The late Mr. John Henry Parker, F.S.A., in 1857, wrote as follows:--“The most probable origin of these Rows is, that after some great fire, it was found most convenient to make the footway on the top of the cellars, or vaulted substructures, instead of in the narrow streets between them. It was the usual custom in the towns in the Middle Ages to protect the lower storey, or cellar, which was half underground, by a vault of stone or brick. This was the storeroom in which the merchandise or other valuable property was preserved. The upper parts of the houses were entirely of wood, and the whole of these being destroyed by fire, it was more easy to make the footway on the top of the vaults, leaving the roadway clear for horses and carts. Many of these vaulted chambers of the mediæval period remain in Chester, more or less perfect; some divided by modern walls and used as cellars, others perfect and used as lower shops or warehouses.” This theory, again, is ingenious, and has this justification, that in 1114 a large part of the city was destroyed by fire; but against it may be urged the fact that one of the most perfect, and probably the oldest of these crypts (the house or shop in which it is being called “Ye Olde Crypt”), is not in the street front, but beneath the back portion of the house. Others have supposed that the original ground-level of the city was the same level with the Rows, and that the streets were gradually worn down to their present level through the solid rock. This opinion has, however, been shown to be untenable, inasmuch as in Bridge Street, Watergate, and other parts, Roman remains have been discovered which show that in Roman times buildings were even a little below the present street level, and that the foundations of the Roman buildings correspond practically with the height of the roadway. Archdeacon Rogers, at the end of the sixteenth century, urged that the Rows were constructed for defensive purposes, and would be found useful in this way in the time of Welsh incursions. We have, however, no record of the Welsh having ever effected an entrance into the town, so that the precaution would seem to have been superfluous. Canon Morris, in his valuable work (_Chester during the Plantagenet and Tudor Periods_), advances another theory at some length to account for the gradual development of the Rows from the seldæ, or movable sheds, on the street level, and the shops built on the higher ground behind, formed of the debris of Roman buildings which had been destroyed. These are some of the ideas which have been propounded as to the origin of the Rows. It is well to state them, so that our readers may gather what a fertile source of interesting discussion they furnish. Mr. Henry Dawes Harrod, F.S.A., after carefully examining these explanations, and the arguments on which they were based, came to the conclusion that we must look to ancient Chester for the origin of the Rows, and so go back to Roman times.