ROMAN ROADS 93 



follows ill the tracks of the pioneers wlio l)uilt the 

 orioinal road in a.d. 43; wliile as for old-world Brent- 

 ford, it would surprise no one if the veritable Eonian 

 paving were found deep down below its High Street, 

 lono- buried in the silt and mud that have raised the 



o 



level of the highway at the ford from which the place- 

 name derives. 



The present AVest of England road turns off from 

 the Akeman Street at the bend in the highway at 

 Shrub's Hill, leaving the Roman way to continue in 

 an unfaltering straight line across the scruljby wastes 

 and solitudes of Broadmoor, to Finchampstead, Strat- 

 fieldsaye, and Silchester. It is there known to the 

 country folk as the ' Nine Mile Ride ' and the ' Devil's 

 Highway.' The prefix of the place-name ' Stratfield- 

 saye,' as a matter of fact, derives from its situation 

 on this 'street.' Silchester is the site of the Roman 

 city Ccdleva Atrehatum, and the excavated ruins of 

 this British Pompeii prove how important a place 

 this was, staiidino- as it did at the fork of the roads 

 leading respectively to Aquae Solis, and to Jsca 

 Damnoniorum, the Exeter of a later age. Branching 

 off here to Isca, the Roman road was for the rest 

 of the way to the West known as the Via Iceniana, 

 the Icen Way, and ^^'as perhaps regarded as a continua- 

 tion of what is now called the Icknield Street, the 

 road which runs diaoonallv to Norfolk and Suffolk. 

 the country of the Iceni. 



Very little of this old Roman road on its way to 

 the West is identical with anv of the three existino- 

 routes to Exeter. There is that length just named, 

 from Gunnersbury to Shrub's Hill ; another piece, a 



