278 South Wilts in Roviano-British Times. 



Bishop of Salisbury appeared in Wilts Arch. Mag., xxv., 191, with 

 special attention to the roads. These have been treated with 

 greater detail by Mr. Codrington in a recent monograph.^ 



The main road in this neighbourhood which he deals with is one 

 which is well known, and led from Old Sarum to the Bristol 

 Channel through Grovely and Great Eidge Wood. To it we shall 

 return later. But the Bishop of Salisbury, following Hoare,- 

 suggests another road from Old Sarum and Bath, first across the 

 downs to Stapleford, then along the Wylye Valley. " A station 

 on this road must have Ijeen at Boreham, near Warminster ; and 

 at Pitmead, near it, remains of two villas have been found." This 

 is the road which Mr. Daniell^ traces from Bath to Old Sarum, 

 skirting Warminster on the north, then along Woodcock Lane, 

 through the fields of Boreham Farm and the grounds behind 

 Bishopstrow House. It is the view of these three authorities 

 that I propose to consider. Hoare looked for a Roman station at 

 Middleton, in the parish of Norton Bavant ; and though by 

 digging he could not trace one just at Middleton, he found it at 

 "The Buries," in Bishopstrow, about four furlongs south of his 

 line. But that is quite away from Daniell's road, " behind 

 Bishopstrow House," and it is impossible to bring them into one 

 line. 



Now we may certainly accept the existence of communication 

 between Bath and Warminster, possibly owing something to 

 Eoman influence (for instance, some Bath freestone was used in 

 the Eoman villa at Bishopstrow), but from the fact that the name 

 of a British deity, Sul, is found at Bath, we may be sure that the 

 springs were used before the Roman period, and hence probably 

 there were roads thither in earlier times. But there is no Roman 

 road from Warminster to Bath, in the sense in which the term is 

 generally used, that is, a paved and engineered road. And thei'e 

 is certainly no evidence that it ever ran along the valley from 



' Roman Roads in Britain, by T. Codrington. S.P.C.K. 1903. 5*. 



- Ancient Wilts, II., 108 ; Murray's Wilts, p. 149. 



•^ History of Warminster, p. 4. 



