A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE Guildhall Mus. Cat. 48, no. 39]. Several of the above-mentioned objects are in Hereford Museum [Antiq, xxvi, 245, where a bronze lamp-stand is also mentioned as from this site]. Tretire. — About seventy years ago an inscribed Roman altar w^as discovered by Mr. Charles Bailey, F.S.A., which has been fashioned into a font, and is now in Tretire parish church. It resembles the rude capital of a pillar with a square hole in the top, and is about 2 ft. 5 in. high and 16 in. broad (see fig. 18). It was found broken in two pieces. There are remains of an inscription : ,„ „r-n
- ^ DEO TRIV[«/J
BECCICVS DON AVIT ARAM
- Beccicus gave the altar to the God of the Three Ways.'
The attempt of Wright and others to make the inscription Christian by reading ' deo triv [no] ' was hardly successful! [Corp. Inscr. Lat. vii, 163; Wright, Wanderings of an Antiq. ij, with plate ; Celt, Roman, and Saxon (6th ed.), 330 ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. i), ii, 193 ; Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc. Proc. E. M. 1874, p. 147 (with plate) ; Gent. Mag. xii (1862), 456 ; Arch. Journ. xxxiv, 365 ; fourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xviii, 275 ; Antiq. xxvii, 235 ; Woolhope Club Trans. 1882, p. 248 ; Arch. Surv. Index. For Roman altars used in churches see Roach Smith, Coll. Antiq. i, 1 3 fF. ; he compares one at Halingen in the Pas de Calais, France. There is another at Staunton near Coleford, in Gloucestershire.] Walford (near Ross). — At Bishopswood in this parish a hoard of about 18,000 'third and fourth brass ' coins, nearly all of the Constantine period (a.d. 290-360) was discovered in three urns in 1895, on the property of Mr. McCalmont, by whom they were presented to the Woolhope Field Club. Eighty-four of them were subsequently given to the Hereford Museum, others to that at Gloucester, and 135 to that of Newcastle on Tyne {Proc. Soc. Antiq. Newc. vii, 166]. The three earthenware jars in which they were contained were among a heap of stones about 9 in. below the surface, 50 yds. north of the modern church and a mile east of Kerne Bridge Railway Station, having been inclosed by rough walling built up against the hill-side ; they measured about 13 in. high and 5 in. across the mouth and base, and all three were broken. It has been suggested that these coins formed part of the contents of a military treasure-chest, as they include examples minted at Aries, Trier, Lyons, Aquileia, Rome, Constantinople, Siscia in Croatia, Antioch, Carthage, Nicomedia, Herodeia, and Thessalonica, but none from any British mint. Since the discovery of the hoard, part of the fosse and vallum of a rectangular camp have come to light close by, and a quantity of coarse Roman pottery within it, though this does not necessarily imply a Roman origin for the camp. Of these coins 17,550 were examined and classified as follows : — Claudius Gothicus (270) Diocletian (284-305) . Maximianus I (286-310) Helena {c. 290—328) . Theodora (2nd wife of Constantine, died 328) Licinius I (307—23) .... Licinius II (315-26) .... Constantine the Great (306-37) . „ „ (Constantinopolis type) „ „ (Urbs-Roma type) Crispus (317—26) Dalmatius (335-7) Constantine II (317-40) Constans (333-50) Constantius II (323-61) Illegible I I I 315 271 21 7 2.455 3>Si2 4,214 4 30 3,683 450 2,201 384 From the Alexandria mint 312 struck at Trier All struck at Trier 1 3 different types One struck at Carthage Ten different types Five types Seven types Many of these coins have the labarum and other Christian devices and symbols. The hoard must have been deposited not earlier than a.d. 340 [Woolhope Club Trans. 1896, pp. 108, III; App. pp. I, 4, with plate showing jar in which coins were found ; Bristol and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xix, 399 ff. ; Num. Chron. (Ser. 3), xvi, 209 ff. ; Arch. Surv. Index]. The name of Walford was thought by Wright to indicate the existence of Roman buildings near the ford, but there are no signs of any foundations [Wanderings of an Antiq. 14]. Walford near Leintwardine. — See above, p. 186. Walterstone. — A tessellated pavement was found about 1775 at 'Cored Gravel' (probably Coed- y-Grafel), about half a mile from the British earthwork two miles north of Oldcastle ; this probably implies the site of a villa [Arch, vi, 13 ; Woolhope Club Trans. 1882, p. 258 ; Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 2), ii, 50 ; Arch, fourn, xxxiv, 363 ; Arch. Surv. Index]. 196
