[1] The sacredness of wells is commingled all through Christendom with that of altars. As, for instance, the wells in the cathedrals of Chartres, of Nimes, of Sangres, and in St. Nicholas of Bari. In Notre Dame at Poissy, in St. Eutropius at Santes (a Roman well), in the Augustinian chapel at Avignon (now a barracks). In Notre Dame at Etampes there are three wells. There is a well in St. Martin of Tours, in the Abbey of Jobbes, in the Church of Gamache. Our Lady of the Smithies at Orleans (now pulled down) had a well into which Ebroin threw St. Leger, the Bishop; and close by at Patay there is one in St. Sigismund's into which Chlodomir threw some one or other. Old Vendée is full of such sacred wells. The parish church of Praebecq has one, of Perique, of Challans (filled up in fourteenth century). At Cheffoi you can see one in full use, right before the high altar and adorned with a sculpture of the woman at the well--and this is but a short and random list. [2] See upon this abandoned portion Mr. Shore's article in the third volume of the _Archæological Review_. THE CAUSES OF THE PRESERVATION OF THE OLD ROAD; ITS GENERAL CHARACTER, AND OUR APPLICATION OF THIS IN OUR METHOD OF RECOVERING IT We can regard Winchester, then, and Canterbury, as the point of departure and the termination of the Old Road. We can be certain that it would lie along the upper valleys of the Itchen and the Wey until it struck the Hog's Back, and that thenceforward it would follow the southern slope of the North Downs until these are cut by the river Stour. From that point the last few miles to Canterbury would naturally run parallel with, and in the valley of, the little Kentish river. But the task which is attempted in this book is more definite than such a general scheme would convey. Many portions of the Old Road have been preserved, many more have been recovered and mapped by the researches of antiquarians; the remaining gaps alone was it our care to explore and settle, until we should, if possible, have reconstituted the whole ancient way, yard for yard, from the capital of Hampshire to the capital of Kent. That was our business, and in order that the reader may follow the more clearly my account of our journey I shall, before beginning that account, set down here, at the end of the present essay, the difficulty which the task presented, how we were aided by certain causes which had conspired to preserve the Old Road, what those causes were, and finally what method we applied to the problem that lay before us. All archæological research must necessarily repose upon evidence less firm than that of true history, yet a great part of it deals with things lying right to hand. A barrow is an unmistakable thing. You open it and you find a tomb. Whatever may be said of paleolithic man, neolithic man has left the most enduring and indubitable evidence. He worked in the most resisting of materials, and he worked well.