A period of antiquarian conjecture and invention was now beginning, with exploration often of an active kind, but usually kept sternly in obedience to speculation. At the end of the sixth volume of Hearne’s _Leland_ (1710) is an essay supposed to be by Roger Gale (1672-1744). He has no doubt about “four great roads,” but regards the story of Molmutius and Belinus as exploded, and says that “nobody now questions but that” the Romans made them. He distinguishes, “as does Mr. Drayton,” between Icknield and Ricknield, and complains of the old confusion. The Icknield Way, “which has its rise and name from the people called Iceni,” he finds first “with any certainty near Barley in Herts,” as in Robert Morden’s map; but he suggests an eastern continuation through Ickleton, “and so by Gogmagog hills, and over Newmarket Heath to Ikesworth, not two miles south from St. Edmundsbury,” and possibly to Burgh Castle, near Yarmouth. Returning westward, he describes a course which might have been taken from Morden’s map, except that in the neighbourhood of Luton it touches Streatley instead of Leagrave, and goes to Houghton Regis as well as to Dunstable. But having reached Buckinghamshire, he cannot find it “anywhere apparent to the eye ... except between Princes Risborrow and Kemble in the Street, where it is still call’d Icknell Way.” These are words which suggest that the eye was not his own. In Oxfordshire he leaves the road to Plot. At Goring and Streatley he does not know what to do, because his guides--Henry of Huntingdon and Drayton and others--disagree. He conjectures a continuation to Southampton, another through Speen to Salisbury and beyond, where he has found the name “Aggleton Road,” locally given to the road near Badbury Castle, the Roman road from Old Sarum to Dorchester. He thinks “Aggleton Road” can have no connection with Ickleton, but he shows no other reason for believing that his Roman road is the Icknield Way.