MANY who read these pages will be doubtless aware that in fixing a determinate site for the Roman military station Vagniacae, I am assuming to do that which has never been attempted to be done by the old antiquaries, as Camden, Gale, Burton, Leland, or Lambarde; or by the moderns, as Gibson, Gough, Reynolds, Hasted, Thorpe, or Hatcher, or even been supposed by Newton himself, the learned historian of the place. This undoubtedly is so; for though a fair proportion of those eminent persons in the antiquarian department of literature may have thought generally that the Roman station was at Maidstone, yet none of them have advanced so far as to point out in what quarter of the present town the precise spot was situated. I must proceed therefore with some degree of caution on this hitherto untrodden ground: and as my reasoning on the subject will be purely inductive, it will be the most convenient way for me to arrange what I shall say under distinct heads or paragraphs, which I shall accordingly do as follows:—
   1 First, I must duly notify that the fact of its being in or about Maidstone at all, is derived from the 'Itinerary of Antoninus,' that ancient 'Guide des Voyageurs,' or ' Handbook for Travellers,' in the time of the Romans. It is said in it, that from Vagniacae to Durobrivae