er in the south-east to the north-western
centres of the Welsh Marches and of Chester, the Port for Ireland, and
so up west of the Pennines. This came in Saxon times to be called the
_Watling Street_, a name common to other lesser lanes.

Another, the converse to this, proceeded from the metal mines of the
south-west to the north-east until it struck and merged into other
roads running north and east of the Pennines. This came to be called
(as did other lesser roads) the _Fosse Way_.

A third went more sharply west from the southern districts, and
connected them not with the Dee, but with the lower Severn. This track
ran from the open highlands of Hampshire through Newbury and the
Berkshire Hills to Gloucester, and was called (like other lesser
tracks) the _Ermine Street_.

Finally, a fourth went in a great bend from these same highlands up
eastward to the coast of the North Sea in East Anglia. This was called
in Saxon times the _Icknield Way_.

All these can be traced in their general direction throughout and for
most of their length minutely. All were forced to cross the Thames
Valley, which so nearly divided the whole of South England from east
to west.

Of these four crossings the first in point of interest is that which
the _Ermine Street_ makes over the upper Thames at _Cricklade_.

These old roads are of capital importance in the story of England, and
though historians have always recognised this there are a number of
features about them which have not been sufficiently noted--as, for
instance, that armies until perhaps the twelfth century perpetually
used them; for the great English roads, though their general track was
laid out in pre-historic times, were generally hardened, straightened,
and embanked by the Romans in a manner which permitted them to survive
right on into the early Middle Ages; and of these four all were so
hardened and strengthened, except the Icknield Way. Not one of them is
quite complete to-day, but the Ermine Street is perhaps the best
preserved. It is a good modern road all the way from Bayden to
Gloucester, with the exception of a very slight gap at this village of
Cricklade.

It originally crossed the river half-a-mile below Cricklade Bridge, so
that the priory which stood on the left bank lay just to the south of
the old road. How and when the old bridge at Cricklade fell we have no
record, but one of the most important records of the Thames in
Anglo-Saxon history is connected