(From _Archaeologia_.)] But whatever the exact amount of Roman building and Roman street-plan given to Silchester when it was first laid out, the place is not in effect a real town.

It is not merely that, as I have said, the houses do not form continuous streets.

A glance at the houses will show that they could not possibly be fitted into streets.

The types of house here visible are not town houses.

They are the types which appear among the 'villas', that is, the landlords' or the farmers' dwellings, up and down the rural districts of Roman Britain and northern Gaul, and the town which they constitute is a conglomeration of country houses.