The conditions were favourable for establishing a way in the line of London Bridge, for hard ground here approaches near to the south bank of the river. That the Roman city spread from Walbrook Creek as a centre is now generally agreed. Mr. Lambert’s plan of the finding-places of Claudian and pre-Claudian coins shows them distributed near the primitive port. Again, the city Watling Street is probably the beginning of the old road from the port. Wren found traces of an old street running aslant under the end of old St. Paul’s, and this probably formed part of the way towards Aldersgate. The acceptance of such a route as the main street of the oldest London would solve the difficulty of the “fault” in the lines of Newgate Street and Cheapside. I suppose that the Roman street through Newgate (which all would agree was formed at a late time when the walls and gates were built) branched westward from the old Verulam road I have been describing. In a similar way, the Roman road on the course of Old Street probably branched to the east out of the same ancient Verulam road. Mr. Codrington and others have supposed that the road to the east was continued also westward, but no evidence of this has been found. Stow, in his account of Aldersgate Street, says: “On the east side at a Red Cross turneth the Ealde Street, so called for that it was the old highway from Aldersgate Street for the north-east parts of England before Bishopsgate was builded.” [Illustration: FIG. 173. ] _The Westminster Crossing._—It was remarked above that the emergence of Verulam into importance probably followed on the use of a river crossing at Westminster and a trackway in the course of Edgware Road, which is known to have been part of a later Roman highway—the Great Watling Street. It is generally allowed, as by Dr. Rice Holmes, that a British trackway underlies the general course of this great Roman highway from Dover to St. Albans and beyond. The monk Higden, writing about 1360, said that Watling Street passed to the west of Westminster, but it has been objected that what the monk thought was not evidence. However, in his time and until about two centuries ago, an important river crossing was maintained at the Horse-Ferry. The Horse-Ferry Road appears to have been made to divert a direct passage at Westminster when the great hall of the new Palace was built, about 1100. Sighting the line of Tothill Street, we see that it would have passed by the old Palace, but that the Hall blocks the way. The Abbey lies at the side of this line, which seems to mark the boundary of St. Margaret’s churchyard. Here, too, were found the Roman tomb and what appears to be a terminus mark (T II). The Horse-ferry is mentioned in an order of 1246: “The Bailiff of Kennington is to cause a barge to be made to carry people and horses over the Thames” (Hudson Turner’s _Domestic Architecture_, vol. i.). Canterbury documents show that the ferry was later in the charge of the Archbishop