A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



Roman road from Droitwich. 1 We recover its definite traces near 

 Stirchley Street and King's Norton, and thence its course is plain past 

 Beoley, Studley, Alcester, Bidford and Weston Subedge. Near the last 

 named village it mounts to Broadway Down and so reaches Bourton- 

 on-the- Water and the Fosse. Between Alcester and Bidford, it is repre- 

 sented by an interesting hollow way through fields, and its hard metal 

 has often been encountered by labourers. From Alcester, branch roads 

 may have diverged to Stratford and possibly also to Droitwich (p. 243). 

 The span of seven miles from Holford, north of Birmingham, to 

 Stirchley Street, south of it, is a more serious problem. It has long 

 vexed Birmingham antiquaries, and is perhaps insoluble. If the well 

 known lines of Rycknield Street from Sutton Park to Holford, and from 

 Alcester to near Stirchley Street, were produced straight on till they 

 met, we should obtain a road running south by west through the western 

 part of central Birmingham, passing a little east of Five Ways and a 

 little west of Edgbaston church, then changing its direction to south by 

 east near Stirchley Street, and so continuing towards Alcester. This line 

 has not, however, yet commended itself to any writer on the subject. 

 Stukeley, the first to notice the question in print, mentions a line which 

 lies a long way east of the direct line. He says that in or after 1725 

 he saw Rycknield Street running 



by Moseley over a heath where the road appears now very broad, on the east side 

 of the rivulet Rea : it descends Camp Hill and passes the river by the present bridge 

 (Iter orea/e y p. 2l). 



This line is too far east to be probable, and indeed it is obvious that 

 Stukeley simply took the Moseley Road to be the Roman line. The 

 plain inference is that no recognized line of Rycknield or Icknield Street 

 survived at Birmingham in Stukeley's time. Hutton, the old historian 

 of Birmingham, writing in 1780, suggested a different line, curving 

 away westwards. He describes the road as passing from Holford over 

 Handsworth Heath, by Hockley Brook, Warstone Lane, across the 

 Dudley Road at the Sandpits, down Ladywood Lane (since rechristened 

 Monument Lane), past the Observatory, and thence, leaving Harborne 

 a mile to the west, to Selly Oak. 2 He gives no reasons, and it is too 

 likely that he had no good ones. Stukeley's words suggest plainly that 

 no obvious and indubitable line for Rycknield Street survived in the 

 eighteenth century, and our confidence in Hutton's judgment is not 

 increased when we find him proceeding to trace the street to Burford, 

 Wallingford and Winchester. However, his line has been accepted by 

 most local writers, and in general the Roman road has been stated to 

 run by or near Trinity church, Birchfield, Villa Cross, Hunter's Lane, 

 Icknield Street, Monument Lane, Chad Valley and Metchley." The 



1 Victoria History of Worcestershire, \. 212. The road is not so well supported by evidence as one 

 could wish. * Hutton, History of Birmingham, p. 142 (ed. iy8i)=p. 215 (edd. 1795, 1815). 



s Howard Pearson, Birmingham and Midland Institute (Archzeol. section), 1890, xvi. 34 ; B.C. A. 

 Windle, ibid. xxv. 43. For much information bearing on the whole question (utilized in the rest of the 

 above paragraph) I have to thank Mr. J. A. Cossins, Mr. Jos. Hill of Perry Barr (who has told me 

 much about the ancient streets), Mr. Howard Pearson and Prof. E. A. Sonnenschein. They are not, of 

 course, responsible for the views that I have expressed. 



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