The Lucubrations of his Leisure Hours: William Roy's Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain 1793

Abstract

This paper traces the early history of Roy's interest in Roman military antiquities in the 1750s and looks at the plans of Roman forts and camps which he made at that time, and discusses a selection of the maps which form the engraved plates of the published work. A principal conclusion is that Macdonald's assertion (1917) that the Society of Antiquaries of London's manuscript set of Roy's plans is by Roy himself, is in error, and that these plans were made instead by a Board of Ordnance draftsman.

Key Words:

• military cartography
• Roman forts
• Roman camps
• Roman antiquities
• Scotland
• William Roy

Acknowledgement

The author is most grateful to Chris Fleet, National Library of Scotland, for his unfailingly courteous help in arranging access to material, and for supplying information quickly and efficiently, and for arranging for the reproduction of the figures.

Notes

Macdonald points out (Macdonald, 1917, p. 212) that the drawings of Rae-dykes near Ury (plate L), and Re-Dykes near Glenmailen (plate LI) date from the 1780s.

The date of Napier's birth is so far unknown; the earliest known record is the date of his ensigncy in the Fifth Regiment of Foot, stationed at Gibraltar, 9 May 1722. I owe this information to Dr John Houlding.

Charles Tarrant was a Board of Ordnance draftsman who was seconded as a draftsman to the Military Survey. His cartographic work is exquisite and easily matches that of Sandby. Charles Tarrant became Chief Engineer on the Irish Establishment between 1762 and 1796, and was appointed Lieut-General on 25 September 1803. He died on 21 March 1818 (Conolly & Edwards, 1898, p.112).

This style of brushstroke which was used to depict relief had been practised earlier by engineers and Board of Ordnance draftsmen.

The author has not discovered the date of the original building of New Camelon; it may have been post 1753, the date by which the Military Survey of this area was completed, but it would have been present in 1755, the date of survey of the Antonine Wall.

Differences between the fair copies and rough protractions of the military survey have been noted by Whittington (1986), but no comparison was made between the detail of the Military Antiquities and the Military Survey.

The identification of Roy's own work is more easily made in the Military Survey of the Lowlands which, not having been redrawn as a fair copy by the draftsmen of the Survey, is left in the several different hands of those who made the survey. Roy's calligraphy and cartography are readily distinguished from the less practised hands of the other surveyors.

It is possible that a new turnpike road was constructed in the interval between the two maps, but the author has not been able to discover whether this is so or not.

O'Donoghue (1977) describes this map as ‘published’; this is not so. It should be noted that the William Roy exhibition, held at the British Museum in 1977, was put together at very short notice and with little time for thorough research. Some statements made in it, such as this, have been subject to correction over the years.

‘A Map of Scotland, the Hebrides and part of England adapted to Mr. Pennant's Tours’, published on 1 May 1777 by Benjamin White.