Brisley Tower, so fine and conspicuous an object in the neighbourhood of Alnwick. BOLHAM, an ancient village, which gives name to a parish, is of the same import as Bolton, and a pleonastic compound of the Scandinavian bol, a habitation, and the Anglo-Saxon ham. DRURIDGE, in old writings, is always spelt Dryrigg, of very obvious derivation. KERSHOPE, a mountain stream, having its source in Northumberland, but flowing into the Liddal, and the boundary between England and Scotland, throughout its course of eight miles. On the Scottish side of this rivulet, there is a hill called Carby, in some maps spelt Kirby, upon which, within my own recollection, were the striking remains of a British fort, remarkable for the strength and peculiarity of its construction. The British Caer, a fortress, gives no doubt its significant name to Carby, and the adjoining hope or valley, would be called the Caers-hope or Kers*-hope, which name has been subsequently transferred to the rivulet which flows through it. Kershope, near St. Peter's, in Allendale; Kearsley, in the chapelry of Ryal; Carsley, in Armstrong's map spelt Caesley, near Black Chester, a little way south of Alnham; and Kersay cleugh, at the head of North Tyne, near an old British fort and settlement called Bels-hunkings, are all names indebted for their prefixes to a similar origin. Kershope, it may be added, is a local surname in the form of Kirsop. The British Caer likewise furnishes local surnames to the families of Car, Carr, Ker, and Keir. *Chester-hope, in Rede-water, obtains its name from the Roman station, Habitancum, now Risingham, which lies at the bottom of the hope or valley; and is, in fact, synonymous with Kers-hope. Observations on the Roman Station of Housesteads, and on some Mithraic Antiquities discovered there, in a Letter from the REV. JOHN HODGSON, Secretary, to the REV. A. HEDLEY, of Newcastle upon Tyne. MY DEAR SIR, Read December 3, 1822. Upper Heworth, Nov. 22, 1822. SINCE I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Gibson, Mr. Hodgson, andyourself, at Housesteads, on the 23d of July last, my professional engagements, and a long series of domestic afflictions, have, from day to day, put it out of my power to arrange the notes I have taken at different times among the ruins of that station, and to offer my promised observations on the Mithraic antiquities lately discovered there. The study of Antiquities seems to have been little cultivated among the English prior to the time of Henry the Eighth. The Greeks, who had fled before the Turks, with the lamp of learning, from their own country into Italy, and the almost contemporaneous invention of the Art of Printing, spread all over Europe that spirit of enquiry, and that intense application to letters, which contributed to produce the Reformation, and to bring out that constellation of talent, which began to shine in Henry's reign, and continued into those of his children. In this, Leland was not one of the least of the luminaries. He obtained from Henry the title of " Antiquary to the King," and travelled six years all over the kingdom, making notes and collecting materials for extensive works on the History and Antiquities of the kingdom. M m His observations on the Roman Wall and the stations upon it are, however, of a general nature, and contain internal evidence, that he never visited the neighbourhood of the place to which our present enquiries are directed. His information, he tells us, was derived chiefly from Dr. Delaval, the Master of St. Mary's Hospital, in the Westgate, in Newcastle; and from the Vicar of Corbridge: and from the former of these sources he learnt, that "betwyxt Thyrlwall and North Tyne, yn the wast ground stondeth yet notable peaces of the wall, the which was made ex lapide quadrato, as yt there appeereth yet." Camden's account of the Roman antiquities in Northumberland, from the first edition of his Britannia to that in 1594, is also very slight. In the edition of 1590, he says, that "the Wall after leaving Cumberland and passing the Irthing, shows, in the first place, he carcase of a castle, which they now call Caervorran ;" and tells us that" at Carraw and Waltonne, there are manifest remains of old fortifications." This is all the information he gives us of the state of the Wall between the North Tyne and the Tippal. In 1600, he, however, came into the North with his friend Mr. Cotton, and saw some parts of the Wall near Caervorran, from which place, he says, it" goes on more winding by Iverton, Forsten, and Chester-in-the-Wall near Busy-Gap, infamous for robbers, where I was told there were castles, for it was not safe to visit them for the moss-troopers on the borders. They told us that Chester was a very great place. Here," he says, "is the inscription "PRO SALUTE DESEDIANI, &c." and at Melkrig* they procured the altar "DEE SYRIE," which they took away with them. This Chester, or Chester-in-the-Wall, is, I have no doubt, the same as Housesteads, which is only about half a mile west of Busy-Gap. Dr. Hunter, in a letter, dated May 15, 1702, respecting some antiquities found here, says, that Housesteads is "a place so called from the abundance of ruins" at it, and amongst which he " found several * Where women beat their bucks (i. e. washings) upon it.”—Holland, p. 219. |