When Wren rebuilt St. Mary le Bow, in excavating for the foundation of the campanile, when he had sunk about 18 feet, he came to a Roman causeway of rough stone, close and well rammed, with Roman brick and rubbish for a foundation, all firmly cemented. This causeway was 4 feet thick, and underneath was the natural clay. He built the tower "upon the very Roman causeway." He was of the opinion that this highway ran along the north boundary of the Roman city, the breadth of which was from this "causeway" to the Thames, and "the principal middle street or Prætorian way" being Watling Street; north of the "causeway" the ground was a morass, so that he had to pile for building the new east front to St. Lawrence by the Guildhall.[163] Too much has been made of this morass, for remains of Roman buildings have been found on this very ground north of Cheap 17 feet below the surface,[164] and St. Lawrence itself had been a church from Norman times at least. Other Roman buildings have been found in Wood Street.[165] It is impossible to go behind Wren's testimony as to the Roman way through Cheap. It has been claimed, however, that some foundations discovered by him on the site of St. Paul's showed that Watling Street ran obliquely from London Stone to Newgate. It was not, as we see, the opinion of Wren himself, and it must fall. The exact words in _Parentalia_ cited for the discovery of an oblique street are themselves enough to abolish the theory built on them. They are as follows: "Upon demolishing the ruins [of St. Paul's] and searching the foundations of the Quire, the Surveyor [Wren] discovered nine wells in a row, which no doubt had anciently belonged to a street of houses that lay aslope from the High Street [Watling Street] to the Roman causeway [Cheapside], and this street, which was taken away to make room for the new Quire [of 1256] came so near to the old [Norman] Presbyterium that the church could not extend farther that way at first" (p. 272). There is nothing in this about "a Watling Street running from Newgate to London Stone." What is described is a way across the churchyard from the west end of the High or Atheling Street issuing by Canon Row or Ivy Lane. There is no evidence at all, then, for a diagonal Watling Street which Stukeley suggested, and more recent writers have accepted as quite proven. On the other hand, we have Wren's great authority for thinking that Watling Street was in its present direction the "High Street" of the ancient city. In calling it this he must have followed Leland, who says that it was formerly called Ætheling Street, and it is so named in thirteenth-century documents.[166] In 1212 I find _ad viam que vocatur_ Athelingestrate. The name is one of a class of which Athelney (Athelingey--Noble's Island) is an instance. Addle Hill, which Stow calls Adle Street, seems to be allied to Atheling. In 1334 I find "Athele Street in Castle Baynard Ward."[167] The earliest instance of "Watling" I