ROMANO-BRITISH LONDON The chariots of the ancient Britons imply roads, and one of their first cares would be to patrol the river ; hence it is not rash to infer that the road in question went straight to Brentford, practically in a straight line from Lud- gate. Its directness is probably due to Roman engineers working on an older native highway ; while the other road from London to Brentford, passing over Notting Hill, seems more purely Roman. It is interesting to notice also that the Thames-bank road, after passing the site of the later Roman gate on Ludgate Hill, would pursue its course ^"^ along what is now Cannon Street, and coincide with the made road discovered in Great Eastcheap (p. 38). The latter is said^***" to have run north-east of Little Eastcheap, and probably continued in that direction into Essex ; and an early date is suggested by two coins of Claudius taken from the structure. There remains another road to be considered in investigating the con- dition of Roman London. It has been reserved till now as the through-routes had first to be determined, but none is so well marked out by the burials. Its existence has been assumed by most writers on the subject, and tradition is supported by the name that still survives ; but its course through the City has always been a problem, and no agreement has ever been reached even as to its points of entrance and exit. Wren's observations at the east end of St. Paul's are of special interest here. Upon demolishing the ruins after the last Fire and searching the foundations of this Quire, the Surveyor discovered nine wells in a row ; which, no doubt, had anciently belonged to a street of houses, that lay aslope from the High Street (then Watling Street), to the Roman Causeway (now Cheapside); and this Street, which was taken away to make room for the new Quire came so near the old Presbyterium that the Church could not extend farther that way at first. "^' The houses for which these wells were sunk probably fringed the road we are considering, but both burnt and unburnt burials have been found in the immediate neighbourhood, and it seems natural to conclude that the site was not used for habitation till the Wall had been built ; and burials not being permitted inside, the increase of population had caused a former burying- ground to be built over during or after the fourth century. On the same side of this supposed highway was the house discovered at the junction of Canon Alley and Paternoster Row, with a tessellated floor above an unburnt burial in a cist (see p. 22); and the house found at the junction of St. Paul's Churchyard and Cheapside would have been on the north side of this road. It is significant that the coins found in its ruins were of the fourth century. ^^^'^ The burials discovered on the south side of the City are shewn by the map (Plan A) to lie on either side of a line joining the two main roads at Holborn Bridge and at the river bank between the Tower and Custom House. The finds at St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, Crooked Lane (London Bridge Approach), Martin's Lane,*"^ Cannon Street (Tower Royal), Bow Lane, "'" Past the supposed site of Paul's Stump, a somewhat mysterious landmark of the middle ages and possibly a Roman milestone'. For the site see W. S. Simpson, St. PauPs Cathedral and Old City Life, 287. "»" By A. J. Kempe, in a review of Herbert's Hist, of Si. Michael's {Gent. Mag. 1833, ii, 421). For the coins, see Arch, xxiv, 193. "^'^ Parentalia, 272. For similar wells bordering the Roman road in Great Eastcheap, see Gent. Mag. 1833,1, 69. H6d Jj.^/j_ ^Jx^ 2^2_ "'^ When Arthur Street West sewer was built in 1833, a Roman vase was found under the foundation wall of a house on the west side of Martin's Lane, in a perfect state [Arch. Ix, 236). This was, no doubt, a cinerary urn, but is not included as such. I 33 5
