A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



which offers very serious problems to the student, is that which lies north 

 of Derby or, perhaps rather, of Clay Cross. 



From Bourton to Derby it can be easily followed with only brief 

 spells of uncertainty, and its approach to Derby from the south is 

 singularly plain. From the ' station ' at Wall (Letocetum) near Lich- 

 field it runs unswervingly north-eastwards to the outskirts of Derby, 

 and its line is throughout represented by modern roads and not seldom 

 by parish boundaries. Crossing the Dove and entering our county at or 

 close to Monksbridge l it traverses Egginton Common, where (we are 

 told) it was visible in the early eighteenth century, and keeps its due 

 course to Littleover. So far, it coincides with the present Burton and 

 Derby high road, but as it approaches Derby this latter swerves away to 

 the east, and the ancient line is lost across the town. If continued direct 

 it would cut the golf links near the Pavilion, pass down the Uttoxeter 

 Old Road in front of the prison and near the end of Nuns Street, and 

 finally descend at Darley Grove to the Roman bridge over the Derwent. 

 Scanty clues supplied by existing roads and fences suggest that this was 

 the real line ; but amidst the buildings of a great city certainty is un- 

 attainable. 2 



On the east bank of the Derwent the road probably ran at first due 

 east in front of the north face of Little Chester fort, where Stukeley's 

 map shows a gravelled way (fig. 23 u). Then it turned north-eastwards past 

 Breadsall Priory, and then, turning again, assumed the northerly direction 

 which it keeps with slight variations so far as it can be traced. Till 

 Hartshay its course lies slightly west of north; till Oakerthorpe slightly 

 east of north ; finally, it seems to run due north till near Clay Cross. It 

 is rarely a parish boundary. But it sometimes coincides with straight 

 modern lanes, as between Horsley Woodhouse and Hartshay and at 

 Oakerthorpe and Higham. Its remains have often been noted in the 

 fields. They are said to be still visible between Morley Moor and 

 Horsley Lodge, at Bottle brook near Denby, near Pentrich, and at 

 Coneygre Farm, and earlier observers thought to see it at many places 

 as far north as Clay Cross, and even though the evidence of this is less 

 satisfactory between Egstow and Wingerworth, a little north of Clay 

 Cross. 3 We may also cite the place names Streetlane, between Denby 

 and Hartshay, and Stretton and Strathfield, a mile and a half north of 



1 This bridge has been thought to contain Roman masonry encased in later work (Rye, Burton-on- 

 Trent Nat. Hist, and Arch. Soc. Proc. iv. I. 34). But this needs to be proved, especially as the bridge 

 stands on a tiny detour of the modern road out of the direct line and the ancient road may have run 

 straight on. 



8 The O. S. (six inch, XLIX.SE. and L.SW.) marks the Roman road as swerving with the Burton 

 road. But for this there seems no reason at all. Others have suggested that two ancient roads existed, a 

 Roman Rycknield Street and a British one, and that the two diverged at Littleover, the Roman running 

 on to Darley Grove and the British taking the line of the Burton road and crossing the Derwent below 

 Little Chester. But the British Rycknield Street is purely imaginary. 



8 The road up to Clay Cross has been traced by many observers, first, perhaps, by Pegge in Sep- 

 tember, 1760. For existing traces I may refer to Mr. Ward, the pieces marked on the O. S. XL. 

 and XLV., and Firth, Highways and Byways of Derbyshire (London, 1905), pp. 431, 437. Pegge 

 notices it very fully up to Egstow (Roads through the Coritani and B. M. Add. 6705). John Gratton, 

 a correspondent of Glover, writing in 1829, asserts that he had traced it north of Egstow, but his 

 account is not very satisfactory (Glover, i. 290). 



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