It's fairly well-documented archaeologically that, following the decline of the Roman Empire, local populations took great advantage of abandoned Roman Imperial structures to loot ready-dressed stonework for their own building needs. Certainly by the 6th Century, even the Roman roads in areas of Britain were being looted for stone. This doesn't mean, however, that people didn't mourn the loss; the famous poem The Ruin from the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book is a paean to the fallen glory of the Roman Empire's architectural achievements.

By the 8th and 9th centuries, however, the process was in reverse and the preservation and reconstruction of Roman buildings became increasingly important as national security, religious and economic priorities shifted, and the pursuit of Romanitas in all things became critically politically important. By the 8th Century, Offa of Mercia was mandating the trimoda necessitas throughout his kingdom which included the maintenance of bridges and the Roman road network. The Burghal Hidage shows us that by the late ninth century, Alfred of Wessex's burh network had restored the Roman walls at Canterbury, London, Exeter and Rochester as well as refortifying a number of smaller Roman sites such as Cynuit in Somerset.

Æthelflæd of Mercia's restoration of the Roman city of Chester was celebrated in coins, and the city used by several English kings as a showcase of English political power throughout the tenth century.