A HISTORY OF LONDON chemical works of Messrs. Forbes, Abbott and Leonard (just above the passage of the main sewer), large lumps of herring-bone masonry were brought up from the bed of the river/*"^ Other specimens are noted below (p. 34), and everything points to a paved ford here during the Roman period. Once more burials along the course indicated may be cited by way of confirmation : cinerary urns found in Old Ford Road ^*^ and the stone coffins found at Old Ford station and in Corfield Street (Bethnal Green) are all flanking this line, while the urn from Cloth Fair and numerous burials in Smithfield sufficiently indicate its continuation westward. Crossing the Fleet River, it passed in a series of straight lines to the Thames at Staines (Pontes), but though Oxford Street indicates its general direction, its exact course has not hitherto been traced through London. The interments opposite St. Andrew's (Holborn), at the Birkbeck Bank, in Endell Street and Victoria Park (Notting Hill), indicate that the straight line passing between these points from Holborn Bridge to Notting Hill was the course of the Roman road.^*^ At the presumed point of intersection with the Watling Street south of the Marble Arch once existed a Roman geometric stone."* Though not adequately described this seems to have been set up originally as a landmark by a Roman surveyor ; but in modern times was turned to another use, soldiers being placed against it to be shot. It was to be seen before 1822 a few yards south of Cumberland Gate ; "* but during alterations of level in that year for a new gate, it was covered up as it was too deeply imbedded for convenient removal."^ It is significant that the massive foundations of London Stone discovered by Wren after the Great Fire led him to consider it as part of some public building of the Roman period ; "' but as Roman roads seem to have passed both these landmarks, their use and history can now be determined with some degree of confidence. The distance from the ' geometric ' stone to London Stone would be about 3 J Roman miles, and 3 to Newgate, the Romans generally reckoning from the city gate. Yet another road suggested by the distribution of burials must be noticed. Mention has been made of the coffin found in Howard Street, Strand ; of the glass cinerary found below the portico of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and of the urn containing burnt bones from Cockspur Street. It will be observed that a line passing between these three sites would reach the Fleet practically opposite Ludgate, and westward would join the Watling Street precisely where it turns towards Westminster, at the bottom of Park Lane. Its course is along the edge of the northern bank of the Thames, and was evidently planned to give a continuous view of the river from the nearest high ground. '**■ Kindly communicated by Mr. Montagu Sharpe, who quotes a letter (1906) from the late clerk of the Board in his work, TAe Antiquities of MUd. 80 (Appendix). '*' Opposite the end of Wick Lane (White Hart Inn) : Jnh. xxxi, 310. '" The ' Here Street ' crossed the Tyburn and passed the Stock of St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, forming in 971 the boundary of Westminster : Napier and Stevenson, Cratvford Charters, 46 ; Cartul. Saxon, iii, 261 ; Arch, xxvi, 224. A document of 1222 gives among the boundaries of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the water of Tyburn running to the Thames, and the Strata re^a, extending to London past the gardens of St. Giles' [in the Fields] {Arch, xxvi, 225 ; Lethahy, London before the Conquest, 61). This supports the view that the southern portion of High Street, Bloomsbury, is on the line of the Roman military road. '" Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc. Trans, iv, 62. It was known as Ossulstone and seems to have given its name to the hundred. At a later date, perhaps when the Marble Arch was erected, it was dug up and has since disappeared. '" It is so located in John Rocque's map (1741). "^ Thos. Smith, Historical Recollections of Hyde Park, pp. 60, 49. "' Parentalia, 265. 32
