168 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN ESSEX.
its competitor was a Christian church, and buildings of this class
especially were treated as quarries from which to obtain building
material, and I am afraid what was still worse, as it meant absolute
destruction, they were used as quarries for road material. If, in your
perambulations you will note the materials of which our old parish
churches were erected you will find in very numerous instances
Roman bricks and Septaria mixed with other material, this indicates
that near by once stood a building of the Roman period. I have
long had a strong conviction that the site of many of our old
moated manor houses, especially those which are within a short
distance of one of the old Roman roads, were, in the Roman
period, military stations, and if so, in addition to the defensive earth-
works and water moat by which they were surrounded, there would be
a substantial residence for the Commandant, the materials of which
were re-used when the Norman lord required materials for his church
or his new buildings. I have often been surprised when conning
over the plans of Roman villas, which have been discovered in this
county and elsewhere, of the comparative thinness of the walls as
compared with those which were considered necessary by the
Normans. The Roman walls of houses seldom exceed 2ft, in thick-
ness, whilst a Norman would not consider himself secure with walls of
a less thickness than from 4ft. to 5 ft. From fragments left to us, the
Roman villas would seem to have had rich pavements and the
interior walls plastered and decorated in divers colours. All these
things seem to indicate that the Roman occupiers, after having
thoroughly cowed the ancient inhabitants, lived here for two or three
centuries in comparative luxury and safety. As the Roman power
became weakened, the old British races became emboldened, until
upon the final withdrawal of the Roman troops they reasserted
their power and, as usual with undisciplined and barbarous troops,
gave way to the wildest excesses and destroyed with fire the belong-
ings of their late masters, and certainly traces of fire have been
found in many of these Roman remains when unearthed, which
seems to support this suggestion.
After the departure of the Romans the country was rent and
devastated by the British princes who had assumed the sovereignty,
and the invaders, who were attracted by the spoil—the Jutes, the
Saxons, and the Angles—until at last the Saxons gradually established
themselves in the country, Essex, with Middlesex and part of Herts,
falling to the East Saxons, whose kings continued to reign from