichensperger, Monsieur, Treves
Richard, Monsieur Ad., jNlontpellier
De Rossi, Commendatore, Rome
Da Silva, Chevalier J., Lisbon
Spano, The Canon Giovanni, Cagliari
Stephens, Professor, Copenhagen
Vassallo, Dr. Cesare, Malta
XXll EXCHANGE OF PUBLICATIONS.
PUBLICATIONS EXCHANGED WITH :—
The Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, London, W.
The Royal Archaeological Institute, 20, Hanover Square, W.
The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, the Museum, Glouces-
ter
The Cambridge Antiquarian Society. — Care of Dr. Hardcastle, Downing Col-
lege, Cambridge
The Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Derby
The Kent Archaeological Society, The Museum, Maidstone
The Somersetshire Archa3ological and Natural History Society, Taunton
The Sussex Archaeological Society, The Castle, Lewes
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, National Museum, Queen Street, Edin-
burgh
Societe d'Archeologie de Bruxelles, 11, Rue Ravenstein, Brussels
The Society of Antiquaries, The Castle, Newcastle-on-Tyne
The Wiltshire Archaeological Society, Devizes
The Cambrian Archaeological Association, 4 Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.
The Powys-land Club, care of T. Simpson Jones, Esq., Gungrog, Welshpool.
The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 7 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin
The Royal Dublin Society, Kildare Street, Dublin
The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S. America.
The Library, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.C., U.S. America
And sent to —
The University Libraries (4). — Care of G. W. Eccles, Esq., 96 Great Russell
Street, W.C.
The Copyright Office, British Museum.
^^^,07,
THE JOURNAL
33ritMj airtftatoloflical Association.
MAECH 1896.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
BY W. S. BROUGH, ESQ.
(Read at the Stoke-07i- Trent Congress, 12 An//. 189.5.)
HE name of Staffordshire does, I
tear,
frequently convey the idea of a land of
smoky chimneys, blast-furnaces, cinder-
banks, grimy people, and unmteresting
towns ; and I welcome the visit of this
Association into North Staffordshire in
order that we may help to temper this
notion, and leave in your minds a pleasant recollection of
wealth of scenery ; for I notice that in its well-earned
holiday your Association, in its investigation of historical
objects of antiquity, is not indifferent to picturesque sur-
roundings.
This county has so many interests and its inhabitants
varied pursuits as to make it remarkable. We have the
iron industry, the coal industr}^ — for we are rich in
minerals— the pottery industry, the silk industry ; and we
possess extensive acreage, reaching from Wolverhampton
to Stoke, of rich loams for the plough and old deep turf
for the dairy.
I am sure, then, you will pardon me as a moorlander
1896 I
2 NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
if I solicit your kind attention to a few words on some
of tlie county's most interesting features, especially sucli
as appeal to a Society like yours, and as some of them
relate to a time when certainty cannot be insisted upon.
I do this humbly, with an anxiety to be set right where
my conclusions are not in harmony with some of your
own. But I speak to you as one who takes a deep
interest in these early records, and I promise I will not
ask for that attention long.
I would rather have chosen to confine myself to the
British period and its remains, but my paper must, of
course, necessarily be desultory ; and perhaps as introduc-
tory and elementary this will not be deemed out of place.
I think it will be necessary to call to mind a few
leading events, as far as they can be known, guarding
against a mere recital of names without much interest
except locally. T will touch, then, lightly upon them
with the hope that they may form a starting-point for
some of the after discussions. I have purposely omitted,
as far as possible, allusion to places we shall visit, and of
which we hope to hear fully from the leader of the day.
This county belonged to the ancient Cornavii of the
Britons. Sir W. Beetham calls it the Holy District, or
the Country of the Priesthood, the division of Flavia
Csesariensis of the Romans ; and the kingdom of Mercia
the March of Borderland, the Mercians being the " Men
of the March ".
The Venerable Bede calls the inhabitants " Angli
Mediteranei ", the Midland English. The Saxon name
Staffordscyre, from the shire town about which there has
been controversy, the generally accepted derivation
being from a shallow place on the river that could be
crossed with a staff only, but Green considers Stone-ford
correct.
Professor Phys says the Celts came, no one knows
how long ago, and he groups them into two, the national
name of the one being Gaidhel, pronounced Gael,
formerly written by themselves Goidel ; the other
represented in point of speech by the people of VV^'ales
and the Bretons, the Welsh form of the name being
Brython, and with these may be classified the ancient
NOTES ON NORTH RTAFFORDSHIRE. 6
Gauls. The Goidels were the tirst to concjuer Britaui,
and had probably been here for centuries when the
Brythons or Gauls came and drove them westward.
The Goidels, of course, had done the same with other
possessors formerly, supposed by Herodotus to be the
people called Kynesii or Kynetes, which signifies dog-
men, a non- Aryan people. Archaeological investigations
show that, though perhaps he did not know it, his
statement covered our islands when he speaks of the
people furthest to the west, nearer to the setting sun
than even the Celtae.
If any trace of the Goidels be left, surely it might be
found in this wild country of N. Staifordshire, or in the
parts of Scotland north of Perth. In Elton's Oriyins,
we find that one Pytheas, in the time of Alexander the
Great, visited this island, being an intrepid navigator,
and made many observations.
We learn, too, from other writers one interesting fact :
the inhabitants understood how to make drink from
barley ; and the Celtic word is still the same for Beer, a
drink for the good brewing of which this county has
always been celebrated ; and one not less so for us
to-day, that these people made no distinction of sex in
point of Government.
The most ancient name of the country was Albion,
and this name was retained by the Goidelic branch long
after the name Britaines or Britain was adopted, into
the origin of which name I must not enter, simply
quoting the quaint words of Camden, " for shall one of
my mean capacity presume to give sentence on a point
of so much consequence ! 1 refer the controversy
entirely to the whole body of learned Antiquaries ; and
leaving every man freely to the liberty of his own judg-
ment shall not be much concerned." At the same time,
he gives his adherence to the derivation from the word
Brith or Brit : painted, stained, spotted, dyed or coloured,
which the Britons were.
We find among the old writers the notion that Brutus
was the reputed founder of the race, he having Trojan
origin ; and still others, going farther into the dim
receding past, claim for it even a divine extraction.
1'
4 NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
Camden, commenting upon this theory of Brutus, gives
Geoffrey of Monmouth, to whom I shall again refer, the
sole credit of it, and classes him with others who,
abusing their parts and misspending their time, without
any ground of truth forged for the Scotch their Scota,
for the Irish their Hibernus, for the Danes their Danus,
etc. At the same time, he gives his own conjecture of a
descent from Japhet's eldest son Gomer, who gave
the name Gomerius, afterwards called Cimbrii and
Cimmerii.
It is by some contended that the Iceni were the
earliest inhabitants of this district ; Tacitus, for instance,
falling in with this view, and to which Dr. Plot gives a
partial adherence, adducing as evidence Ikenild St. ;
while Ptolemy and Camden assert that the Cornavii or
Cornabii were the original dwellers. Dr. Wilkes, quoted
by Shaw, urges that the Ordovices were the original
inhabitants of this county, who, being settled perhaps
only in Shropshire, extended their dominions afterwards
over all the mountains in North Wales on one side, and
over all the woods of Staffordshire on the other, and over
all the plains of East Cheshire to the north of the latter.
Thus, together with various conquests, they became a
great people, and assumed or received the distinguished
appellation of Ordovices, signifying a brave people. But
their empire was soon demolished by various assailants ;
and this county, together with Shropshire, became the
possession of the Cornavii, a people so called from their
situation, a promontory by the sea, which was expressed
by the Britons by the word Keren-av, the horn of the
sea. In Cheshire the Cornavii are expressly declared by
Richard to have been originally situated. From thence
must they have sallied forth and spread their dominions
over the rest of the county, over all Staffordshire and
other their possessions, owning Condate for their capital,
Conda-Te signifying their prmc^/pa/ abode.
We are dependent largely for what we know of the
occupation of the Britons upon tradition and the very
early records of monkish historians, who drew somewhat
upon their imagination, and are forced to fall back upon
indications given b}^ archieology.
NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE. 5
Nennius wrote his history about the year 858 a.d.
Gildas, or St. Gildas, lived, too, in the ninth century.
He was called Sapiens, or the Wise. A Gildas was the
contemporary of King Arthur, who slew his brother ; but
whether Gildas the historian was St. Gildas there is
much dispute. Gildas is much too severe upon the Britons.
I agree with Mr. Molyneux, an antiquary of no mean
merit, and a highly esteemed member of our local Society ;
however low and degraded in their habits these earlier
settlers may have been, however ignorant of the
ameliorating influences of civilised life, and however
destitute of any idea of morality, and the existence of a
Higher Power, the time came when they as a race had
risen to a high state of civilisation, and in their military
operations, religious ceremonies, funeral customs, and
social acquirements showed that they had become by mere
force of character, subsequently perfected by education
and national spirit, the nucleus, so to speak, of a great,
a brave and generous people.
We are indebted to Caesar for much that we know of
this country in his day, but perhaps more so to Tacitus,
who, being the son-in-law of the Conqueror Agricola, had
opportunity of gaining more accurate knowledge. Most
probably the commentary of Richard of Westminster
throws the greatest light upon the general face of this
island in those ancient days.
We learn from various historians that the Phoenicians
carried on a lucrative trade with the Celtic inhabitants
of this island 600 years before Christ, bringing pottery,
brass ware, trinkets, which they exchanged for lead, tin,
and hides. To this period may be assigned the tumuli
containino;' the earlier kind of brazen instruments, which
are all made upon the model of those of flint and stone
previously used.
The Celts retained possession of the country until
about 3.50 B.C., when they were partially subdued by the
Belga), descendants of the Scythians, who about 600 B.C.
entered Europe and, being a very warlike people, drove
the Celtic race before them, gradually extending their
conquests over the Continent till they penetrated as far
as the south of England.
6 NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
At the time of the first Roman invasion the Belgse
still continued to possess the south of Britain, whilst
the representatives of the original colonists, the Celts,
were confined to the north and west parts of the island,
to which there is reason to add the midland districts,
and especially the high grounds of North Staffordshire.
Exceedingly little is known of the Cornavii, and they
play no appreciable part in the resistance offered to the
Komans. Commios was the leader of the Gauls who
offered most resistance. We find there coins of
Commios and his son Tincommios. However, we
know that in the year 51 a.d. Caradoc — Caractacus the
British chief — was defeated by Ostorius, the Koman
propraetor, and taken to Borne, where, according to
Tacitus, he delivered a speech so eloquent and pathetic
as to gain pardon for himself and wife and brethren from
Csesar.
Plantagus was afterwards King of the Icenii and the
husband of the famous Boadicea. For some centuries
after this, little is known of the Britons until Vortigern
besought the aid of the Saxons against the ravages of
the Picts and Scots. The battle of Chester, in 612,
had placed the Northumbrian king in possession of
Mercia and right up to the English March, and from
that moment Britain as a country ceased to exist. The
most notable event I have to mention is the union of
Penda with Cadwallon, the British King of Gwenneth,
and the overthrow and death of Eadwine of Northumbria
in (j33, and the creation of the " truce land " in this part
of North Staffordshire, traces of which I hope to show
you to-morrow, though much may be learnt from the
coinage in our endeavours to trace the history of the
Britons ; and Evans considered that the inhabitants of
the south must have begun to coin gold pieces from
200 to 150 B.C. We have nothing to guide us in this
direction among the inhabitants of the moorland country,
and are left to suppose that, even if there were any
coinage it was a letterless one, and business was mainly
carried on by means of barter.
Pomponius Mela, a Spanish writer of the first century,
states that the further a British people w^as from the
XOTKS ON NOirni STAFFURDSHIKE. 7
Continent the less it knew of any other wealth than
flocks and land, but some of them probably made use of
ingots of bronze, bars of iron such as Csesar alludes to,
and also perhaps of rings or pellets of gold as a medium
of exchange.
In later times we learn much from traders' tokens, in
which our country was rich. I have dwelt upon the
history of these early occupiers as it is of special interest
in this county, for, because of the great altitude and
inclemency of climate in the winter, and the natural
fastnesses, almost impregnable in the then state of
warfare, it remained the stronghold of the Britons, who
kept themselves secure in their rude fortresses, and,
unconquered or civilised by the Komans, they presented
an undaunted front to the Saxons later, and these hills
were the witnesses of many a fierce encounter.
It is difficult to point with a certain finger to British
antiquities. Dr. Plot says " I can but refer to that noble
antiquity near Wrottesley in this county, where yet
remains either the foundation of some ancient British
city or other fortification of great extent." And then
follows the story of the great malt-house at Wrottesley
made from similar great stones ; and he notices further
the British fortification called Wilbrighton, by the Romans
Villum Britonum, and the fortification at Castle Old
Ford and Abbot or Apeswood Castle near Seisdon and
its old legend, together with the story of the martyrdom
of the converts at Christianfield at Stitchbrook, all
interesting to the antiquary. Dr. Plot, too, enumerates
antiquities found — one arrow head, by Mr. Thomas Gent,
curiously jagged at the edges with such like teeth as a
sickle, and otherwise wrought upon the flat, found near
Leek. An illustration is given in his history. An axe
of stone found upon Wever Hills made of speckled flint,
ground to an edge, and another on the Morridge Hills
east of Leek. We have here a polished celt found at
Ashcombe, near Leek, kindly lent by Mr. Dryden Sneyd,
exactly like the one figured in Evans's Ancient Stone
Implements of Great Britain'' from Burradon, North-
umberland.
We may point with some amount of confidence to the
8 NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
Druidical remains at Bridestowe, perhaps from Brit or
Brith, a description of which will be given elsewhere.
It is one of your most interesting objects to-morrow,
though not equal in importance to those at Arbelows,
just outside the borders of the county, to which, I
believe, your Society has paid a visit. Besides this we
have only Barr, now called Barr Beacon, a high hill near
Sutton Coldfield, in early times a place of sacrifice or a
beacon hill to warn the ^^eople of the approaching
quarterly sacrifice.
" There has been so much wild speculation," says Sir
Henry Maine, "about Druids and Druidical antiquities,
that the whole subject seems to be considered as almost
beyond the pale of serious discussion. Yet we are not at
liberty to forget that the first great observer of Celtic
manners describes the Celts of the Continent as before all
things remarkable for the literary class which their society
included."
It is thought that the Druidical religion of the Gauls
had its origin and principal seat in Britain, and the
chief Druid, having supreme authority, was an important
personage possessing great power. There is great
variance of opinion as to the true religion of the Druids,
as there is about the precise form of the domestic policy
of the Britons. Perhaps it was a more enlightened one
than that of many years later. The Druids chose woods
and forests for their seats of worship, and this district
was situated in the midst of a great forest — from
Cank Wood, now Cannock Chase, at that time includ-
ing Sutton Coldfield, northward, embracing what is
still a Crown forest. Need wood, and on to Wootton
and Morridge, then called Malbanc, Forest, joining
Macclesfield and Sherwood Forests, the abode and
hunting-ground of Bobin Hood, and in a North-Easterly
direction called the Lyme, reaching Cheshire, over the
district in which we are now assembled, leaving traces
in the nomenclature of places such as Newcastle-under-
Lyme, Burslem, in old records and charters, Burwardes-
lime, which word adopts as meaning an umbrageous
dwelling near Lyme Woodlands. Leland, in his
Itinerary, says still this is generally admitted to be the
NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE. 9
Lyme Woodlands from Ashton-under-Lyme to Old Lyme,
Aldelime as it is written in Domesday. Li this vast
stretch of forest, as the later legend of the country-side
ran, " A squirrel might hop for miles from tree to tree,
and a man journey in summer-time from Barden Hill to
Beaumarion without seeing the sun".
Even at the close of the Roman rule the clearings
along the river valleys were still mere strips of culture
which threaded through a mighty waste or dense forest,
the abode of the bear, the wolf, the beaver, the wild
bull, the wild boar, and the badger. These latter show
traces in names, notably Wildboarclough at the foot of
Shutlingstow in Macclesfield Forest, and Badgersclough,
Brocklehurst, Brockholes, and many others.
Britain was only conquered little by little. The last
remnant held their own in the strongholds of these
Midland hills, and though slightly held in check by
Chester gave great trouble to the invaders. They, no
doubt, continued long in the practice of their ancient
religion and rites, even unto the end of the reign of
Penda in 655, after its abolition in the neighbouring
counties.
Not until the time of OfFa, from 755 to 794, was the
English frontier materially advanced towards the west,
and the Kymry to disappear from Mercia. There
remain to us only few proofs of settlement in the Valley
of the Trent. " Green, in his Making of England,
eloquently puts it :
" At the close of the Roman occupation the basin
of the Trent remained one of the wildest and least
frequented parts of the island.
"The lofty and broken moorlands of the Peak, in
which the Pennine range as it comes southward from the
Cheviots at last juts into the heart of Britain, were
fringed as they sloped to the plains by a semi-circle of
woodlands, round the edge of which the river bent closely
in the curve which it makes in its springs to the
Humber. On the western flanks of the moors a forest,
known afterwards as Needwood, filled up the whole
space between the Peak and the Trent as far as our
Burton.
10 NOTES ON NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
" On their eastei-n flank the forest of Sherwood
stretched from the outskirts of our Nottingham to a
large swamp, into which the Trent widened as it reached
the Humber.
"Here indeed a thin hne of clay country remained
open on the northern bank of the river, but elsewhere
it was only on its southei-n bank that any space could
be found for Roman settlement.
" But even on this bank such spaces were small and
broken, for to the south-west the moorlands threw an
outlier across the river in the bleak moorland of
Cannock Chase, which stretched almost to the verge of
the forest of Arden, a mighty woodland that rolled far
over southern Staffordshire nearly to the Cotswolds."
In the division of the country by the Romans into
upper and lower Britain, as we find York was in the
latter, and the coast from the Tees to the Tyne, and
Caerleon upon Usk and Chester on the Dee in the
former, we may conclude that the division was guided
by the parallels of latitude, the Goidelic branch being
unknown in lower Britain.
The long chain of the Pennine range, the backbone
and great water-shed of England, which terminates in
north Staffordshire, formed a barrier against further
aggression from the east, and afterwards was the site of
the truce land of Mercia.
The Romans doubtless found a people, which perhaps
by comparison they would consider rude, possessed of a
certain amount of civilisation, which would give greater