This masonry is wondrous; fates broke it;

courtyard pavements were smashed; the work of giants is decaying.

Roofs are fallen, ruinous towers, the frosty gate with frost on cement is ravaged,chipped roofs are torn, fallen, undermined by old age.

The grasp of the earth possesses the mighty builders, perished and fallen, the hard grasp of earth, until a hundred generations of people have departed.

This is the introduction to 'The Ruin', a poem from the 10th Century Exeter Book, although likely written long before that, and thought to be a eulogy for the Roman temple-bath house of Aqua Sulis in Bath. 'The Ruin' is infused with a melancholy that these long-abandoned buildings may never be rivalled by contemporary builders, but this is not necessarily the case.

The extent to which a Roman building may survive into the Anglo-Saxon period depended greatly on its location and its wider utility. As a prime example, the vast agricultural villa complexes which had been commonplace in rural Britannia were out of place in the communal agricultural systems of the Anglo-Saxons, both in early infield-outfield systems, and later systems of field rotation. Serving no greater function, many of these sites were abandoned or actively plundered for worked stone for more small-scale local construction.

Although the author of 'The Ruin' mourned the loss of such an impressively complex like the temple-bath of Minerva Sulis, Bath itself was a fairly important West Saxon military site due to its bridge over the River Avon, and in the 9th century had a significant garrison as well as the fortified bridge and outer works. Bathing in the Roman fashion had fallen largely out of fashion - not only did the whole process depend upon an army of slaves, but the baths themselves were considered unhygienic and distasteful compared to making use of a nearby river - but a small 10th Century bath house was actually established among the remains of the earlier temple complex, and indeed remains today.

Far more relevant to the English was Roman infrastructure, in particular bridges, roads and fortifications. The Trimoda Necessitas which appear as frequent conditions in land charters explicitly require landowners to make available manpower for the continued maintenance of the road network and the bridges. Major Roman roads such as Watling Street remained prominent economic and military routes throughout the Early Medieval period. Many English towns had kept their Roman walls, which provided vital recourse during the Viking wars of the 9th century. Canterbury, Rochester and Exeter are all saved from invasion due to the continued maintenance of their Roman defences. In 886, Alfred restores the Roman defences of London, and moves the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Lundenwic inside them. In 907, Æthelred and Æthelflæd of Mercia completely restore the city of Chester, which had previously been an abandoned ruin. They celebrate this vast achievement through the minting of a series of celebratory coin issues, which are themselves based on Roman celebratory coinage of architectural achievements. Within a few years, Chester becomes one of the most significant economic and military sites in the entire kingdom of England, and is widely held to be a particularly impressive site. King Edgar purposefully holds a diplomatic meeting with Irish and Scottish kings in the city in order to awe them with the wealth and power of the English, in their ability to restore such a site.