three hours after noon
They insisted that they were in the right ; all he could say and do would not convince them otherwise . They skirted around Londinium by a street lined widely with tombs , and struck a road leading south and slightly west , which the men , talking among themselves , named the Noviomagus road . Ten miles , and they reached the station known by that name , and here took horse , with Nicanor mounted behind a guard . The road led through the neck of the great forest of Anderida , and came out again into the open , and they followed it until three hours after noon . Then they turned aside into a narrower branch road , and so rode easily for another hour until they entered a grove of ilex trees . To the farther end of this they came abruptly , and saw before them open country , a broad and gentle slope of hill ; and on its summit a great stately house , white-walled , with outbuildings in the copse around it . In the centre of the blank wall of the front of the house which confronted them , was a gateway , with gates of bronze , and a porter 's lodge .