were originally used as places of defence, from whence to annoy and repulse the assaults of the enemy, who might gain entrance into the streets beneath by surprising the gates, during those remote ages when Chester was subject to the sudden incursions of the Welsh. But against this opinion it may be urged, that in no one of their attacks upon this city did the Welsh ever force their way within the gates or walls; so that these latter, being proved by experience to be a sufficient bulwark against our foes, there existed no necessity for the erection of any further defences. There is irrefragable evidence that the _form_ of the city is Roman, and that the _walls_ were the work of that people; and the same reasons which justify these conclusions are not less cogent for presuming that the construction of the streets are Roman also. Pennant appears to have arrived at this conclusion:—he says, “These rows appear to me to have been the same with the ancient _vestibules_, and to have been a form of building preserved from the time that the city was possessed by the Romans. They were built before the doors, midway between the streets and the houses, and were the places where dependants waited for the coming out of their patrons, and under which they might walk away the tedious minutes of expectation. Plautus, in the 3rd act of his _Mostella_, describes both their station and use. The shops beneath the rows were the Cryptæ and Apothecæ, magazines for the various necessaries of the owners of the houses.” Ormerod says that some of these crypts exhibit specimens of vaulting equal to the cloisters of our Cathedral. Camden, in describing Chester, says, “The houses are very fair built, and along the chief streets are galleries or walking places they call rows, having shops on both sides, through which a man may walk dry from one end to the other.” And Shukeley, in his ‘Itinerary,’ in 1724, says, “The rows or piazzas are singular through the whole town, giving shelter to foot people. I fancied it a remain of the _Roman porticoes_.” In the oldest histories, descriptive of the city in some form or other, the elevated rows and the shops beneath are recognized. Tacitus, “in describing the process by which Roman manners diffused themselves throughout Britain, and gradually completed the subjugation of the country, speaks of the natives of Britain as acquiring a taste for the two leading features in Roman civilization, ‘Porticus and Balnea,’—the portico, in which they were delighted to stroll and sun themselves; and the baths, which were their national luxury. He mentions these, and we cannot but be struck by the coincidence with things with which we are all familiar—the _rows_ of our ancient city, and the Hypocaust, which is still shown as the Roman bath. We are hereby led to infer, that the mode of construction which gives the character to our city, originated in Roman habits.” {51} PRINCIPAL STREETS.