The assertions and contradictions in recent books, and maps founded on them,[85] are difficult to follow. According to Mr. Loftie, the north road from Bishopsgate "joined the road to Colchester and Lincoln afterwards called Erming Street" (Erming Street to Colchester); "We find both Watling and the Erming Streets going off at a tangent when they have passed out" (on plan both shown perfectly straight);[86] "Aldgate--properly Algate--was opened about the beginning of Henry's [I.] reign"; "Aldgate has nothing to do with 'Old' or Eald, for the simple reason that the eastern road ran not from Aldgate but from Bishopsgate, and not to Stratford but to Old Ford"; "Whitechapel Road--the Vicenal Way ... answered to the street of tombs without the gate at Pompeii" (in the plan a road going east from Bishopsgate is named Vicenal Way). It is impossible to say what such roads were, or where they went, or how the author knew. In the other plans mentioned above, London Bridge is shown near Billingsgate, with the north and south street _east_ of St. Magnus and the north gate much to the east of Bishopsgate. Watling Street is shown on a diagonal line from Bridge end to Newgate, and Leadenhall Street and Aldgate are omitted. * * * * * _Quays._--FitzStephen, as we have seen, says that London "was walled and towered" to the south against the river. And there cannot be a doubt that the citizens were protected in this way, when we read that they shut themselves within their walls against the Danes, for land walls alone would little have availed against the water-borne hordes. Stow, Wren, and other authorities have accepted these river walls, and indeed analogy with other water-side towns calls for them. It is evident on referring to a map that Thames Street, Upper and Lower (above Bridge and below), must follow the course of this wall, and that the street was outside the wall, forming a "strand" giving access to the quays, as does the way along the Golden Horn at Constantinople. When in 1863 Thames Street was excavated, the Roman level appeared at 20 to 25 feet below the modern surface; the whole was found to have been piled and cross-timbered right across the street; this "doubtless formed the old water line and embankment fronting the south portion of Roman London." The piling turned up the course of the Walbrook towards Cannon Street.[87] Similar embankments were found when the approach to new London Bridge was made, and still further east; it is said as many as five lines were found when the present Custom House was built. Roach Smith describes the foundations of a part of the river wall which was found extending from Lambeth Hill to Queenhythe, and again by Queen Street, along the north side of the street.[88] And we have seen that the south-east and south-west angles of the wall were just on this line. Several quay basins were formed along the river shore outside the wall.