The radio interview

I did a radio interview about the walk with Ian Perry of Radio Shropshire on the morning on 12 May - here.

A few pictures

I have now added a few pictures that illustrate earlier posts.

Completing Phase 1

Not being able to post pictures here has been annoying - not sure why, it's worked from my phone in the past. Now I'm back home I will soon upload a few of the more relevant pictures to the blogs I did each day.

The first phase was always meant to finish at Wroxeter, and that before planning Phase 2. Reflecting on it, I realise that it's actually very difficult to see the Roman road itself. After not being sure, I'm just beginning to think that a roadside cable trench that I saw by Catthorpe, with a layer of evenly graded pebbly stones at one section, might just have been a piece of the real road: a bit more research required, though before confirming that. It is, however, possible still to see the signs of Roman engineering - surprisingly perhaps, best of all in Greater London. I have some further thoughts on Watling Street as a boundary, between the Great Ouse and the Anker. I didn't manage to engage as well as I'd hoped on the relationship between the road and its surrounding landscape. The reuse of the road down the ages is its greatest testament, and there are still the modern names that link back to that past.

Phase 2? Soon, but no date planned yet.        

To Uriconium

Following Watling Street through modern Telford was interesting. The road is essentially still there, but made up of lots of little bits that do not necessarily join up in the modern road network, and involving ducking under one overpass and taking one subway - the latter at Beveley Road, but helpfully labelled as still being Watling Street. The road alignment has changed a little over the years, as this is an area which has been extensively developed and redeveloped since the early industrial revolution.

At Ketley Brook, there is a nice relic of the old Roman Street, where it dives down the valley past one of many Primitive Methodist chapels in the area; Telford built an embankment bypassing this hollow, where Harper commented in 1902 there were many "disreputable houses". Since then a modern roundabout has been built, still using much of Telford's work, while most of those houses have gone and the Seventh Day Adventists now occupy the place of worship.

The White Lion in Ketley is another old inn, dating, according to its exterior, to 1661, so another one which pre-dates even the turnpike era. It isn't quite parallel to the present-day road, which perhaps suggest a shift in the road since the 17th century. The same could be said just below Bennetts Bank where a terrace of early 19th century houses isn't quite in line with the road in front of them, but lines up with the road ahead of me to the West.

Out into the countryside I was able to follow the quieter 'Roman Road' to Burcotgate to find a nice little tollhouse. It looks very much of the same design as Telford's tollhouses through North Wales, although the date of 1835 on it is a little later. From this point, the line of Watling Street leaves the so-called 'Roman Road' to pass along a public footpath, closer to the new A5, through fields over Overley Hill. Margery here commented that the Roman Road was "clearly visible as a slight ridge across the arable fields"; I can only say that he was not, as I was, faced with acres of oilseed rape towering over him. The footpath eventually goes under the A5 by a subway and emerges by Blue Bell House, the name no doubt another relic of an early inn.

I arrived at the Horseshoe Inn. Here Watling Street becomes a narrow lane going straight on to Wroxeter. The larger road swings to the right towards Shrewsbury, and this was Telford's road and where I will rsume Phase 2 of the walk. For now, I went on into Uriconium, the Roman City of Wroxeter. They didn't quite believe me at first when I said I had walked the length of Watling Street from London to get here, but a big welcome once it had sunk in.

 

To Uxacona

Today was mostly walking through a still rural part of Watling Street, less touched by the industrial revolution and modern development. This gave me a chance to look out for what might, in earlier times, have been inns serving travellers.

First off, very soon from my start, was the Four Crosses, an allegedly haunted old inn, dating back at least to 1636: the date is on it. The cleric and author Jonathan Swift was among its clientele. The age of this building would mean it served travellers even before the turnpikes. Attached to it, though, is a later tollhouse: not with the more typical octagonal design, but the wide windowsill for transacting cash gives it away. This is no longer an inn: a pity.

Gailey Wharf has interesting canalside buildings, dedicated more to the canal than the road traveller. The interesting Round House dates to 1805, so would have been here before Telford improved the road. Under the present road bridge, the brick arches of the original canal bridge reveal the earlier dimensions of the road.

At the site of Pennocrucium, there should be another Roman road running south, and one more running almost north-west towards Mediolanum/Whitchurch. As the fields concerned were planted with wheat, I didn't find these.

I did enjoy the elegant Stretton Bridge which carries the A5 over river Penk. Dated to c. 1830, it doesn't seem to have required any widening to carry present-day traffic.

Going back to inns, a house at the end of the Avenue in Stretton must once have been the Crown. Almost opposite, the Bell is still kitted-out as a pub, but not now open.

Thankfully, the Bradford Arms at Ivetsy Bank is still going strong. With a history going back to the 18th century, this pub once stood right at the roadside before motor-age improvememts put a wider road in a cutting below. Landlord Paul Rushton was able tell me something of its history: there is a story of one customer who could not pay his bill, and offered to do a spot of interior decorating instead: a little of his work survives.

Another old inn, the Hare and Hounds, is still in business as Shifnal Cottage, an Indian restaurant.

I passed the site of Uxacona. The name of Pennocrucium survives in Penkridge, albeit in a slightly different place. Does Uxacona give us Oakengates? The books point to the more obvious meaning of 'Oakengates' but I still fancy it's not far off descending from the Roman.

Towards Pennocrucium

I was wrong yesterday to suggest that the stone which had stood at the Watling/Icknield crossroads was a later monument, like that at High Cross. Walking on a little further in Wall today, I read the information board in English Heritage's car park: it really was a Roman milestone.

Another old sign was at the Rising Sun: what was said to be England's oldest finger-post, dated 1777, or rather a replica of it. The Rising Sun itself appears here on old maps, and now gives its name to the junction. There's still a building, but this sun has not risen for some years.

Just after the junction and then a railway bridge, the road changes direction: unusually, not being a summit, valley bottom, or junction. Harper, author of The Holyhead Road (1902), reckoned there was another mile of road continuing onwards on the old alignment. This, he says, is evidence that the road had been built from both directions at the same time. A mistake in surveying led to them joining up at the point where the direction changes, the little section which had gone past that point then being abandoned.

One of my aims for today was to see if I could find this bit. There's a footpath in this general direction at first. Here the line of continuation is marked by a line of trees forming a field boundary: promising at first as a roadway might be a convenient ownership boundary, later acquiring a hedge or fence. As far as I could see, the ground under the trees was a single narrow (hedge-width) ridge, which was not so suggestive of a road. Going further on, the other side of a canal, the line is followed by Gorsey Lane.  This fitted my expectation of a Roman Road: straight, a little wider than usual for a country lane, ditches either side. Then I realised that none of the Watling Street I've seen on this walk has looked much like that, so maybe it's my expectations that are wrong.

Still, I was satisfied that I had found what Harper described, if not persuaded of his explanation.

As well as looking out for old buildings and structures connected with the road, I'm also interested in the modern usage which reflects and celebrates the history. I'm noting the 'street' placenames like Stretton and Streetway, which have a long provenance. The modern street name and postal address for a good proportion of this road is still Watling Street, and I'm also noting several uses of Watling in house and business names.

Earlier in the walk, I had called in at the Roman Way Garden Centre. This evening I am at the Roman Way Hotel. I haven't blogged about where I have eaten or stayed before, because generally these were chosen for practical support of the journey: where they were, not how they were. In the case of this hotel, I wanted to come here because, unlike, say, the garden centre, it celebrates the Roman theme in more than just the name. There is classical inspired architecture, exterior and interior decoration - although the hotel fare generally is fairly standard. It dates to 1990 - MCMXC as a mosaic at reception declares - and has seen better days. Still, I'm impressed they make the effort.

To Letocetum

Setting off from Atherstone, I was soon passing through what one of my earlier authors called a colliery landscape. No collieries now of course, but many brick buildings from that era, suggesting that little along this road had developed until the late 19th century.

The curiously-named Hall End Hall in Dordon was an exception, and then the Queens Head Inn in Wilnecote. Unlike so many others, it's good to see this delightful old pub still trading, although once again I had arrived too early in the day to benefit. My lunch was taken instead at the side of the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.

As the old road is by-passed and becomes quieter towards Hints and Weeford, I found three substantial cast-iron milestones. They appeared three of a kind, so it's odd apparently only one is listed, something else to follow up.

 As I got close to Wall, I tried to follow the course of the Roman road past Lawton Grange. My map shows a public footpath here, somehow improbably crossing both the railway and the dualled A5 to continue towards Manor Farm. The people at Lawton Grange were certain that there was no longer any such path. I doubled back and picked up the path to Manor Farm on the other side of the main road. In this field is the crossing point with Icknield Street. There used to be a stone to mark the crossing: not contemporary Roman, perhaps something like the monument at High Cross. It's marked on early Ordnance Survey maps. Anyway, it's not there now.

Wall is parsimoniously named after an obvious feature that didn't require archaeologists to find it, like a big step in the field by Ashcroft Lane. This is now known to be part of later defences, like the burgus at Mancetter. Going into the village, it's then possible to see in open air some excavated earlier buildings of the Roman town of Letocetum. It was great to see these, although I was surprised to have been the only visitor, for the hour I was there on this fine spring afternoon.

 

To Manduessudum

The first place of note today was Stretton Baskerville: somewhere named for being on the Street. Although naming a present-day parish, it isn't really a place any more, as this is the name of an abandoned medieval village. I didn't go looking for it (beyond peering over hedges) as the main site is two fields away from the road and there would only have been a few humps and bumps.

There a lots of abandoned villages here and there, but quite a few along the line of Watling Street. I wonder if the reasons I speculated about yesterday, about people not wanting to settle on the Street where it was a border, also left people to abandon settlements already there? There are a number of reasons why places might have been abandoned, and chief among them were plagues. Infection spread by travellers on the road might be another reason.

Fortunately I had a footway most of the way today, because more modern towns have grown up towards the A5, although still on side or another. Crossing Change Brook, the road is embanked over the stream. A car sales place on the right has many new buildings, but at its heart what might have been a roadside inn, its ground floor lower than the road. I must research this further when I'm finished walking.

One inn with a long history and which is still going is the Royal Redgate, the name indicative that it stood at a turnpike. I was hoping to call in, but arrived before opening time (noon) and wanted to get on.

At Mancetter I arrived at The Bull, a closed pub looking for new owners.

It sits within a rectangular fortification. Here is a visible bit of Roman remains, but it's not all of it. This a 4th century (i.e. fairly late) 'burgus'. I met up with Judy Vero of the Atherstone Civic Society, and we walked through fields towards river Anker, passing through the site of a marching camp, the earliest Roman presence. Then, crossing the river, and with the aid of a leaflet which Judy had given me, I wandered around the present vilkage of Mancetter, where the Roman fort had been. Unlike some other remains I've seen, there are few signs of ditches or ramparts that can be disentangled from natural slopes and later civil engineering, and the present streets don't follow a rectilinear pattern. There have been small excavations at various spots as opportunities arose, enabling the original fort to be traced. This is a tribute to the work of amateur and professional archaeologists, and to the Civic Society who have informations boards at key points.

Returning to the A5, I crossed the river again and came into Atherstone, an historic town with more old inns, Georgian buildings, and a milestone: 100 miles to London. I'm back to a town centred on the road, and a high street either side along it. It also has the signs pointing to Holyhead in one direction and London in the other: one of my original inspirations for this walk.

Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day; I'll resume on Tuesday.

Tripontium, Venonis

Resuming along the byway I had left last night, I enjoyed a little more of the off-road Watling Street.

Then it was a hard slog along the A5 trunk road all the way.

This was made the more uncomfortable by there still being no footway, the grass verge uneven in places and occasionally overgrown, overhanging blackthorn and hawthorn a particular problem.

Another reason for this lack is that the road doesn't pass through any villages, to some extent an observation also applicable yesterday. When I walked through Middlesex and Hertfordshire, I passed through a succession of villages with an old church on or close to the road, and a line of old inns and shops strung along the road. The demands of modernity meant the A5 was taken round a bypass.

However, since I crossed the Great Ouse on leaving Stony Stratford, I have been walking along the Watling Street which formed the border between the Anglo-Saxons the Danes. People wouldn't have wanted to live on a border, where they might be unsure whose law applied, or might be at risk from border skirmishes. The settlement pattern established then was for villages to be one side or another, churches often visible but some way off, and the road as parish boundary. This pattern has survived unchanged to this day. For much of the territory covered today, I had Warwickshire on my left and Leicestershire on my right, as the county boundary, too, follows the road.

I got to the site of Cave's Inn (prop. Edward Cave, c. 1680), previously the site of Holywell Priory, and much earlier, the Roman station Tripontium. It gives its name to a nearby business park, which is nice.

And then High Cross, the crossroads with the Fosse Way, and Roman station Venonis. The monument here, put up in 1712 by the Earl of Denbigh supported by the magistrates of both counties, celebrates the junction and the nearby tomb of a Roman commander. The tomb has disappeared and the monument hasn't done so well either, nearly destroyed by lightning in 1792 and much-adorned by graffiti since.

Despite the crossroads, the Romans didn't leave much behind at Venonis. The equivalent junction of diagonal-running roads had moved to Smockington, my next calling point, by the 17th century. Ogilby's Leicester road crossed here, and Celia Fiennes passed by on horseback in 1698, when it had commodious inns. Harper, visiting in 1902, harked back to the coaching age, and until the 1970s the staggered junction here was with the A46 trunk road.

There is little sign of anything here now that might suggest the service of travellers: just a farm and three houses. The house at Smockington Hollow has a Georgian doorway and could be the former Greyhound inn.

Nowhere for me to stay at Venonis or Smockington: my destination was at the present-day equivalent junction with the M69.

To Bannaventa (and beyond)

My route today as far as Weedon was along the Old Stratford to Dunchurch road, first turnpiked in 1706, and as improved by Telford for the Holyhead Road. I was still seeing the pattern of grand cuttings through hills and banks over dales, with just here and there signs of something even older.

First was just after Geese Bridge, where the present-day road, as did the turnpike, curves to the right as it goes uphill in a cutting, rejoining the alignment of the road before the bridge. The parish boundary, which around here generally seems to follow Watling Street, went straight up the hill, which is a good sign that this was the old course of the road. Looking up the hill, it was neither accessible nor promising, so I passed that by, and carried along the A5.

Shortly afterwards, there is another well-documented separation, by Anthem (formerly called Heyford Grange). Before the junction with Furnace Lane, the platform of the older road can be seen abutting the present boundary on the right, then ought to continue along the access road to Anthem. There, Sam Burling kindly allowed me to go into their field beyond, and see what Margary had called "a fine piece of the original agger". A sign nearby warns that the site is protected, and may no longer be ploughed.

On, then, to Weedon, where the turnpike turned left to Daventry. Even on Ogilby's strip map, before the turnpike age, the Holyhead road went this way, although he also noted 'the street'. The present A5 follows Watling Street straight on, and that's my route. The difference in the road was immediately apparent: although there are marks of regradings and straightenings here and there, there is nothing of the systematic work on gradients I had seen earlier. Also, I have been able to walk on a footway all the way from Marble Arch to Weedon; from Weedon onwards I was on a grass verge. It's not that Telford & co provided a footway; they just built a highway of generous enough proportions to allow modern engineers to add the footway when it was called for.

I came to Bannaventa, knowing where to find it because it's been excavated and documented. There's nothing to see, not even a plaque.

Passing through Watford Gap, it's been very busy with Watling Street, Grand Union Canal, West Coast main line railway and M1 all squeezing through, crossing each other as their different engineering specifications determine. Despite this, where the A5 veers west to go into Kilsby, the original Watling Street is preserved as a byway. Margary thought this little more than a derelict green lane, but I was rather impressed with frequent signs of cobbling. This wouldn't be Roman, but may suggest continuing use of the way; early maps show this track co-existing with the road through Kilsby now followed by the A5. As I'm staying in Kilsby, I left the old road at a bridleway into the village, but will rejoin the byway tomorrow.

To Lactodurum

Just as the Turnpike roads had overlain the Roman, so the 1960s development of Milton Keynes has tended to hide what was there before. So I had to duck down underpasses and follow a few winding pedestrian/cycle paths to track a rather uniform-looking Watling Street. Except that here it's called 'V4 Watling Street'. And then later what's called London Road is the old road, and the big parallel road now called V4 etc, isn't.

Despite all this, there are some delightful remnants even within the modern conurbation of Milton Keynes. Soon after I started in Fenny Stratford was this timbered building with jettied upper floor: 16th or 17th century? Then, on that London Road in Loughton parish, the thatched 16th century Fountain Inn. I was so pleased I decided to have breakfast here.

Stony Stratford is another town full of impressive former coaching inns. Some had signs so far across the highway that I found myself wondering how they fitted trams underneath - until reminding myself that the tramway I'd just read about wasn't the electric kind.

I stopped off at the Roman Way Garden Centre. I had seen this place many years ago, and it had struck me how the modern commonplace can still respect the historical. Only shortly after that, I came across a pub now called 'The Old Talbot' which I had not expected to find (apparently it's a recent change of management and name). Calling in to find out more, by good fortune I was introduced to David Marks, another history enthusiast, for a good chat.

The turnpike road now resumed its pattern of embankments and cuttings, although not always as pronounced as yesterday. Harper, who seems to have cycled his Holyhead Road, drew attention to Telford's banking at Cuttle Mill which had eased his journey. Here, Telford seems to have deviated slightly from the older road, and parts of that earlier line have been enhanced by work done by the architectural salvage business now on this site.

The road eventually brought this weary traveller into Towcester, or Lactodurum. David Wilcock of the local history society showed me round the Roman boundaries, and many aspects of later history. It was a boundary town between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, and again in the English

Civil War. Later, its position on Watling Street and close to the centre of the country gave it strategic importance in communication.

To Magiovinium

I started this morning with John Buckledee and Hugh Garrod, stalwarts of the Dunstable and District Local History Society, who introduced me to a few of Dunstable's historic buildings. I saw the Priory church, the medieval undercroft to the mostly Georgian heritage centre, and a number of grand and

not-so-grand inns and former inns. The Roman site of Durocobrivis is known to be hereabouts from the Antonine Itinerary, but the actual site is unknown, probably somewhere under modern Dunstable. John told me that a recent shopping centre development found Roman wells, now throwing light on this.

We left Dunstable (before parting company) through the chalk cutting in the  Chiltern escarpment, then down the even more impressive embankment leading up to it from the vale below. All this was done without any mechanical diggers, and completed in 1813. It looks like Telford had a hand in it.

And this led into what was to become the main theme for today's walk, namely the development of the turnpike roads, in this case largely on the Roman line, and travel by stage coach. This route was first turnpiked in the 18th century. In the 1810s, when Thomas Telford was comissioned to improve the London to Holyhead road, he upgraded existing turnpikes across England. We'll come to Wales later in this blog.

Telford was charged with speeding up journey times from London to Holyhead, the connection to Dublin. He was fairly obsessed with gradients. It wasn't just that chalk cutting: in this undulating country, just about every hill on my route today had the summit reduced by a cutting, the material then used to bank up the dips, all alleviating the gradients, speeding up the coaches. You hardly notice it passing by car, but walking gave me the time to observe.

This was designed for the stage-coach, not motor vehicles, the coaches' requirements having been stricter. At one point between Dunstable and Hockliffe I could see the ages of the civil engineering: a late 20th century retaining wall, two courses of mortared blocks, probably allowing a footway widening, but a massive revetment behind made up of unmortared sandstone blocks. It's done its job for 200 years.

Hockliffe was once nicknamed Hockley-in-ye-Hole, because it was wet and muddy on the valley bottom. Wagons and coaches would get stuck here. Harper, author of 'The Holyhead Road' (1902), comments approvingly of Telford having done away with those difficulties by his embanking of the road. It's actually quite subtle: the roadway at Brook House is about 1.5m higher than the ground level of the house, which must be where road used to be. This would have raised the road above the flood level of the brook, but actually required a lot less earth-moving than some of the other banks I saw.

One of the most impressive old coaching inns on the whole route is the former White Horse at Hockliffe, dating to the 17th century but has some older wood carvings. Although the property is on the market, it's been a family home for 40 years.  I spoke briefly to Elizabeth Stray who told me the old wood carvings, once on the outside of the building, are now more securely preserved indoors.

Little Brickhill is another old village of former coaching inns, which had distinguished early 19th century guests including Princess Victoria and the first Marquess of Anglesey. It held county assizes as early as 1443. Harper in 1902 described it as "a charming old world place"; more has been built since then.

All this turnpike-era civil engineering would have obliterated the Roman road, but the literature says the Roman road after leaving Little Brickhill is tucked behind Model Farm; the turnpike took a slightly different route. I may be imagining it, but I thought I found what I've been looking for today, in the form of a raised agger, with two parallel ditches.

I reached Magiovinium: near Dropshort Farm, Fenny Stratford. There's been a lot of archaeological excavation here, and we know exactly where the site was. It's not one of those sites where I could actually see anything.

Towards Durocobrivis

Today's walk included more looking for the Roman road where it isn't under the present road. First off was on leaving St Michael's in St Albans, where the OS map has a dotted line close to, but not exactly on, Gorhambury Drive. The Roman road author Margary said a hint of the agger ought to be visible: some wishful thinking required here. Olgilby's map has the 17th century road on this side of the valley too,  and it was only Telford's improvement which moved the turnpike to the east side side as far as Bow Bridge. Only after that bridge, tracking back, could I find a trace, nothing to see in fields.

Redbourn is a nice little place, although unfortunately the museum wasn't open today. Lots of old inns, mostly no longer in that use. Billy Ryan, landlord of the George which dates back to 1589 at least,  showed me his cellars. He's only recently taken over, and hopes to

find out more about the history.

Friars Wash is the location of a Time Team Roman villa excavation, and isn't - as I had earlier hoped - where friars washed the feet of weary travellers in the ford. An earlier name was Fly's Wash: still don't know why.  What I did get here was a picture of what I think could be a quarry-pit to get road metalling. The road is numbered A5 again from the motorway junction here, but I left it almost immediately to follow 'Old Watling Street', now a minor road, over the hill.

Leland in the 16th century described Markyate (or Market/Markyate Street as it was) as a "straggling roadside settlement". To Pevsner in the 20th it was an "exceptionally pretty village street". I wondered how I would find it today. The Sun Inn, dating back to Leland's time, might be the one thing both observers had in common. It looks fairly derelict now, a peer inside suggesting some historic features still. Overall, the village today wasn't as impressive as Redbourn or Frogmore.

After Markyate, I once again tried to find the off-road Watling Street. Very complicated here, with the modern bypass cutting through a platform of the earlier road. That was probably still there when Margary wrote of the Roman phase being on a different line again, past Manor Farm. This ought then to follow on up Lynch Hill, where the A5 (and earlier turnpike) went rightwards. I wandered around the line of this by various paths and lanes. I did see three possible quarry pits, but not much else.

Then Dunstable. I'm staying at the southern end, so haven't got as far as where Durocobrvis should have been. More of that tomorrow.

To Verulamium

Early start, partly to give me some scope to shelter from forecast showers, partly to get more time to look round St Albans. It kept fairly dry, so I had plenty of time to spare later.

After Elstree, I was able to wander round a roadside copse where Viatores reckoned a ridge showed the original Roman road. I can't say it was obvious. Then the Waggon & Horses, "established 1471", but, like the Cock yesterday, it was a bit too early in the day to ask them about that.

Breakfast, yes breakfast, in Radlett, a prosperous place with some very attractive buildings. Frogmore similarly is aligned along the road with some good old buildings, and remains of a ford next to the river bridge.

Entering St Albans the present-day roads leave the original Roman one, but the line of the agger can be seen across a golf course. Then it enters Verulamium proper, with some walls remaining above ground level and the overall street plan vaguely suggested by humps and bumps. As you might expect, I've visited a few Roman sites, but this open park gives the best idea of the scale of a Roman town. Very excited, too, to see reused Roman bricks (and a few columns?) in the tower of the Abbey.

Had a good look round the City in the afternoon.

Sorry, but still no pictures in this blog - still doesn't work on this phone after switching off and on, uninstalling and reinstalling app, etc.. Twitter pics OK and may have to update this after getting home.