This view is often taken by Loftie in his “Westminster Abbey.” He does not, however, defend it and insist upon it so strongly. He says, to quote his exact words: “The hillock on which we stand is called Thorn-Ey. There are some Roman remains on it, and there may have been the ruins of a little monastery and chapel, of which floating traditions were afterward gathered and exaggerated. The paved causeway to the westward is the Watling Street. On both sides of it runs the Tyburn, of which Thorn-Ey is a kind of delta. The road rises to Tot Hill, which is a conspicuous landmark here, and goes straight on over the ‘Bulunga Fen’ till it reaches another, the ‘road to Reading,’ which has just crossed the Tyburn at Cowford, where Brick Street is now in Piccadilly. From Thorney, then, looking northward and westward, we see what remains of the great Middlesex forest, if the Danes have not burnt it all, and the paved Watling Street running straight on toward the distant Chester, keeping to the left of the lofty hill which is now crowned by the town of Hampstead. It is interesting to trace this ancient road through the modern streets, the more so as its existence determined the site and early importance of Westminster. When it emerged from the wild woods of Northern Middlesex and came down toward the ford of the Thames, it followed what we call the Edgeware Road, Edgeware being the name of the first stopping-place on the road, near the edge of the forest. Passing down the Edgeware Road in a straight line, it is interrupted at the Marble Arch by a corner of the Park, which crosses the direct road toward Westminster. We know, however, that this corner is a comparatively recent addition to the Park, and the Watling Street soon resumes its course in Park Lane, which, keeping well on the high ground above the brook, nevertheless derived the name it was known by for many centuries from the Tyburn. Tyburn Lane reached the road to Reading at what we call Hyde Park Corner, and then ran straight through what was once called ‘Brookshott,’--a little wood, where now is the Green Park and the gardens of Buckingham Palace,--and on, right through the site of the palace itself, where the brook approached it very closely. So it descended to Tothill, the name of which has been plausibly explained to mean a place where the traveler ‘touted’ for a guide or a boat, as the case might be, for the dangerous ford of the Thames below. This is rather conjectural, but is not to be rejected until a better explanation has been offered. One thing more had to be stated about this ancient highway--the Watling Street. How is it that we find the same name in the City? To answer this question we must look back to a period so remote that we cannot accurately date it, yet so definite, in one way, that there can be no mistake about it. This is the time at which London Bridge was built. When that great event took place Watling Street was