140 



Roman -wall anywhere. The Romans nevertheless built well and 

 lastingly, and in rebuilding houses on the limits of the old 

 borough we shall some day come upon what we want. It is the 

 duty of a Club like this to be on the alert, and to see that some 

 competent person makes a careful and reliable record of what is 

 discovered. Mr. John Bellows's discoveries respecting the walls 

 of Glevum (Gloucester) show how much can be worked out in this 

 way by patient research.* A newspaper paragraph may here be 

 quoted as mentioning an opportunity of the kind I mean which 

 arose in 1803.t 



In digging the foundation of some houses that are to be rebuilt on 

 the Borough walls, near the place where the old north gate formerly 

 stood, the workmen have come to the foundation of the ancient city 

 wall, composed of immense pieces of ashlar in a sound and perfect 

 state and of considerable value to the builders, amongst which they 

 have found fragments of columns that are apparently Roman and 

 probably the remains of some noble structure, demolished when this 

 wall was erected. 



In this connection I may remark that the testimony of the 

 walls would be of great value in settling the desolation theory 

 put forward by Professor Earle and supported by Mr. Charles 

 Moore. 



Passing now to the mediaeval wall I have laid before you 

 a plan of the city of about 1650, the original of which, taken very 

 carefully by a French gentleman, is now in the British Museum. 

 The maps of Bath are numerous, and Mr. C. P. Russell has made 

 and edited a collection of them of the highest possible value, which I 

 should like to see secured as public property, and deposited in the 

 Institution. Of two or three maps which would suit my present 

 purpose I have selected the one before you as least known, and as 

 suggesting the drawings which accompany it, of which more anon. 



^ " Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society," 

 1876, p. 153. 



t The Bath Herald, 7th May, 1803. 



