ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE 



Higham. As far, then, as Clay Cross and Egstow, that is, for a distance 

 of some 17 miles from Little Chester, the line of Rycknield Street 

 seems well attested. We have even details of its structure. William 

 Hutton saw a section cut up from the bottom near Little Chester. The 

 Romans, he tells us, seemed to have taken out 



the soil for about 20 yards wide and I yard deep, perhaps till they came to a firm 

 bottom, and rilled the whole up with stones of all sizes brought from Duffield, four miles 

 up the river, cemented with coarse mortar (Hist, of Birmingham, ed. 3, 1 806, p. 2 1 6). 



Gratton, writing to Glover (i. 290), says he had seen several sections 

 made in cutting ditches, and it seemed ' to be formed merely of such 

 rubblestone and sharp gravel as was nearest at hand.' Pegge also declares 

 that it was altogether composed of gravel for many miles. 



North of Clay Cross the course of the road becomes sadly uncertain. 

 It is usually taken through or near Chesterfield, but no traces of it exist, 

 and the remains found at Chesterfield are too few to require the assump- 

 tion that a Roman road led to it (p. 255). Much further north, how- 

 ever, we meet with some slight clues. Rather doubtful vestiges were noted 

 near Eckington and Mosborough by a correspondent of Glover's in 1829, 

 and at Beighton in 1847 a paved road was found during the construction 

 of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln (now Great Central) Railway 

 line, a few score yards north of Beighton station and 18 inches below 

 the surface. 1 The place names Streetfields, east of Mosborough, and 

 Stratfield, a little north of Beighton help to strengthen this scanty 

 evidence. Yet further north, and beyond the boundary of Derbyshire, 

 a Roman road was thought traceable on Brinsworth Common, previous 

 to the enclosures. 2 All this suggests a road running down the west side 

 of the Rother valley to the Roman fort at Templeborough farm, south- 

 west of Rotherham. It is, perhaps, not rash to conjecture that the road 

 which we know to have led from Little Chester to Clay Cross swerved 

 north-east at some point north of the latter town, and passing Mos- 

 borough and Beighton went on to Templeborough. 8 



The total length of this road would be about 35 miles, or perhaps 

 a trifle less. No intermediate ' station ' has ever been discovered between 

 the two forts which it connects. 



Another and very different theory has been proposed respecting 

 this road. It has been thought to have struck off north-east to the 

 Roman ' station ' of Doncaster, passing Thorpe Salvin, which was 

 originally called Thorpe Rikenild.* This view is not in itself incon- 

 sistent with that propounded above. Roads may have run from Little 



1 W. Askham, cited by Glover, i. 289 : he refers also to entrenchments, but their age is quite 

 unknown. For the Beighton find, see Hunter, Hallamshire (1869), p. 23 note. 



8 Wain wright, Wapentake ofStrafford and Tickbill, p. 23. 



The bishop of Cloyne (Wm. Bennet) preferred to suppose that the road ran due north from 

 Chesterfield by Apperknowle and Ridgeway (Lysons, p. ccxi : so Watkin, Derb. Arch. Journ. viii. 209). 

 But we have no evidence of an ancient road along this line, and the ascents and descents required for 

 it are much greater than those of the route indicated in the text. Watkin (Derb. Arch. Journ. viii. 210) 

 accepts also the Mosborough and Beighton road as Roman, but quite unnecessarily assumes that it did 

 not go to Templeborough. 



* Brit. Arch. Auoc. xxx. 115 ; Kirkby, Inquest (A.D. 1284-5) in the publications of the Surtees 

 Soc. xlix. pp. 3, n, etc. 



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