SUTTON COLDFIELD.

Though the topographical historian, who resides upon the premises, is most likely to be correct; yet if he, with all his care, is apt to be mistaken, what can be expected from him who trots his horse over the scenes of antiquity?

I have visited, for twenty years, some singular places in this neighbourhood, yet, without being master of their history; thus a man may spend an age in conning his lesson, and never learn it.

When the farmer observes me on his territories, he eyes me ascance; suspecting a design to purchase his farm, or take it out of his hands.--I endeavour to remove his apprehensions, by approaching him; and introduce a conversation tending to my pursuit, which he understands as well as if, like the sons of Jacob, I addressed him in Hebrew; yet, notwithstanding his total ignorance of the matter, he has sometimes dropt an accidental word, which has thrown more light on the subject, than all my researches for a twelvemonth. If an honest farmer, in future, should see upon his premises a plumpish figure, five feet six, with one third of his hair on, a cane in his left hand, a glove upon each, and a Pomeranian dog at his heels, let him fear no evil; his farm will not be additionally tythed, his sheep worried, nor his hedges broken--it is only a solitary animal, in quest of a Roman phantom.

Upon the north west extremity of Sutton Coldfield, joining the Chester road, is The Bowen Pool; at the tail of which, one hundred yards west of the road, on a small eminence, or swell of the earth, are the remains of a fortification, called Loaches Banks; but of what use or original is uncertain, no author having mentioned it.

Four hundred yards farther west, in the same flat, is a hill of some magnitude, deemed, by the curious, a tumolus--it is a common thing for an historian to be lost, but not quite so common to acknowledge it. In attempting to visit this tumolus, I soon found myself in the center of a morass; and here, my dear reader might have seen the historian set fast in a double sense. I was obliged, for that evening, February 16, 1783, to retreat, as the sun had just done before me. I made my approaches from another quarter, April 13, when the hill appeared the work of nature, upon too broad a base for a tumolus; covering about three acres, perfectly round, rising gradually to the center, which is about sixteen feet above the level, surrounded by a ditch, perhaps made for some private purpose by the owner.

The Roman tumoli were of two sorts, the small for the reception of a general, or great man, as that at Cloudsley-bush, near the High Cross, the tomb of Claudius; and the large, as at Seckington, near Tamworth, for the reception of the dead, after a battle: they are both of the same shape, rather high than broad. That before us comes under the description of neither; nor could the dead well be conveyed over the morass.

The ground-plot, in the center of the fort, at Loaches Banks, is about two acres, surrounded by three mounds, which are large, and three trenches, which are small; the whole forming a square of four acres. Each corner directs to a cardinal point, but perhaps not with design; for the situation of the ground would invite the operator to chuse the present form. The north-west joins to, and is secured by the pool.

As the works are much in the Roman taste, I might, at first view, deem it the residence of an opulent lord of the manor; but, the adjacent lands carrying no marks of cultivation, destroys the argument; it is also too large for the fashion; besides, all these manorial foundations have been in use since the conquest, therefore tradition assists the historian; but here, tradition being lost, proves the place of greater antiquity.

One might judge it of Danish extraction, but here again, tradition will generally lend her assistance; neither are the trenches large enough for that people: of themselves they are no security, whether full or empty; for an active young fellow might easily skip from one bank to another. Nor can we view it as the work of some whimsical lord, to excite the wonder of the moderns; it could never pay for the trouble. We must, therefore, travel back among the ancient Britons, for a solution, and here we shall travel over solid ground.

It is, probably, the remains of a British camp, for near these premises are Drude-heath (Druid's-heath) and Drude-fields, which we may reasonably suppose was the residence of a British priest: the military would naturally shelter themselves under the wing of the church, and the priest with the protection of the military. The narrowness of the trenches is another proof of its being British; they exactly correspond with the stile of that people. The name of the pool, Bowen, is of British derivation, which is a farther proof that the work originated from the Britons. They did not place their security so much in the trenches, as in the mounds, which they barracaded with timber. This camp is secured on three sides by a morass, and is only approachable on the fourth, that from the Coldfield. The first mound on this weak side, is twenty-four yards over, twice the size of any other; which, allowing an ample security, is a farther evidence of its being British, and tradition being silent is another.