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.