At the opening of the fourteenth century Colchester preserved the four-square features of its Roman origins. The walls of the ancient colonia enclosed a rectangular area of 109 acres, and inside the gates the main thoroughfares formed a T-shape more or less aligned with the principal Roman streets. The trunk of the T, the modern High Street, was unambiguously the town centre. From its highest point at Cornhill down to the church of St Nicholas it was wide enough to contain the markets for grain, dairy produce, poultry, fish and meat. Despite the inevitable noise and dirt this was a residential street, and some of the best stone-built accommodation in the town was to be found there. On its northern side stood the Norman moothall where sessions of the borough courts were held and where town revenues were collected. The walled area was also the ecclesiastical heart of Colchester; eight of the twelve urban parish churches were built there, two of them beside the high street, and one of them in the middle of it surrounded by stalls. It was supposed that Colchester had been King Coel's capital city, and that the defences had been first built either by him or by his daughter St Helen. For all that, the convenience of the walls as a source of building stone had not been overlooked, and they were consequently in too poor a state of repair to be considered any longer as effective fortifications.