A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



diverted to it and this road became of less importance. No indication of it 

 can now be traced on the south-west side of Verulamium. Mr. Grover 

 gives to this part of it the fanciful name of the Camlet Way,'"" but without 

 authority, and marks it on his plan as coming from Silchester but without 

 suggesting its route.' A road passed out of the north-east gate of Veru- 

 lamium but its course is immediately lost, though it seems by the evidence 

 of burials to have gone over the site of Kingsbury Castle, then across the 

 Worley Road towards Sandridge and so to Coleman Green. From Coleman 

 Green to the River Lea there is a straight road for a mile and a half pointing 

 straight to Welwyn, where there was a Late Celtic and afterwards a Roman 

 settlement. After passing through Welwyn there is another straight piece 

 of road towards Stevenage about a mile long. There is then a piece of 

 straight road to Watton at Stone, where by tradition stood a Roman mile- 

 stone from which the place is said to have taken its name. From thence 

 probably the road went to Braughing where it joined Stane Street to 

 Colchester. This route from Verulamium would skirt the forest area on 

 the south of the county. 



Stane Street can be traced for the greater part of its course through 

 the county, but only the section of it from the Essex border to Horse 

 Cross in Braughing parish now goes by this name. In the 14th and 

 1 5th centuries, however, we find Stane Street given as a boundary to 

 lands in Cottered and Hinxworth from which it may possibly be inferred 

 that it was then used and known by this name.^ It enters the county at 

 Bishops Stortford from Colchester and first appears as a road near Cradle 

 End on the road to Little Hadham, passing through that village on to 

 Horse Cross where the existing road forks to Braughing and Standon. 

 For a part of its course here it forms the parish boundary between Albury 

 and Much Hadham and Braughing and Standon. From Horse Cross the 

 line of the Roman road is lost, but the parish boundary between Braughing 

 and Standon continues in a straight line for nearly a mile and a half to the 

 River Rib as a field boundary. Stane Street crossed Ermine Street 

 probably where that road changes its course to a more northerly direction 

 in Puckeridge. At or near this spot was a Roman posting station (see 

 Braughing, p. 140). The line of the road is lost for about I -I miles, but it 

 can be picked up again near Furtherfield Spring in the parish of Westmill, 

 where it forms the parish boundary between Westmill and Great Munden 

 and Westmill and Ardeley and is here called Back Lane. It again forms the 

 parish boundary between Ardeley and Cottered and passes through the 

 village bearing the significant name of Hare Street in Cottered parish. It 

 is lost a little further on, but is picked up again near the north of Clothall 

 village and joins the road from Buntingford to Baldock. Here it forms the 

 parish boundary between Weston and Clothall, passing through Baldock by 

 Pest House Lane where it forms the parish boundary between Clothall and 

 Baldock. At Baldock it forms the road to Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, 



1"" Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxvi, 48, 50. 



1 The district between Abbot's Langley and the Thames was dense woodland and would be an 

 unlikely course for a Roman road. Such a route would also be too near to Watling Street. 



2 It is given as a boundary in 1346 (J. Harvey Bloom, Cart. Antiq. Lord Wtlloughby de Broke, 6). 

 It is also referred to in Hinxworth. 



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