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of the importance of the place even in the days of the Emperor Hadrian.

No account has come down to us of the state of Newcastle in the days of Roman occupation, but if, after it had been deprived of the advantages which the residence of the mural garrison conferred upon it, the venerable Bede calls it "an illustrious royal city"-" vicus regis illustris”—we must conclude that it was a place of considerable importance. The natural advantages of the situation struck the eye of Camden; "Now," says he, "where the Wall and Tine almost meet together, Newcastle showeth itself gloriously the very eye of all the townes in these parts."

Under these circumstances, there seems to be no reason why the walls of PONS ÆLII should form the usual military parallelogram, any more than Roman Rochester, or Pompeii, or Rome itself, much less that the station should occupy an area of little more than three acres.

The contour of the ground on which modern Newcastle stands, is peculiar. It consists of three tongues of land, separated by natural valleys permeated by rivulets. The westernmost of these presents the boldest front to the river, and is that on which, the Castle stands; the Skinner-burn bounds it on the west, and the valley of the Lort-burn, the present Dean-street, on the east. The contiguous tongue lies between the Lort-burn and Pandon-dean; and that still further removed, has for its eastern boundary the Ouse-burn. The same natural advantages which recommended the heights of the most westerly of these strips of ground to the Normans. for the erection of their stronghold, would no doubt previously induce the Romans to select it as their chief position. They probably enclosed nearly the whole of it within their walls. Horsley, indeed, places his camp in this division, but in the least advantageous part of it, whether considered in a military or in a commercial point of view. The Romans would surely not overlook the importance of the ravine of

Dean-street as a defence on the east, especially at a time when the tide flowed up it as far as the Painter-heugh, and of the cliff that descends from the Castle to the river on the south. The necessity of defending the bridge, and commanding the Tyne would not be forgotten. Taking all these things into account, we may fairly suppose the walls of PONS ÆLII to have been thus defined:-The Wall, passing through the site of St. Nicholas'-church, would, of course, be its northern boundary; a line coming from the church, and adapting itself to the crest of the hill that overhangs Deanstreet, crossing the Head of the Side and stretching as far as the elevated angle on which the County-courts now stand, will probably mark its eastern boundary; the southern rampart would run from this angle along the edge of the cliff overhanging the Close, as far as the site of the Whitefriar-tower, which stood at the head of the present Hanover-street; the western wall may have run in the line of the Town-wall as far as Neville-tower, and then have struck up in a straight line to meet the great Wall. Westward of this boundary, the ground slopes down to the Skinner-burn. If these lines. are correctly drawn, Roman Newcastle would contain upwards of sixteen acres.

Although the camp of PONS ELII occupied this tongue of land, there is no reason to suppose that suburban buildings were not erected on the other two, both of which are well protected by their natural situation. There is good ground to believe that Pandon, which was formerly a separate town from Newcastle, and is seated on the middle strip, was of Roman origin. Villas and gardens probably extended as far as the Ouse-burn.

1 In laying water-pipes in Collingwood-street, in the spring of this year (1852), some Roman walls were found at right angles to the street. One of them was nearly three feet broad; another, fifty feet to the east of it, was six feet broad. Neither of these can have been the great Wall; they have, probably, been the foundations of buildings connected with the station.

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In order to render the preceding description intelligible to persons unacquainted with the topography of Newcastle, a plan of the town (Plate V.) and a lithographic view of PONS ÆLII are appended. In the plan of the town, Horsley's demarcation of the station, as well as the one here proposed, is laid down. For the view of PONS ÆLII, which forms the frontispiece of this volume, I am indebted to the pencil of Mr. G. Bouchier Richardson; the contour of the ground is very accurately delineated, and the probable outline of the station marked; the details of the picture are of course filled up according to the artist's fancy—a fancy regulated by antiquarian knowledge.

Roman antiquities, which, when they abound, are so serviceable in defining the seat of Roman occupation, are unfortunately here rather scanty and unimportant. This cannot be matter of surprise. In the middle ages, Newcastle abounded in churches and monastic buildings. To the erection of these and of the Castle, the Town-wall, and Gates, every stone whether lettered, sculptured, or plain, that could easily be obtained, would be appropriated.

The precincts of the Castle have afforded the most important discoveries of this kind. The present County-courts occupy the site of a building which used to be called the Half-moon-battery. This was probably the position of the south-east angle of the station of PONS ELII, and some of the lines of the octagonal face of the battery presented no doubt the actual curve of the station. To a certain extent the Norman builders may have converted to their own uses a portion of the labours of their imperial predecessors; Mr. Hodgson and others considered that the Castle wall stretching between the Half-moon-battery and the Black-gate, now altogether removed, was either of Roman workmanship or rested upon Roman foundations. When the County-courts were built some important discoveries were made. Mr. Hodgson, who watched the progress of the excavations, has thus described them :