Roads, in the present meaning of the word, there had been none subsequent to Roman times, till the Hanoverian succession. Even when the use of carriages made them necessary, they resembled those deep country lanes, not yet unknown in Devonshire and Essex, where in winter the mud imbeds the wheels of carts or waggons, or were mere pack-horse paths, with a raised causeway running through the midst, and a deep fosse of mud on either side. Such a road was that which, in Elizabeth’s time, ran up from Battle Bridge between the hedgerow banks of Maiden Lane to Green Street and Highgate, whence a path led by Caen Wood to what was then called Wildwood Corner, across Hampstead Heath to Pond Street, tree-shaded, with its wild banks full of primroses and violets in spring, and redolent of May a little later, but rendered all but impassable in winter from the rains and overflow of the many rivulets which drained the uplands into Pancras Vale. I have before me a view of the ‘Hampstead Road, near Tomkins’ House,’ engraved by Charles White, probably a grandson of Robert White, a celebrated engraver, who died in 1704. A post-chaise, drawn by two horses, is depicted labouring up what appears to be a mere rugged track over rough heath-ground. The dome of St. Paul’s (finished in 1710) and the City spires and houses appear in the distance but the view exhibits a primitive and solitary country, only broken by clumps of trees, furze coverts, and hedgerows, and except a single cottage and the gable of a house (probably Tomkins’) no other habitation is to be seen. As late as May, 1736, it is reported in the _London Post_ ‘that Col. de Veil had committed one of the coachmen who was driving the Hampstead coach to Newgate, for getting out of the track he was in and assaulting the Hon. the Lady Cook Winford by driving his coach upon her, whereby he threw her and her horse into a deep ditch, and she was greatly hurt and bruised.’ The Hampstead Road was not made till 1772, when George III. was King, though the summit of the hill had been previously cut down. When Ogilby, in the time of Charles II. wrote his Guide, St. Giles’ Pound lay in the open country, and the way to Holborn, like Gray’s Inn Lane, was a pleasant rustic road. Tottenham Court Road lay between fields and market-gardens, sprinkled with houses of entertainment, some of which lingered long after the making of the present road. Gay tells us that in summer ‘the Tottenham fields with roving beauty swarms,’ and thirty years later some doggerel verses in Poor Robin’s Almanack inform us under the head of the month of May: ‘The ladies now, to take the air, To Stepney or Hyde Park repair; While many others do resort For cakes and ale to Tottenham Court.’