In the English Historical Review for July, under the somewhat
cryptic title of " Centuriation in ROMMEL Britain," Dr. Haverfield suggests that traces of the old Roman plan of laying out estates in rectangular plots (centuriae) bounded by roads or paths may be found in Essex to the west of Colchester, the old Roman town of Camulodunum. The main road northward through Braintree has a straight stretch of twelve miles from Little Waltham to Gosfield. Eight miles to the west, and parallel to the Braintree road; there is another straight stretch of five miles on the road south of Dunmow. Dr. Haverfield thinks it possible that these roads are survivals of the territorium which was bestowed upon Colchester by its founder Claudius, and was doubtless surveyed and laid out in the Roman fashion at the time. The best examples of " centuriation " still existing may be found in the valley of the Po, between Venice and Padua, a large-scale map of which looks like a great chessboard, as our troops in that region have doubtless observed.
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