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.