1 68 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN ESSEX. 



its competitor was a Christian church, and buildings of this class 

 especially were treated as quarries from which to obtain building 

 material, and I am afraid what was still worse, as it meant absolute 

 destruction, they were used as quarries for road material. If, in your 

 perambulations you will note the materials of which our old parish 

 churches were erected you will find in very numerous instances 

 Roman bricks and septaria mixed with other material, this indicates 

 that near by once stood a building of the Roman period. I have 

 long had a strong conviction that the site of many of our old 

 moated manor houses, especially those which are within a short 

 distance of one of the old Roman roads, were, in the Roman 

 period, military stations, and if so, in addition to the defensive earth- 

 works and water moat by which they were surrounded, there would be 

 a substantial residence for the Commandant, the materials of which 

 were re-used when the Norman lord required materials for his church 

 or his new buildings. I have often been surprised when conning 

 over the plans of Roman villas, which have been discovered in this 

 county and elsewhere, of the comparative thinness of the walls as 

 compared with those which were considered necessary by the 

 Normans. The Roman walls of houses seldom exceed 2ft, in thick- 

 ness, whilst a Norman would not consider himself secure with walls of 

 a less thickness than from 4ft. to 5ft. From fragments left to us, the 

 Roman villas would seem to have had rich pavements and the 

 interior walls plastered and decorated in divers colours. All these 

 things seem to indicate that the Roman occupiers, after having 

 thoroughly cowed the ancient inhabitants, lived here for two or three 

 centuries in comparative luxury and safety. As the Roman power 

 became weakened, the old British races became emboldened, until 

 upon the final withdrawal of the Roman troops they reasserted 

 their power and, as usual with undisciplined and barbarous troops, 

 gave way to the wildest excesses and destroyed with fire the belong- 

 ings of their late masters, and certainly traces of fire nave been 

 found in many of these Roman remains when unearthed, which 

 seems to support this suggestion. 



After the departure of the Romans the country was rent and 

 devastated by the British princes who had assumed the sovereignty, 

 and the invaders, who were attracted by the spoil — the Jutes, the 

 Saxons, and the Angles — until at last the Saxons gradually established 

 themselves in the country, Essex, with Middlesex and part of Herts, 

 falling to the East Saxons, whose kings continued to reign from 



y 



