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 A HISTORY OF LONDON an earthen vessel, containing fragments of bones and an ' antique figure,' was found.'-"' This was probably a Roman burial beside the Watling Street. Though the Westminster stone coffin was not in situ, it was discovered close to the line indicated, and the course of the Watling Street has been proved at the south end of Edgware Road, though the intervening portion is conjectural. In 1902 trenches for telephone wires revealed the Roman highway almost exactly in the middle of the road opposite Seymour Street and for some distance north and south.'"' It was 24 ft. wide with containing walls of concrete 2 ft. high on either side, and a surface layer of large flints set in lime grouting and resting on rammed gravel : below that was the undisturbed dark clay containing round flint pebbles. The observations of Stukeley are much to the point and support the view here taken. From Tyburn I judge the Watling-street goes over part of Hyde Park and by May-fair, through St. James's park to the street by Old Palace-yard called the Wool- staple to the Thames. Here has been found an old gate, but not Roman. On the opposite side of the river is Stanegate ferry, whence it passed across St. George's fields," so south of the Lock hospital ' to Deptford and Blackheath : a small portion of the ancient way pointing to Westminster abbey is now the common road on this side the nearest turnpike ; but the continuation of it is quite lost since the bridge was made, and all roads meet at that centre as so many radii. When London became considerable, the ferry over-against it, from being better attended, rendered that at Stanegate almost useless ; so passengers went through the City by Canon Street, Watling Street and Holborn ; hence so little appears of it between Tyburn and the Lock hospital ; and probably its materials were long since wholly dug away to mend the highways. Upon this road in Southwark many Roman antiquities have been found, particularly a Janus of Stone "-.... From Shooters hill the direction of the road is very plain both ways .... and from the top you see it butts upon Westminster abbey, where it passes the Thames ; and this demonstrates its original direction, and that it was begun from the east.''' It is a fair deduction from the map that the Watling Street did not originally pass through the City and that the passage of the river at West- minster '^* was preferred for most purposes ; but there are evident traces of an alternative route, not so direct but giving access to London from the south before the middle of the third century. Traditions with regard to Dover Street in the Borough are not supported by the burials, but the Ermine Street is fairly certain. As there is no mention of this road south of Godman- chester in the Antonine Itineraries, it has received but little attention, but its general course is clear. After passing through the Weald from Chichester, it is deflected by Box Hill at Dorking, but is clearly traceable on the Leatherhead Downs. Ermine Street north of the Thames can easily be '•*■' Soc. Antiq. MS. Min. xxxviii, 149. Another urn from this site, found in 1847, may also be a Roman cinerary (figured in Jount. Brit. Arch. Assoc, ii, 102). '" Carefully described by Mr. J. G. Wood, F.S.A., in Home Counties Mag. iv, 238, 259 ; of. Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxxvii, 427. "° Strype's Stow, ii, App. v, 24, points out that the roads here were mended with pottery and rubbish brought in large quantities from Lombard Street ; but Gale obtained one cinerary entire and mentions others. '" This was in Kent Street about 100 yards north of our road as indicated on the map and the same distance east of the Deveril Street cemetery. '^' Near St. Thomas' Watering, 1690 : figured in Allen's Hist of Land, i, 36. '" Iter Curiosum (1776), 1 18-19. "* Higden, a monk of Chester who wrote in the 14th centur}-, was evidently familiar with Watling Street and states that it crossed the Thames to Westminster and beyond westward to a point at which it turned towards St. Albans (exactly as shown on map). This is a fair reading of the text : transiens per medium Cantiae ultra Thamisiam juxta Londoniam ad occidentem Westmonasterii, indeque procedit juxta sanctum Albanum [Polychronicon (Rolls Ser.) ii, 46]. 30