are familiar with the Roman roads of Britain as they
figure on our maps. Like our present lines of railway, the main routes
radiate in all directions from London, and for a like reason; London
having been, in Roman days as now, the great commercial centre of the
country. The reason for this, that it was the lowest place where the
Thames could be bridged, we have already referred to.[189] We see the
_Watling Street_ roughly corresponding to the North-Western Railway on
one side of the metropolis, and to the South-Eastern on the other; the
_Ermine Street_ corresponding to the Great Northern Railway; while
the Great Western, the South-Western, the Great Eastern, and the
Portsmouth branch of the South Coast system are all represented in
like manner. We notice, perhaps, that, except the Watling Street and
the Ermine Street, all these routes are nameless; though we find four
minor roads with names crossing England from north-east to south-west,
and one from north-west to south-east. The former are the _Fosse
Way_ (from Grimsby on the Humber to Seaton on the Axe), the _Ryknield
Street_ (from Newcastle-on-Tyne to Caerleon-upon-Usk), the _Akeman
Street_ (from Wells on the Wash to Aust on the Severn), and the
_Icknield Way_ (from Norfolk to Dorset). The latter is the _Via
Devana_ (from Chester to Colchester).

A. 3.--It comes as a surprise to most when we learn that all these
names (except the Watling Street, the Fosse, and the Icknield Way
only) are merely affixed to their respective roads by the conjectures
of 17th-century antiquarianism, Gale being their special identifier.
The names themselves (except in the case of the Via Devana) are old,
and three of them, the Ermine Street, the Icknield Street, and the
Fosse Way, figure in the inquisition of 1070 as being, together with
the Watling Street, those of the Four Royal Roads (_quatuor chimini_)
of England, the King's Highways, exempt from local jurisdiction and
under the special guard of the King's Peace. Two are said to cross the
length of the land, two its breadth. But their identification (except
in the case of the main course of Watling Street) has been matter of
antiquarian dispute from the 12th century downwards.[190] The very
first chronicler who mentions them, Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes Ermine
Street run from St. David's to Southampton, Icknield Street from St.
David's to Newcastle, and the Fosse Way from Totnes in Devon to far
Caithness; and his error has misled many