Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/65

 the corner of Bridgewater Street, during the excavations. It seems to have been a boulder-paved road at the beginning.

—The description of its course by Whitaker is so minute that it is rather surprising how little Thompson Watkin and others have troubled to work it out. On the ordnance map, 5 feet to the mile, it is laid down along the present lower Deansgate, which, of course, is quite wrong. Watkin disposes of Whitaker in a few laconic words and says he prefers Just's account, who, however, is silent, and only touches upon the road from Hunt's Bank as his starting point. If Watkin had availed himself of Berry's (1750), Tinker's (1772), and Green's (1787) maps Whitaker's account would have been intelligible enough.

The road issued at the northern gate in Collier Street (48 yards away from its eastern angle), passing the parallel ditches. Whitaker says: "It was found 1765 in the adjoining garden still visible from its ridge, 5 yards wide. In 1751 it was found in the second garden, proceeding in the line of a hedge [this garden is bounded by Priestner Street and Tickle Street], bordered with large squarish stones at the sides, raised into a convexity of ½ yard above the ground. Crossing the narrow lane beyond both some trace of the convexity lately appeared and pointed across the level of Campfield to Mr. Philips's two houses in Quay Street [which is the house marked 45 on Berry's map and would be near Reiss Brothers' warehouse]. There the road was discovered in 1760 near the doorway of the more easternly house, more than ½ yard below the surface of the ground, from 4 to 5 yards in width, and more than 1 yard