ROMANO-BRITISH WARWICKSHIRE 



Archceological Association^ 1877 (xxxiii. 281), alludes vaguely to Roman 

 coins as ' found lately in Kenilworth.' 



With this inadequate notice we end our meagre list. Doubtless 

 there was never much villa life in Roman Warwickshire, but the care- 

 lessness of modern men has made that little seem even less. 



5. ROADS 



Romano-British Warwickshire, as we have described it, can hardly 

 have required many roads for its internal communications. But the 

 position of the county in the midlands is such that almost all who 

 wish to cross our island from south to north from London or Bristol 

 to Lincoln or Derby or Chester must necessarily touch at least its 

 borders. Accordingly three roads will here concern us : Watling Street, 

 the Fosse, and the Rycknield or Icknield Street. There are also some 

 branch roads, and some supposed roads which probably are not real. 

 We commence with the Rycknield or Icknield Street, because it 

 requires a somewhat longer discussion than the rest. 



(a) NORTH AND SOUTH ROAD THROUGH ALCESTER 



By Rycknield Street * I mean the Roman road, or perhaps the 

 continuous series of roads, which runs from the north past Derby, Lich- 

 field, Birmingham and Alcester to join the Fosse at Bourton-on-the- 

 Water. The Warwickshire parts of this route are easily traceable, and 

 are still largely in use as field-track or road, except in and near the town 

 of Birmingham. It is perhaps worth adding that its line scarcely ever 

 coincides with a parish or county boundary. Its course from north to 

 south is briefly as follows. It enters the county, running slightly west of 

 south, at the Street station on the Walsall and Water Orton branch of 

 the Midland Railway, and crosses Sutton Park. Here it almost but not 

 quite coincides with the present county boundary, and its easily distin- 

 guishable track has long been noticed by travellers and antiquaries. 8 

 From the corner of Sutton Park (Royal Oak inn), it is represented for 

 2 1 miles by an existing highway, but at the crossing of the Tame 

 Valley canal the highway bends, while the Roman road runs straight on, 

 coincides briefly with the county boundary, crosses the Tame at Holford 

 or Holdford, and so approaches Birmingham. Its course through that 

 city and its suburbs is uncertain. We shall return to it in the next 

 paragraph. Here we need only observe, first, that somewhere in this 

 lost section its direction shifts from slightly west of south to slightly east 

 of south, and secondly, that it may perhaps have here been joined by a 



1 I may state here that I use Rycknield Street in preference to Icknield Street purely as a matter 

 of convenience. No doubt, if antiquity of usage is to be considered, the road was called Icknield Street 

 before it was called Rycknield Street. But it will be apparent from my arguments that I doubt whether 

 the road has any real and original right to either name ; and if we style it Icknield Street, we risk con- 

 fusion with the real Icknield Street in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. It seems best, therefore, to use the 

 name Rycknield as being no less correct (or no more incorrect) than Icknield, and as having the advantage 

 of being unmistakable. Probably it would be better still to avoid both names, were it not that preceding 

 writers and common custom cannot be neglected. 



' Gentleman's Magazine, 1762, p. 402 ; 1797, i. 1 10-13. 



239 



