Roman roads in Britain
One of the great benefits to Britain of the Roman occupation was the network of roads which they left behind them, a total of some 53,000 miles altogether. Of these the greatest were the Fosse Way, from Exeter north-east to Lincoln; Watling Street, from London north-west to Wroxeter and Chester; and Ermine Street from London to Lincoln.The country was much less-densely populated and, in the main, the Romans were able to build straight roads from one town to another, though sensibly they did avoid marshes and hills where possible, and chose suitable crossing points on rivers.The main purpose for this massive road-building work was to enable the troops to move rapidly from one part of the country to another. For this reason the roads were wide, at least 3 metres wide on major routes,with a drainage ditch and then a cleared area on each side so that there was less risk of attack from highway robbers.
Where are these roads?
There are many remains of the Roman roads throughout the country, even today. Here are just a few of them!- The Roman road from Winchester to Old Sarum (Salisbury) is clearly marked right across the map, (Location: SU391297).
- The main A35 entering Dorchester from the west is labelled Roman road (grid ref 666904). This road continues eastwards and is marked with a dotted line through Stinsford to Tolpuddle. marked at ref 730923 as "Roman road". Other Roman roads are shown going towards Dorchester from Weymouth and Bradford Peverell. This was obviously an important Roman city, (Location: SY666904).
- From the west-south-west the A120 near Coggeshall follows the line of the Roman Stane Street (which means Stone Street: its paved surface marked it out from other local tracks which would have been beaten soil) to Colchester. Several modern roads running out of Colchester began as Roman roads - see also refs: TM031307; ref. TL978307. This was an important Roman city like Dorchester, (Location: TL872231).
- This is Watling Street between the towns of Cannock and Telford. It ran from Dover to London and on to Wroxeter, (Location: SJ746109).
- this is Stanegate, ("gate" being the Viking word for "street"), the Roman road which runs across the country just south of Hadrian's Wall. Nearby on the map you will find a vast number of other signs of Roman occupation including forts, milecastles and turrets. At Grid reference NY800693 you will see marked the site of the Roman "vallum", two wide defensive earth banks with a flat-bottomed ditch in between - think of how much soil was moved in the construction of all these, (Location: NY738660).
How were the roads constructed?
Construction of such long and major roads involved moving a lot of soil. First the whole width of the road would be dug out by hand, using spades and ploughs. This trench would go down to bedrock or firm sub-soil. In areas where there was little depth of soil, the road would be constructed on a raised causeway. It was then filled with several layers of rock, stone, gravel then sand - using whatever was available. This was firmly compacted at each layer and thus a strong road was built up. In towns it was often topped by cobbles or paving stones. The surface was cambered to allow rainwater to drain off into the ditch.Do any of these roads still remain?
A surprising amount of Roman road is still used today by modern roads, though some stretches have totally disappeared. There are very few places, however, where the original surface can still be seen.Much of the line of the Fosse Way, Watling Street and Ermine Street remained the route of our main roads until the construction of modern motorways replaced them as major routes. Look at a motoring atlas of Britain and you will be able to see the line of these important Roman routes. If you then study an Ordnance Survey map, you may well find many smaller, now-vanished Roman roads marked as a dotted line. At the same time see if you can find the site of a Roman villa marked close to the old road.