A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



III. Route from Regnum (Chichester) through Venta Belgarum 

 (Winchester), Calleva and Pontes (Staines) to Londinium. Calleva to 

 Pontes 22 miles, Pontes to Londinium 22 miles. 



Besides these three, for which we have the evidence of the 

 Antonine Itinerary, there are several other roads, Icknield Street, Old 

 Street, and one or two more, for which a Roman origin has been 

 claimed. 



We will first describe the course of the great military ways, with 

 their branches and continuations, and then discuss those for which we 

 have less certain authority. 



I. The route from Cirencester to Silchester , sometimes called Ermine 

 Street, the most marked Roman road in the county, enters Berkshire 

 from Baydon, passes through the south of Lambourn parish, crossing the 

 turnpike road from Wantage to Hungerford between the twenty-fifth 

 and twenty-sixth milestones. Thence it continues in a straight course 

 to Wickham without passing through any village. From Wickham it 

 crosses Wickham Heath and falls into the modern high road from 

 Bath to London about a mile from Speen. 1 The Ordnance Maps 

 mark its site in the parishes of Lambourn, East Garston, the ShefFords, 

 and Welford. It coincides in parts with the present highway and is 

 traced elsewhere as running in a straight line at its side. Roman 

 remains have been found in its neighbourhood at Wyfield Farm, in the 

 parish of Boxford," and at Wickham. There are hardly any traces of 

 its course between Speen and Silchester. We have, however, the 

 evidence of the Itinerary to prove the existence of a Roman road here 

 and the distance which it gives, 15 Roman miles, agrees fairly with 

 the distance between their modern representatives. Sections of a road 

 supposed to be Roman have been found in digging the foundations of 

 some houses in Shaw Crescent, Newbury, 3 near Round Oak, Greenham, 

 and at Pigeon's Farm in the same parish.* It probably started from 

 the west gate at Silchester and went in the same direction as the present 

 county boundary by the ' Imp Stone ' which is marked in the Ordnance 

 Map as a ' Supposed Roman milestone,' B close to what is entered as 

 the ' Supposed Course of Roman Road from Silchester to Speen.' 



II. The route from Marlborougb to Speen and Silchester by Froxfield 

 and Charnham Street to Hungerford, was surveyed between Hungerford 

 and Speen by the students of the Sandhurst Royal Military College in 

 1836 and reported on in the United Service Journal, September 1837. 

 They found portions of the substratum of a road consisting of close 

 pavement of large flints, near Hoe Benham and Elcot, and some few 

 traces of it elsewhere. Mr. Money, writing in 1892, says that part of a 



1 Walter Money, Hist, of Speen, 4, 5 ; Bishop of Cloyne. Lysons, Magna Brit. i. pt. 2, 200, 204. 



2 Newbury Dist. Field Club Trans, i. 207. 



3 Hist, of Newbury (1839), 157. W. Money, Hist, of Speen, 6. 



This stone has lately been carefully examined and shows no evidence of having been a Roman 

 milestone. Its name however, IMP (NIMP) Stone, is old and may well have been taken from the 

 letters IMP or DNIMP with which a miliary inscription would naturally commence. Its shape also is 

 not unlike that of a fragment of a Roman milestone [F. Haverfield]. 



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