Of the four arms of this cross, the northern, a street always given up to commerce, became, in the later Middle Ages, the Jewry. By a process at first perhaps voluntary, but later legal, the Jews were concentrated into one quarter, a sort of Ghetto. It is to be noticed that in nearly every case these Jewish quarters were in the very thick of a city's life, and (as in the Paris of Philippe le Bel) of far greater value than any other equal area of the city.[8] Something of the kind was present at Winchester. The whole stream of traffic which passed out from the capital to the rest of England went through the lane of the moneylenders, and we may say with certitude that the north gate, the limit of that lane, was the starting-point of the Old Road. The north gate has now disappeared. It lay just south of the grounds now known as North-Gate House. The deflection of the street is comparatively modern; the original exit was undoubtedly (as at Chichester and elsewhere) along the straight line of the Roman road. This passed near the site of the present house, and pointed towards the isolated tree which marks the northern edge of the garden. [Illustration] From this point it has been commonly imagined that the Old Road must have coincided with the modern Hyde Street, and have followed this line as far as the smithy at Headbourne Worthy. Thence it has been supposed to branch off to King's Worthy. From the church of that village onwards through Martyrs' Worthy and Itchen Abbas no one questions but that the modern highway is identical with the Old Road; but I think the original track may be shown to have proceeded not along the modern street, but by an interior curve, following up the Monks' Walk, passing under the modern railway embankment near the arch which is just north of the Itchen bridge, and making thence straight for King's Worthy church, thus leaving Headbourne Worthy on the left, and running as the thick line runs in this sketch-map. The point evidently demands argument, and I will give the arguments upon one side and upon the other, so that the conclusion may recommend itself to my readers. In favour of the first supposition there is this to be said, that the line through Headbourne Worthy carries the road all the way above the levels which may be marshy, avoids the crossing of any stream, and indicates in the continuity of the place-names (the three Worthies)[9] a string of similar sites dating from a similar antiquity. To this consideration may be added that parallel between Canterbury and Winchester which will be found throughout this essay. For at the other end of the road the entry into Canterbury is of a similar kind. The Old Road falls, as we shall see, into Watling Street, a mile before the city, and enters the ecclesiastical capital by a sharp corner, comparable to the sharp corner at Headbourne Worthy in the exit from Winchester.