On arriving at the smith’s shop just alluded to, the attention of the visitor will be attracted by a solid mass of masonry, which forms a very imposing object, and presents those unmistakable characteristics of Roman work,—the long string-courses of large flat red bricks. This mass of masonry, the only portion of the buildings of Uriconium which remains standing above ground, is upwards of twenty feet high, and seventy-two feet long, with a uniform thickness of three feet, and has been long known by the name of “The Old Wall.” It stands nearly in the centre of the ancient city, which occupied the highest ground within the walls,—a commanding position, with the bold isolated form of the Wrekin in the rear, and in front a panorama of mountains formed by the Wenlock and Stretton Hills, Caer Caradoc, the Longmynd, the Breidden, and the still more distant mountains of Wales. With the exception of this wall, all that remained of the Roman city, if as some people might perhaps have doubted, anything did remain,—has been long buried beneath the soil. At the close of the year 1858, however, it was resolved to ascertain what these remains were, and an Excavation Committee was formed at Shrewsbury, for the purpose of carrying this design into effect by means of a public subscription. Excavations were, accordingly, commenced on the 3rd of February, 1859, and they have already led to results of the most satisfactory description. But, perhaps, before we proceed to describe the ruins which have thus been uncovered, it would be well to tell our readers something of the general character of the Roman towns in this island, and to explain how some of them were destroyed, and from what cases and by what circumstances their remains present themselves in the conditions in which we now find them. * * * * *