with this passage of the river.

The importance of Cricklade as a station upon the upper Thames does
not only proceed from its being the crossing place of a great road, it
is also the point when the first important tributary stream, the
Churn, joins the Thames. Above this junction the Thames nowadays is
hardly a stream; and even in the eighteenth century and earlier,
before the digging of the Severn and Thames Canal, it must have
depended on the weather whether there were any appreciable amount of
water in the upper part or not. It would probably be found, if records
could be examined, that the mills at Somerford Keynes were not
continually worked throughout the year, even when the supply of water
had been left undiminished by modern engineering. But when once the
Churn (which, as we have seen, has a larger volume of water than the
Thames) had fallen in at Cricklade the two formed a true river, with
depth in it always sufficient to support a boat, and with a fairly
strong stream, as also with a width sufficient for minor traffic; and
it is after Cricklade that you get a succession of villages and
churches dependent upon the river and standing close to its banks.

But though this piece of hydrography has its importance the chief
meaning of Cricklade in history lay in the fact that it was the spot
where this Ermine Street on its way from the south country to the
Severn Valley got over the Thames, and the village connected with it
was entrenched certainly in Roman and probably in pre-Roman times.
This entrenchment may still be traced.

The crossing of the Thames by the Icknield Way, unlike the crossing of
the Ermine Street at Cricklade, presents a problem.

Cricklade, as we have seen, is a perfectly well-established site, and
we owe our certitude upon the matter to the fact that the Romans had
hardened and straightened what was probably an old British track. But
with the crossing of the Icknield Way no such complete certitude
exists, for the Icknield Way was but a vague barbarian track, often
tortuous in outline, confused by branching ways, and presenting all
the features of a savage trail. Doubtless that trail was used during
the four hundred years of the high Roman civilisation as a country
road, just as the similar trail, known as the "Pilgrims' Way" from
Winchester to Canterbury, was used in the same epoch. There are plenty
of Roman remains to be found along the track, and there is no doubt
that all such roads, ev