20 BURTON, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
establishment there, at any rate of a Christian character. 
He maintains that the main traffic between the northern 
parts of the country and the continent, by way of Dover 
and other ports on the south-east coast, must have crossed 
the Thames at this point, when there were no bridges, 
because there was no ford lower down the river. I cannot 
say that Sir Walter’s arguments quite convince me on the 
subject, though certainly he contrives to make out a very 
fair case for his theory. 
But be that as it may, this consideration brings into view 
another coincidence between the neighbourhoods of West- 
minster and Burton. Here again there was a considerable 
river to be crossed by a not inconsiderable traffic, and 
supposing that there was hereabouts a convenient fording 
place, Sir Walter’s arguments would do just as well to 
support the view that here also there must have been a 
large and busy population in Roman and prehistoric times. 
And on re-perusing the well-known work of our old friend, 
the late Mr. Molyneux—of whom we always think as having 
been probably the most energetic of the founders of this 
Society—I find that he was evidently inclined to believe 
that there was such a population. I find indeed that in 
one place (Page 103) he goes so far as to say ‘“ There is 
no question that the town of Burton had, long before the 
foundation of the Abbey, acquired a position equal in impor- 
tance to that of the majority of Saxon burghs of the period.” 
But this is a somewhat vague statement, and in other places 
he speaks on the subject in a rather more qualified way. 
Altogether the evidence he offers in support of such a view 
is very meagre, consisting only of the discovery of a very 
few isolated tokens of human habitation at an earlier date 
than the beginning of the eleventh century. 
I am rather inclined to the belief that in pre-Roman 
times the population hereabout must have been very small. 
A narrow strip of country between Charnwood Forest and 
