A study of Roman building methods may suggest to us many points for our consideration and emulation. I would especially mention their excellent mortar made of crushed tile, _opus signinum_, and coarse tesseræ floors, cement skirtings, red external plastering, the tile-shaped brick, tile wall linings and down-pipes, hip and gable knobs, vaults of box-tiles and pipes, the hypocaust system of heating, turning of stonework, painted decorations, marble linings, cast leadwork. Some day I hope our sterile histories of “architectural styles” will make way for accounts of practical building methods. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +CHAPTER II+ BUILDINGS AND STREETS “Set we forward friendly together, so through Lud’s-town march; And in the temple of great Jupiter Our peace we’ll ratify; seal it with feasts, Set on there!” CYMBELINE. _BASILICA._—In 1880 the extensive foundations of an important building with massive walls were found on the site of Leadenhall Market, and a survey of the ruins made by Henry Hodge was published in _Archæologia_ (vol. lxvi.). This great building was exceptional, not only in its scale but in its manner of workmanship. I know no other case where the walls of a building had wrought and coursed facings like the City Wall (Fig. 20). [Illustration: FIG. 20. ] In 1881 Mr. E. P. L. Brock exhibited at a meeting of the British Archæological Association “plans of excavations recently carried out in Leadenhall Market, showing the foundations of an apse 33 ft. wide and indications of four different conflagrations. He also exhibited fragments of fresco painting with ornamental patterns.... The building appears to have had the form of a Basilica in some respects, with eastern apse, western nave, and two chambers like transepts on the south side” (_Archæol._ lxvi.). From the wording of this it appears that Brock meant that the building had a general resemblance to an early Christian church. Mr. Lambert in publishing Hodge’s drawings in _Archæologia_ seems to have understood Brock to mean that it was the Civil Basilica of Londinium. This, indeed, I have no doubt it was, but at the time Brock wrote such buildings in Britain were hardly known. [Illustration: FIG. 21. ]