A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE and that considerable quantities of charred and molten substances have been found, it is concluded that the town was destroyed by fire. The stones of its buildings are said to have been used in the neighbouring villages and in Credenhill Church.^ The site of Kenchester or Magna has never been lost, though it has not always been recognized, and frequently confused with Ariconium. Leland, writing in the i6th century, was the first to speak of the place as Roman and he mentions the existence of ruined buildings, as well as coins and other relics : — Kenchester standeth a iii myles or more above Hereford . . . This towne is far more auncyent then Herford, and was celebrated yn the Romaynes tyme, as appereth by many thinges, and especyally by antique mony of the Caesars, very often fownd vi^ithyn the towne, and yn plowghyng abowt ; the which the people ther cawlleth Duarfes Mony. The cumpace of Kenchestre hath bene by estimation as much as Herford, excepting the castel . . . Peaces of the walles and turrets yet appere, prope fundamenta, and more should have appered if the people of Herford towne and other therabowt had not yn tymes paste pulled downe muche and pyked owt of the best for their buildinges. Of late one Mr. Brainton . . . dyd fetch much tayled stone there toward his buildinges . . . The place wher the town was ys al overgrowen with brambles, hasylles, and lyke shrubbes. Neverthelesse here and there yet appere ruines of buyldinges, of the which the folisch people cawlle on the King of Feyres Chayre. Ther hath been fownd nostra memoria lateres Britannici ; et ex eisdem canales, aquaeductus, tessellata pavimenta, fragmentum catenulae aureae, calcar ex [auro] by side other strawng thinges. To be short, of the decaye of Kenchestre Herford rose and florishyd. Further on he says : ' At Kenchester iii Myles fro Hereforth Westward a Myle fro the Bank of Wye ... is fownd a fossoribus & aratoribus Romayn Mony, tessellata pavimenta . . . and ther they cawl them Dwery or Dwerfich, Halfpens or Mony. In 1669 'was found here a great vault with a tessellated pavement and a stone floor,' and in the vault was a ' table of plaster.' ^° Aubrey in his MS. notes says (to quote Stukeley) 'anno 1670, old Roman buildings of brick were discovered underground, on which oaks grew : the bricks are of two sorts some equilaterally square, seven or eight inches, and one inch thick ; some two foot square, and three inches thick ' (i.e. tegulae bessales and bipedales)}^ About the same time Sir John Hoskyns discovered what Stukeley describes as a bath, but was apparently a hypocaust, ' about seven foot square ; the pipes of lead intire ; those of brick were a foot long, three inches square let artificially one into another : over these I suppose is a pavement.' ^^ In 171 9 Roger Gale visited 'the ruins of Ariconium' and described the site in a letter to Samuel Gale, as oval, of 50 or 60 acres, with four gates or openings, two on the west, two on the north side. He mentions traces of the walls and a niche described by Camden, ' also a vault from which urns were taken with bones and tesserae,' and obtained coins of Caracalla and Severus Alexander from Colonel Dantsey. The coins were mostly found on ^ Arch. Joum. xxxiv, 355 ; Hereford Times, 14 Oct. 1882 ; Woolhope Club Trans. i88z, p. 241. ° Itin. (1744), V, 66 ; vii, 152 ; ed. Toulmin Smith (1906), p. 102. '» Camden, Brit. (1695), 579 ; Price, Hist. Account of Here/. 1 1 ; Brayley and Britten, Beauties of Engl, and Wales, vi, 584 ; Morgan, Rom.-Brit. Mosaic Pavements, 73. " Stukeley, Itin. Cur. i, 69 ; Cough's Camden, ii, 74 ; Brayley and Britten, loc. cit. ; Morgan, loc. cit. " Itin. Cur. i, 69 ; Gough, Camden, ii, 74 ; Brayley and Britten, lee. cit. ; Lewis, Topog. Diet. 176
