Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/26

THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY Dover, and Lympne, met to cross the first obstacle on the way to London. Probably for a thousand years before the Roman occupation there had been a ford here, used by the ancient inhabitants of Britain, who were in the habit of travelling along what is now called the "Pilgrim Way"; but which is, in reality, an ancient British or Celtic track. The accessibility and convenient situation of this ford was probably the original reason for the four Wents being directed to this spot, and was the only cause which brought the locality into any kind of importance as a "mansio" or rest station, for Roman soldiers.

Here it was that some time early in the fourth century a body of Christians, Romans or British or both, determined to build a place in which to worship according to their newly emancipated Faith. The site chosen for such a building in this not very important military station was where it might be expected to be placed, without the walls of the Roman City, but close to one of its gates, that of the north or Staple Gate as it was called from the presence of a market for buying and selling just outside. This was the chief commercial centre, and the resort of the merchants with their merchandise from all parts, including the Continent, and amongst those frequenting it were doubtless many who professed the Christian religion. For this reason the building must have been of considerable size, very much larger than the tiny oratory which Bede tells us was also in use during the Roman occupation, which was situated upon the slope of a hill to the east of the city by the side of the Roman road leading to Richborough, afterwards dedicated to St. Martin.

The church at the Staplegate Market was barely a furlong from the right bank of the eastern branch of the river, a little below the ford over the shallows and practically on the edge of the marsh. Through 2