(3) The Roman Road, having produced a system of local roads based upon it, has almost entirely disappeared and has left the local system alone to witness to its original importance, just as filigree work remains after you have melted away the core of wax upon which it was built. Examples of this are very difficult to discover, precisely because the original country has gone. But the process can be followed here and there by a careful examination, and I think that, upon the whole, the best example is that of the series of roads which grew up out of the short cut between Penkridge and Chester. (4) The Roman Road remains, in some parts at least, but, its original purpose having been such that it was of no continual use in the Dark Ages, the local system of roads can only indirectly be referred to it. Of this the great example is the famous Peddars Way, running through East Anglia. iv (1) The preservation of the Watling Street as an example of a continuously used Roman road for several days’ march north-west of London is due to various causes. In the first place, it was very little interrupted by marsh. It ran everywhere on dry land, and the main cause of breakdown--the swallowing up of a causeway after the destruction of its bridge--did not affect it. But this is the least of the causes which have preserved this piece of road. Second, and more important, was the establishment along it of set stations which remained inhabited, and the chain of which was not interrupted by active warfare. Watling Street here presents very interesting evidence of what really happened during those early pirate raids which are generally, but erroneously, called the Anglo-Saxon Conquest. They did not so seriously disturb the life of the country as to break down this main artery of communication. It lies transverse to the raids, and yet it was maintained. And in this connection we must also note the continued importance of London. Great Roman towns suffered, of course, from the pirate raids between (somewhat before) the year 500 and the year 600, as did all the rest of the island. They suffered not only from those raids of pirates across the North Sea, but also from the raids of pirates from Ireland, and also from the raids of Highlanders coming over the wall from the north. But though they suffered they kept their place in the national scheme. No province in the Roman Empire lost less of its town sites in the Dark Ages than did England. No part of Europe has so large a number of old towns based upon Roman foundations: and London was the chief of them all. London may have been disturbed by the raids--it probably was. There was probably a certain amount of looting from time to time, and a good deal of fighting outside its walls, but it always maintained its permanence, its character of being the economic centre of the island. It is particularly noticeable that every great Roman road out of London has remained intact, and Watling Street beyond others.