A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



ROADS 



One of the first duties of the Romans in the occupation of this country 

 was to provide for easy communication to all parts of it by the construction 

 of roads. In doing this they connected the principal tribal towns they found 

 already established, and formed posting stations at convenient distances 

 between them. With regard to the roads of the Romano-British period, the 

 sources of information available are of two kinds, written and archaeological. 

 The archaeological evidence is supplied by actual remains such as Roman 

 milestones or ancient metalling, and occasionally by the persistent straightness 

 with which a still existing track runs from one Roman site to another. 

 The chief written evidence is the Itinerarium Antonini^ a Roman road-book 

 which gives the distances and ' stations ' along various routes in the empire. 

 Its exact age is uncertain, though it is supposed to have been written about 

 A.D. 320. Its accuracy is by no means unfailing, and it is more useful in 

 showing that a road proceeded in a particular direction than in testifying its 

 precise course and the exact sites of the stations along it. Two of the 

 Itinerary routes (Itin. vi and viii) passed through Leicestershire, on the same 

 road from north to south, and one (Iter ii) along the south-western border 

 of the county. These follow the line of two well-known and indisputably 

 Roman roads the Wading Street and the Fosse Way. 



1. Watling Street is the name in use since Saxon times to describe the 

 Roman road which ran north-west from London, past Verulam (St. Albans) 

 to Viroconium (Wroxeter) (part of Iter ii of Antonine). The course of the 

 Watling Street in general is certain, and not least in Leicestershire, where it 

 forms the boundary between this county and Warwickshire. 1 It enters from 

 the south, crosses the Avon at the place called Tripontium in the Itinerary 

 (Shawell and Cave's Inn), proceeds from there to Venonae (High Cross), 

 where it is crossed by the Fosse Way. Thence it continues to Manduessedum 

 (Witherley and Mancetter), where it crosses the River Anker and leaves the 

 county. 



2. The Fosse is the name used since Saxon times for the roads or series 

 of roads which ran from Lincoln through Leicester, Cirencester, and Bath 

 into the west. Its general course is no less certain than that of Watling 

 Street. 2 The Fosse enters Leicestershire from the south-west, out of War- 

 wickshire, at Venonae (High Cross), where it crosses Watling Street, and 

 proceeds north-east to Ratae (Leicester), passing Narborough and Whetstone, 

 where Roman remains have been found, and crosses the River Soar at Lang- 

 ham Bridge. It is once or twice lost in fields, though traces of the road are 

 generally visible, and merges into the present Leicester and Narborough road 

 3^ miles from Leicester. It is conjectured that the Fosse crossed the Soar 

 again at Bow Bridge, continued by the causeway now known as King 

 Richard's Road, entered the city by the West Gate 8 (Jewry Wall), passed 

 along what is now High Street, and left by the East Gate (Humberstone 

 Gate), following the course of the present road to Melton Mowbray, as far as 



1 Haverfield, in V.C.H. Wane, i, 242-3. ' Ibid, i, 243. 



* Codrington, Raman Roads in Britain, 252 ; Journ. Brit. Jrcb. dssoc. vii. 269-74. 



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