ss rides, neither
raised nor paved, and not always straight, but winding along the sides
of the hills which lie in their course. There were seven chief British
ways: Watling Street, which was the great north road, starting from
Richborough on the coast of Kent, passing through Canterbury and
Rochester it crossed the Thames near London, and went on through
Verulam, Dunstable, and Towcester, Wellington, and Wroxeter, and thence
into Wales to Tommen-y-Mawr, where it divided into two branches. One
ran by Beth Gellert to Caernarvon and Holy Head, and the other through
the mountains to the Manai banks and thence to Chester, Northwich,
Manchester, Ilkley, until it finally ended in Scotland.

The second great British road was the way of the Iceni, or Iknield
Street, proceeding from Great Yarmouth, running through Cambridgeshire,
Bedfordshire, Bucks, and Oxon, to Old Sarum, and finishing its course at
Land's End. We have in Berkshire a branch of this road called the
Ridgeway.

The Ryknield Street beginning at the mouth of the Tyne ran through
Chester-le-Street, followed the course of the Watling Street to
Catterick, thence through Birmingham, Tewkesbury, and Gloucester, to
Caermarthen and St. David's.

The Ermyn Street led from the coast of Sussex to the south-east part of
Scotland.

The Akeman Street ran between the Iknield and Ryknield Streets, and
led from what the Saxons called East Anglia, through Bedford, Newport
Pagnel, and Buckingham to Alcester and Cirencester, across the Severn,
and ending at St. David's.

The Upper Saltway was the communication between the sea-coast of
Lincolnshire and the salt mines at Droitwich; and the Lower Saltway led
from Droitwich, then, as now, a great centre of the salt trade, to the
sea-coast of Hampshire. Traces of another great road to the north are
found, which seems to have run through the western parts of England
extending from Devon to Scotland.

Such were the old British roads which existed when the Romans came. The
conquerors made use of these ways, wherever they found them useful,
trenching them, paving them, and making them fit for military purposes.
They constructed many new ones which would require a volume for their
full elucidation. Many of them are still in use, wonderful records of
the engineering skill of their makers, and oftentimes beneath the
surface of some grassy ride a few inches below the turf you may find
the hard concreted road laid down by the Romans nearly