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.