PRE-SAXON CIVILIZATION IN DORSET. 211 



through which it runs ; therefore to change the river's name 

 would make a great deal of confusion. 



In studying words and names we do well to bear in mind 

 that names were known by their sound long before they were 

 known by their spelling. All the people talked, while only 

 the few \vrote ; and it might be a long time before there arose 

 any occasion to express the sound of a name in written letters. 

 Also, as in early times there was no fixed standard in spelling, 

 the letters used to convey the sound of a name depended 

 entirely on the writer's own ideas. 



The art of bridge making was not practised in very early 

 times. The rivers formed natural boundaries, and to cross 

 them Avould be usually undertaken as a hostile raid. In 

 these cases a tree trunk thrown across the banks of the river 

 sufficed for most purposes where fording was not possible. 



The Romans, however, when they settled in the land, 

 opened up the country with their straight, well-constructed 

 roads, and could not have felt their work completed without 

 bridges. There remains only one authenticated Roman 

 bridge in the county. It is at Preston, three miles north 

 of Weymouth. There must have been many others which 

 were ruthlessly destroyed in the troublous times which 

 followed the Roman evacuation of the island. At Fife head 

 Neville a small, rudely-built pack-bridge stands beside the 

 ford, the core of which might possibly be Roman, but there 

 is nothing by which its age can be determined. 



The Roman Emperor Hadrian built a bridge over the river 

 Tyne at Newcastle, A. D. 120. A few years ago the wear of 

 time and traffic made it necessary to re place Hadrian's bridge, 

 with a new one. Mr. Wheeler took the contract for the bridge 

 inserting a clause which secured his right to the oak piles of 

 the old bridge. He gave one of these piles to his son, Canon 

 Wheeler, then Rector of Haselbury Bryan, who took great 

 delight in fashioning it with his own hands into the oak 

 lectern now standing in Haselbury Bryan church. 



These instances apparently complete the record of Roman 

 bridge building in Dorset. 



