A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



Bertram of Copenhagen. Alauna is Bertram's guess for Alcester, and 

 Ad Antonam a name which he invented from a misreading of Tacitus. 

 It occurs nowhere else, and we may dismiss it from further consideration. 



4. The Roads 



In a district such as we have hitherto described, where towns were 

 very few and small and country houses very rare, we should expect roads 

 also to be infrequent, and as a fact we can trace few Roman roads 

 within the bounds of Worcestershire. Even the evidence for deter- 

 mining Roman roads is scantier in Worcestershire than elsewhere. We 

 possess of course the usual archaeological evidence. We can point 

 occasionally to ancient metalling along a hne where we might look 

 reasonably for a Roman road, but the Worcestershire instances of such 

 metalling are few and unsatisfactory. We can point also to still-existing 

 tracks running with persistent straightness from one Roman site to 

 another, and in this point we are a little better provided. But our 

 written evidence is very scanty. A few charters and place names ^ and 

 boundaries help us, but we can make no use of what is in other counties 

 our chief aid, the Itinerarium Afitonim, since no route described in that 

 document passes through any part of Worcestershire. 



The Roman roads of our county fall into two sections. There are 

 in the first place two local roads (as they seem to be) which serve 

 Worcester and Droitwich and one or two other sites, along with which 

 we must notice some conjectured but uncertain roads. And in the 

 second place there are in the extreme east of the county some traceable 

 portions of two more important roads, the so-called Rycknield Street 

 and the Fossway. These do not really belong to the area of the county : 

 they graze it as it were accidentally, but it may be none the less con- 

 venient to speak of them. 



(i) Worcester, Droitwich, Birmingham. A road running almost 

 invariably straight for over twenty miles can be traced along the existing 

 roads from Worcester to Selly Oak outside Birmingham. The road 

 leaves Worcester by Rainbow Hill, and for a little while is represented 

 only by a part of the boundary between North Claines and Hindlip 

 parishes. From Martin Hussingtree onwards there is still a direct high- 

 way through Droitwich and Bromsgrove, swerving slightly to ascend the 

 Lickey, and thence running direct to Selly Oak and coming into the 

 line of Rycknield Street. The straightness of this road and its connec- 

 tion with Roman sites at the two ends and at Droitwich, mark it 

 out as in all probability a Roman road. It was recognized as such by 

 Bishop Lyttelton and is often called the Upper Saltway, though there 

 does not seem to be ancient authority for this term as applied to this road.* 

 Possibly it was known as an old road in the fourteenth century (p. 215). 



(2) Droitwich, Alcester, Stratford-on-Avon. Here again we depend 



* It is necessary to add a caution that ' Port Way ' does not denote a Roman road. The terra 

 ' Street ' also, except in early pre-conquest documents, has often no special significance. 



* Nash, ii. p. cvii. ; Ordnance Maps, xxii., xv., xvi., x. At Northfield there is a Street Farm. 



212 



