ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Combining these evidences, let us attempt to sketch the Roman 

 roads in Northamptonshire. We shall find that they fall under two 

 heads, the great highway, Watling Street, which crosses the western part 

 of the country, and the other highway, Ermine Street, which crosses its 

 eastern end. We shall find a few branches, or probable branches, of 

 these two. But we shall not find branches joining the two main roads. 

 So far as we know, Roman Northamptonshire possessed no means of 

 communication from east to west, from end to end. Its area was not in 

 Roman days a unity demanding such a road. 



(i) The western route, Watling Street, requires few words. Its 

 course is certain. Almost the whole of it is still in use : often it forms 

 a parish or county boundary ; its name is attested in terriers and charters 

 far older than the Norman Conquest.^ The Itinerary ' stations,' as we 

 have already seen, can be identified easily with existing remains, and the 

 distances between these remains agree with the mileage of the Itinerary. 

 If we place Magiovinium near Fenny Stratford, Lactodorum at Tow- 

 cester, Bannaventa near Norton, Tripontium near Cave's Inn, Catthorpe, 

 and Venonae at High Cross, we obtain an admirable and unusual har- 

 mony between our written and our archseological evidence. According 

 to Bridges, the road was specially notable in his day close to Watford 

 Gap, where the bank (if we are to believe him) was 15 feet high.^ At 

 the present day the best preserved bit is perhaps near to Kilsby railway 

 station, in two fields between the road from Crick to Rugby and the 

 road from Kilsby to Lutterworth. 



Two minor roads seem to join Watling Street in our county area. 

 One may be called a certain road, though no traces of it now exist 

 within the county. This is a road which can be traced clearly enough 

 from the Roman site at Alchester, near Bicester, running north-east as 

 far as Stowe Park; beyond that it is now no longer visible, but it must 

 have joined Watling Street at or near Towcester. The other is less 

 certain. From the Roman site at Duston (p. 197) an existing road 

 running westwards past Nobottle (Newbottle) towards Norton (p. 186) 

 on Watling Street. It is, for a good distance, an old road and a straight 

 road, and may well be Roman. 



(2) The roads in the east of the county require more notice. The 

 archsological evidence is, on the whole, adequate to our needs, but the 

 roads are more numerous than in the west of the county and less easy to 

 understand, while the written evidence relating to them (the text of the 

 Antonine Itinerary) is singularly puzzling. 



First, there is Ermine Street, to explain which we must start out- 

 side the county. Two roads, which may fairly be considered to be 

 Roman, the one from Brayling and the south, the other from Cambridge 

 and the south-east, meet at Godmanchester. From thence we can trace 

 the Roman road, still in full use and bearing the ancient name of Ermine 



• The oldest form was perhaps Wacling, not Watling (W. H. Stevenson). 

 2 Bridges, i. 585. 



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