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extended under Stall Street, but not enough of it was laid open to 
determine the form or size of the building to which it belonged. 
On it the foundations of the Pump Room were laid. Again in 
1867 on the destruction of the far famed White Hart to make 
way for the present Grand Hotel, a bed of paved concrete was 
found which had been apparently surrounded by a court and 
smaller buildings. A fragment of cornice was precisely similar to 
‘another piece found in 1790 on the opposite side of the street 
under the Pump Room. The base of a wall uncovered was 
formed of very large stones some measuring more than five feet 
in length, probably part of an outer court. Drawings were made, 
it is said, of these things with the intention or hope of determin- 
ing the plan of the building and for publication, but so far they 
have simply disappeared. It was at once concluded that these 
remains, as with all others previously found, belonged either to a 
Temple or the Forum, their front here facing the east, as those 
found opposite on the site of the Pump Room were the remains of 
a Temple which faced the west, Stall Street passing between them, 
as it does between the modern buildings there to day. The 
simple fact is that Stall Street not being a Roman street does not 
pass between, but is made or laid on, and really passes over the 
plan of an important building which covered the ground here in 
Roman times. It can readily be judged that this was the hall, 
the ante rooms, and the hypocaust, part of the frontage of the 
fine system of baths now partially exposed. 
But if Stall Street be not a Roman street and so not the original 
main central thoroughfare of the city as it is always assumed to 
have been, where was that street. 
Northward of Bath the Fosse road coming by Batheaston 
reached Walcot. About the point where now stands Walcot 
Church a road now known as the Via Julia branched from it, 
passed up the hill about the site of Guinea Lane and by the head 
of Russell Street to Weston and then on across the Severn. The 
Fosse continuing its own line went on by our Walcot Street into 
