The bed of the brook has frequently been found in city excavations, and its course has been laid down by Mr. T. E. Price.[45] It was of course crossed by many bridges; in 1291 there was an inquiry held as to the repair of one of them near the "tenement of Bokerelesbery."[46] This stream was probably the first water supply of London, and it must have been a most important factor in the division of the wards and the laying out of the streets. The Langbourne described by Stow is entirely mythical. As he named Holborn from a merely supposititious "Old-burn" running east and west, so also his Lang-burn has its only origin, as will be shown, in the corruption of a name (see p. 132). Here I need only say that its supposed bed occupies high ground, and no evidence of it has been found in excavations. Mr. Price points out that Stow himself allowed that the name was the only sign of it, and adds that the levels demonstrate that no such stream can ever have flowed there; indeed, excavations have shown that its supposed course was one of the most populous parts of the early city.[47] Stow connects with it still another equally mythical stream, the Share-burne, on the site of Sherborne Lane, but I find this called Shitteborwe in 1272, and the last syllable must be "bury," not "burn." * * * * * _Fords._--The best account of the Thames fords is given by Dr. Guest.[48] Cæsar tells us that the river called Thames was passable on foot only in one place, and this ford was defended against him by stakes. Bede says that the remains of the stakes were to be seen there "to this very day." Camden suggested that the site of this ford was Coway Stakes, near Walton; King Alfred, however, in an addition he made to Orosius, says that Cæsar, after defeating the "Bryttas in Cent-land," fought again "nigh the Temese by the ford called Welinga-ford." Wallingford, where the Icknield Way crossed the river, was certainly the chief ford below Oxford. Dr. Guest showed that a place near Coway Stakes is called Halliford, and argued that although a Roman army, that of Claudius, may have crossed at Wallingford, Cæsar's passage of the river was at the stakes, and the two passages of the river came to be confused in the tradition. The general argument is too subtle to go into here, but it is less than convincing to make Bede's account of a ford where stakes yet remained in the river apply to Cæsar and the Coway Stakes, while Alfred's applied to Wallingford and the army of Claudius, especially as we may suppose that a principal ford would be fortified if a lesser one were. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Sweyn's army passed the river at Wallingford; here William the Conqueror also crossed; and here too it seems likely that the English invaders also first crossed.[49]