8 History of Inland Transport 



Britain and the Continent because Tacitus alludes to a 

 British prince who had amassed great wealth by transporting 

 metals from the Mendips to the Channel coast ; but our main 

 consideration is the evidence we get of the fact that Britain's 

 earliest roads appear to have owed their origin to the develop- 

 ment of Britain's earliest trade. 



Two, at least, of the four great roads to which the designation 

 " Roman " has been applied followed, in Mr Tylor's opinion, 

 the line of route already established by the Britons under the 

 conditions here indicated. Certain it is that, although the 

 Romans always aimed at building their roads in straight lines, 

 and troubled little about ascents and descents, they followed 

 the British plan of keeping the routes to high and dry ground, 

 whenever practicable, in order to have a better chance of 

 avoiding alike the woods, the bogs, the clays, the water- 

 courses and the rivers. 



Skilled road-builders though they were, the Romans shrank, 

 in several instances, Pearson tells us, from " the tremendous 

 labour of clearing a road through a forest where the trees must 

 be felled seventy yards on either side to secure them from the 

 arrows of a lurking foe." Thus the great military roads 

 marked in the Itinerary of Antonine always, if possible, 

 avoided passing through a forest. The roads to Chichester 

 went by Southampton in order to avoid the Andred-Weald 

 of Sussex, and the road from London to Bath did not take 

 the direct route to Wallingford because, in that case, it would 

 have required to pass through twenty miles of forest in 

 Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Later on, however, as 

 the Roman rule became more firmly established, the making 

 of roads through forests became unavoidable, and much 

 destruction of timber followed, while the fact that the trees 

 thus felled were left to rot on the ground alongside the roads 

 helped to create the quagmires and " mosses " which were 

 to be so great a source of trouble to road-makers in future 

 generations. 



As regards the routes taken by the Roman roads, Mr. Tylor 

 says : 



" The Romans made a complete system of permanent 

 inland roads to connect the Continent with the military posts, 

 London, York, Colchester, Chester, Uriconium, Gloucester, 

 Winchester, Silchester, Porchester and Brading, and chief 



