the use of the wagon, that great destroyer of the road, was but little
known. The horse was the chief conveyor of burthen among the Britons,
and for centuries after: if we, therefore, consider the great length of
time it would take for the rains to form these deep ravages, we must
place the origin of Birmingham, at a very early date.

One of these subterranean passages, in part filled up, will convey its
name to posterity in that of a street, called Holloway-head, 'till
lately the way to Bromsgrove and to Bewdley, but not now the chief road
to either. Dale-end, once a deep road, has the same derivation. Another
at Summer-hill, in the Dudley road, altered in 1753. A remarkable one is
also between the Salutation and the Turnpike, in the Wolverhampton road.
A fifth at the top of Walmer-lane, changed into its present form in
1764. Another between Gosta-green and Aston-brook, reduced in 1752.

All the way from Dale-end to Duddeston, of which Coleshill-street now
makes a part, was sunk five or six feet, though nearly upon a flat,
'till filled up in 1756 by act of Parliament: but the most singular is
that between Deritend and Camp-hill, in the way to Stratford, which is,
even now, many yards below the banks; yet the seniors of the last age
took a pleasure in telling us, they could remember when it would have
buried a wagon load of hay beneath its present surface.

Thus the traveller of old, who came to purchase the produce of
Birmingham, or to sell his own, seemed to approach her by sap.

British traces are, no doubt, discoverable in the old Dudley-road, down
Easy-hill, under the canal; at the eight mile-stone, and at Smethwick:
also in many of the private roads near Birmingham, which were never
thought to merit a repair, particularly at Good-knaves-end, towards