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was necessarily the old one, whilo in the rest it was the best that could be chosen. 

 Upon full consideration, he was quite inclined to regard the road past Risbury 

 Oamp as a caso of a British trackway adopted by the Komans, and made into 

 a road. It may bo that they bestowed less attention on the part south of 

 Bodenham-moor, since it did not lead to any of their stations, and that they 

 made a road from that point to Circutio. Had the Romans made an altogether 

 new road, it is difficult to see why they did not make it direct from Bravinium 

 to Circutio, in which case it would not have been necessary to mount the hill 

 plateau on which Risbury stands. That the part of the road which proceeds S. 

 from Bodenham-moor is really an ancient road was not dispxited. It seemed to 

 be a portion of the hcn-ffordd or "old way" of the Britons, which led over 

 Athelstan-hill, thi'ough the marsh at its foot, and thence past the huts of 

 Caeiffawydd, "City of the beech trees," the British name for Hereford, down to 

 the ford between the present Castle-green and the Infirmary, and there crossed 

 the river into Irguig, the British province since called Irchingfield, stretching 

 from the Wye at Hereford to Ross. When Magna Castra was destroyed 

 by the Saxons, the sm-viviug inhabitants probably took refuge at the nearest 

 British town, then called the City of the Beech-trees, and there a mixed 

 population of Romano-Britons and Saxon settlers grew up, the Saxon element 

 gradually predominating until the British Caer-ffawydd was softened into the 

 Skixon Harifort and Hereford. When the Roman city of Magna disappeared, 

 the Roman road from Bravinium to Gobannium was rendered useless, and the 

 traffic, such as it was, had to take the road which led to Caer-ffawydd. The 

 "old road" thus necessarily came into fashion again ; and, as Magna was never 

 restored, the new or Roman road was left to chance and the brinkers, who did 

 with it as local convenience or individual interest ilictated. The Saxons were 

 not civilised enough to make the care of the roads a national business ; and 

 indeed we, their posterity at a distance of a thousand years, are still behindr 

 ^he Romans in this respect. 



