if we did not know, that at Lancaster, Doncaster,
Manchester, Winchester, Exeter, and at the old capital of the famous
King Arthur, Caerleon, there were some of those Roman camps which were
dotted over England in the days when the Romans ruled the land.

Here the Roman officers lived with their wives and families, and the
Roman soldiers too, and here they built churches and theatres and
baths, such as they were used to in their cities at home in Italy.
Here, too, it was that many of the British nobles learned Roman ways
of living and thinking; and from here the Roman priests and monks went
out to teach the Britons that the religion of the Druids was false,
and instruct them in the Christian religion.

Another common Latin ending or beginning to the names of places was
_strat_, _stret_, or _street_, and wherever we find this we may know
that through these places ran some of the _viae stratae_, or great Roman
roads which the Romans built in all the provinces of their great
empire. There are many remains of these Roman roads still to be seen
up and down England; but even where no trace remains, the direction of
some, at least, of the great roads could be found from the names of
the towns which were dotted along them. Among these towns are
_Stratford_ in Warwickshire, _Chester-le-Street_ in Durham,
_Streatham_, etc.

Then, again, some of the towns with _port_ and _lynne_ as part of
their names show us where the Romans had their ports and trading
towns.

It is interesting to see the different names which the English gave to
the villages in which they dwelt when the Romans had left Britain, and
these new tribes had won it for themselves. Nearly all towns ending in
_ham_ and _ford_, and _burgh_ or _borough_, date from the first few
hundred years after the English won Britain. _Ham_ and _ford_ merely
meant "home," or "village." Thus _Buckingham_ was the home of the
Bockings, a village in which several families all related to each
other, and bearing this name, lived. Of course the name did not change
when later the village grew into a town. Buckingham is a very
different place now from the little village in which the Bockings
settled, each household having its house and yard, but dividing the
common meadow and pasture land out between them each year.

_Wallingford_ was the home of the Wallings. Places whose names ended
in _ford_ were generally situated where a ford, or means of crossing a
river or stream, had to be made. O