Portskewett The village lost its railway station (on the Newport to Gloucester line) when it was closed under the Beeching Axe in 1964. Black Rock, on the Severn estuary immediately south east of the village, has been an important crossing point of the River Severn for many centuries. Numerous coins found in the mud show that it was in constant use throughout the Roman period, on the route between Aquae Sulis (Bath) and Venta Silurum (Caerwent). By the 18th century, a regular ferry service crossed the Severn estuary from Black Rock to New Passage on the Bristol side, carrying passengers, cattle
Celtic animism foci for healing cults: Sulis was prayed to as a healer at Aquae Sulis and the goddess Arnemetia was hailed as a healer at Aquae Arnemetiae. Nemausus, for example, was not only the Gallic name for the town of Nîmes but also that of its presiding spring-god. He had a set of three female counterparts, the Nemausicae. In the same region, the town of Glanum possessed a god called Glanis: an altar from a sacred spring is inscribed 'to Glanis and the Glanicae'. Meteorological patterns and phenomena, especially wind, rain and thunder, were acknowledged as inspirited and propitiated. Inscribed dedications