THESE PITS WHICH UNCOVER THE CHALK BARE FOR US
See [page 191]
From Farnham to the converging point near Salisbury, where he would meet the northern, the western, and the south-western roads, no definite ridge continued; but high rolling downs of chalk gave him good enough going, and led him along a water-parting which saved him the crossing of rivers, and afforded for his last two or three days a dry and firm soil.
Such, we must presume, was the full course of the original Road from east to west. To put it the other way round, and give from west to east the primeval track from the centre of south England to the Straits of Dover, we may say that it would leave Stonehenge to enter Hampshire near Quarley Hill, leave Bury Hill Camp on the right, pass near Whitchurch, and so proceeding eastward, following the southern edge of the watershed, would enter Farnham by the line of 'Farnham Lane'; it would thence follow the southern side of the range of hills until it reached the sea above the Portus Lemanis—the inlet which covered the marshy plain below the present village Lympne.
Such was undoubtedly the earliest form of the Old Road, but upon this original trajectory two exceptions fell in a time so remote that it has hardly left a record. The western end of the Road was deflected and came to spring, not from Stonehenge, but from the site of Winchester; the eastern portion was cut short: it terminated, not at some port, but at Canterbury, inland.
Why did Winchester come to absorb the traffic of the west, and to form the depôt and the political centre of southern England? Why did Canterbury, an inland town, become the goal of this long journey towards the narrow seas?
The importance of the one and of the other can be explained. Let me take them in order, and begin first with Canterbury.
The Causes of the Development of Winchester and Canterbury, and of their Position as Termini of the Old Road