I now quote the passage relating to this old ridgeway road to Verulam from Norden’s MS. (British Museum, 570). He begins at Clerkenwell instead of from the City: “It is not to be omitted to declare the old and ancient highways heretofore used by our fathers though the new be of greater regard and account for that they yield more ease unto the travellers. There was an old way that passed from Clerkenwell as also from Portpoole [Gray’s Inn] towards Barnet and so to St. Albans. From Clerkenwell it extended as the way now is unto a bridge or brooke between Gray’s Inn Lane and Pancras Church, near which brooke it entered into an old lane leaving Pancras Church on the west. It is called Longwich Lane, through which lane it passed along leaving also Highgate on the west and passed through Tollington Lane, whence it extended to Crouch End and thence through the Park to Muswell Hill near by Colney Hatch and so to Friern Barnet, from thence to Whetstone and there meeteth the new way. The cause why travellers left this old and ancient way was the deep and dirty passage in the winter.” The road is well described in Pennant’s Tour (1782): “On quitting St. Albans I passed the wall of Sopwell Nunnery mixed with quantities of Roman tiles. After London Colney on the Colne I reached Ridgehill (!), a most extensive view. At South Mimms enter Middlesex and about a mile farther made Barnet; in Saxon times a vast wood filled this tract. From this town is a quick descent. Just beyond Whetstone the road passes over Finchley Common, infamous for robberies, and often planted with gibbets. About a mile beyond stands Highgate, a large village seated on a lofty eminence overlooking the smoky extent beneath. Here, in my memory, stood a gateway at which in old time a toll was paid to the Bishop of London for liberty, granted between four and five hundred years ago, for passing from Whetstone along the present road instead of the old miry way by Friern Barnet, Colnie Hatch, Muswell Hill, Crouch End, and leaving Highgate to the west by the Church of St. Pancras. After resting for a small space over the busy prospect, I descended into the plain, reached the metropolis, and disappeared in the crowd.” The old miry way by Crouch End is, I cannot doubt, the original British road from Verulam to Londinium. (St. Pancras, it may be mentioned here, must be a very old settlement; near by was a bridge over the Fleet River, at a later time called “Battle Bridge,” on which name theories have been founded, but I think the bridge may have taken the place of “Bradford in the Parish of St. Pancras,” mentioned in the _Feet of Fines_, 23 H. viii.)