These include foundations under the crossing and south transept of the Cathedral. Early buildings on the site incorporated materials, or ""spolia"", removed from nearby Roman sites, such as the former town of Durobrivae, or possibly the very large villa at Castor. Such "spolia" have also been identified in the foundations of later Anglo-Saxon structures on the site. Five hundred years after the event, Hugh Candidus wrote that when work on the church commenced, Sexwulf "laid as its foundations some great stones, so mighty that eight yoke of oxen could scarcely draw any of them", and claimed that Sexwulf and his colleagues were "striving to build no commonplace structure, but a second Rome, or a daughter of Rome in England". This is reminiscent of Wilfrid's actions at Hexham.