As to the houses and buildings of Roman London within the walls we know very little. Sir W. Tite enumerated a large number of mosaic pavements, some of them of considerable size, and scattered over a wide area, but apparently not marking any fine or magnificent public buildings. Stukeley made a plan showing where, in his opinion at least, remains of such buildings should be found; but, to put it briefly, remains of the kind have been conspicuous by their absence on his eight sites. Stukeley is, in fact, a very untrustworthy authority. He thought, with Stow, that Algate, the mediaeval name, meant Oldgate, or, as Stow wrote it, Ealdgate, whereas it was in reality one of the latest. The name probably denoted a gate open to all without toll. The remains of the wall, which still or lately existed, have been carefully examined by Mr. Norman, of the Society of Antiquaries, and Mr. Francis Reader. Their account of various excavations is in volume lx. of _Archaeologia_, and illustrated by a series of plans, sections, and other drawings by Mr. Reader, who seems to have proved that the marsh on which Moorfield was laid out in 1605 did not exist in the early Roman time, but was caused by the building of the wall. III.--SAXON LONDON If we know but little about Roman London, we know still less, if possible, about Saxon London. So far as it was inhabited at all, it was the capital of the kings of Essex, and is so described in a very few documents. On this account it was an episcopal see. How the Saxons became possessed of it we do not know. Probably Stow's account may be accepted as the most likely:-- "This citie of London having beene destroyed and brent by the Danes and other pagan ennemies about the yere of Christ 839, was by Alfred King of the West Saxons, in the yere 886, repayred and honorably restored and made againe habitable." That Stow's account is according to the best authorities will be apparent to any reader of Green's _Conquest of England_. In chapter iv. he describes the condition of London and the neighbouring kingdom of the East Saxons--"A tract which included not only the modern shire that bears their name, but our Middlesex and Hertfordshire, and whose centre or 'mother-city' was London." He goes on to point out that at the time of Alfred's great campaigns against the Danes, London had played but little part in English history: "Indeed," he affirms, "for nearly half a century after its conquest by the East Saxons, it wholly disappears from our view." Its position, he goes on to show, was sure eventually to draw in both trade and population, but the Danish war arrested progress.