(25) In the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects for April 11, 1914 (xxi. 333), Mr. W. R. Davidge prints a lecture on the Development of London which deals mostly with present and future London but also contains a new theory as to the Roman town. Hitherto, most writers have agreed that, while Londinium may have been laid out on a regular town-plan, no discoverable trace of such plan survived, nor could any existing street be said to run to any serious extent on Roman lines. Mr. Davidge devises a rectangular plan of oblong blocks, and finds vestiges of Roman streets in the present Cheapside, Cannon Street, Gracechurch Street, and Birchin Lane. In a later number of the same journal (Aug. 29, p. 52) I have given some reasons for not accepting this view. First, Mr. Davidge's list of four survivals would be too brief to prove much if the survivals were proved. Secondly, Roman structural remains seem to have been found under all the streets in question, and it is, therefore, plain that they do not run on the lines of Roman thoroughfares. Thirdly, his suggested plan brings none of his conjectured Roman streets (except one) to any of the various known gates of Londinium; it requires us to assume a number of other gates for which there is neither probability nor proof.
(26) In the Post Office Magazine, St. Martin's-le-Grand (Jan. and July 1914), Mr. Thos. Wilson, then Clerk of the Works, gives details, with illustrations, of the Roman rubbish-pits lately excavated at the General Post Office (see above, p. 23).
Norfolk
(27) In the earlier pages (1-45) of his Roman Camp at Burgh Castle (London, 1913) Mr. L. H. Dahl deals with the Roman fort at Burgh Castle (Gariannonum), near Yarmouth, which formed part of the fourth-century Litus Saxonicum. His account, which is not very technical, seems based on previous writers, Ives, Harrod, Fox. I note a list of thirty coins which, save for an uncertain specimen of Domitian and one of Marcus, belong entirely to the late third and the fourth centuries, and end with two silver of Honorius (Virtus Romanorum, Cohen 59). He detects a Roman road running east from Burgh Castle towards Gorleston, preserved (he thinks) in an old road sometimes called the Jews' Way; this, however, seems unlikely. He also maintains the view, which others have held, that the fort had no defences towards the water. This again seems unlikely. Burgh Castle, like Richborough, Stutfall, and other forts of the Litus, may well have had different arrangements on its water-front from the walls on its other three faces. But it cannot have lacked defences, and excavations prove, here as elsewhere, that walls did actually exist on this side.
Northumberland: Corbridge
(28) A paper by the present writer and Prof. P. Gardner, entitled 'Roman silver in Northumberland' (Journal of Roman Studies, iv. 1-12), discusses the relics of what was seemingly a hoard?or perhaps a service?of Roman silver plate, lost in the Tyne or on its banks near Corbridge in the fourth century. Of five pieces, four were picked up between 1731 and 1736, about 100-150 yards below the present bridge at Corbridge; a fifth was found in 1760 floating in the stream four miles lower down. One was a silver 'basin', of which no more is recorded. Another was a small two-handled cup with figures of men and beasts round it. A third was a round flat-bottomed bowl, with a decorated rim bearing the Chi-Rho amidst its other ornament. A fourth was a small ovoid cup, 4 inches high, with the inscription Desideri vivas. Last, not least, is the Corbridge Lanx, the only surviving piece of the five, and probably the finest piece of Roman engraved silver found in these islands, an oblong dish measuring 15 × 19 inches, weighing 148 ounces, and ornamented with figures of deities from classical mythology. That all five pieces belonged together can hardly be doubted, though it cannot be proved outright. That they all belong to the later Roman period, and probably to the fourth century, seems highly probable. Whether they were buried in the river-bank to conceal them from raiders or were lost from a boat or otherwise, is not now discoverable. But the occurrence of such silver close to the Roman Wall is in itself notable. It is to be attributed rather to a Roman officer residing in or passing through Corbridge than to either a Romanized Briton or a Pictish looter.
