The Roman ships carried stores here from Deva, their station on the Dee, now known as Chester, for the use of the builders of Hadrian’s Wall, so that Maryport ought to be a happy hunting-ground for antiquaries.  After the departure of the Romans, Maryport must have been left to decay for over a thousand years, and it seemed even now to be a place that very few tourists visited.  Netherhall, where most of the antiquities were carefully stored, was originally a Peel Tower, and up to the year 1528 was the home of the Eaglesfields and the reputed birthplace of Robert Eaglesfield, the founder of Queen’s College, Oxford; it was now in possession of the Senhouse family.  There was also the Mote Hill, overlooking the river and surrounded by a deep ditch, under the protection of which the Roman galleys anchored.

A romantic legend of the period of the Roman occupation still clings to the neighbourhood, called the Legend of the Golden Coffin: 

The daughter of one of the Roman officers was loved by a young warrior from the other side of the Solway.  Their trysting-place was discovered by the girl’s father, who had a number of soldiers with him, and in spite of the entreaties of the girl, her lover was killed.  With his death the maiden had no desire to live; night after night she made her way to the fatal spot, where she was eventually found, having died of a broken heart.  The father prepared a wonderful funeral for her.  Her body was arranged in silken garments, and then placed in a golden coffin and buried in a deep grave just outside the camp, where her spirit was still supposed to haunt the place at midnight.

On the sea coast a sunken forest existed, while the shore was covered with granite boulders of many sizes and shapes, and large numbers of similar stones were ploughed up in the fields, all apparently ice-borne, and having been carried mostly from Criffel on the Scottish coast, and the following legend was told here to explain their presence on the English side of the Solway.

There once lived a giant on Criffel which was on the opposite coast of the Solway Firth, while another giant lived on Skiddaw, one of the highest mountains in Cumberland.  For a time they lived in peace and quietness, but an occasion came when they quarrelled.  Then they took up stones and hurled them at each other; but many of them fell short, and hence they are now widely scattered.

[Illustration:  WORDSWORTH’S BIRTHPLACE, COCKERMOUTH.]

We now returned towards the hills and followed what was once a Roman road through a level country to Cockermouth, passing on our way through the colliery village of Dearham, a name meaning the “home of wild animals”; but we saw nothing wilder than a few colliers.  The church here was built in 1130, while the tower was built in the fourteenth century for defence against the Scotch marauders.  There were many old stones and crosses in the churchyard.  Cockermouth, as