196 § II-BIBLIOGRAPHY § III.-PARTICULAR ROUTES— (1) London to Marks Tey.. (2) Margaretting to Chelmsford (via Writtle).... (3) Beaumont Quay to Braughing (Stane Street) (4) Chelmsford to Little Waltham (5) Little Waltham to Dunmow 198 201 202 (6) Little Waltham to Gosfield (7) Colchester to Mersea Island (9) Colchester Northward (via Langham) (10) Colchester Northward (via Horkesley) (11) Bartlow (?) to Dunmow (12) Dunmow to Aythorpe Roothing (13) London to Othona (Bradwell-on-Sea) (14) Chelmsford (and elsewhere) to Othona (15) Canvey Island to Chelmsford .. 207 208 209 210 211 212 212 213 215 217 218 219 221 222 (16) Braughing to Worsted Lodge (Cambs.) (via Chesterford) (18) Godmanchester (Hunts.) via Cambridge (Cambs.) and § IV. EVIDENCES OF ROMAN CENTURIATION IN ESSEX .. § V.-MOUNDS BESIDE ROMAN ROADS IN ESSEX.. I. INTRODUCTORY. 223 225 227 WE appear to have in Essex a much larger proportion of Roman roads (or, rather, roads of Roman origin) than exists in most other counties. This is not surprising, seeing that we have in the county two such important Roman stations as Camulodunum (Colchester) and Iceanum (Chesterford), and that Londinium (London) lies actually on our border. Yet the study and record of these Roman roads has been neglected strangely by the members of the Essex Archæological Society. In its publications, extending now over sixty-seven years, there is one paper only dealing with them-namely, that on Roman Roads near Colchester, by its past-President, the late Mr. Henry Laver, F.S.A.'; and this paper is purely local. Of papers on this subject published in other organs or separately, there is, however, a sur prisingly-large number. An incomplete bibliographical list of them, arranged chronologically, will be found hereafter (see §II., p. 196). From the wider national point of view, our Essex roads of Roman origin, though numerous, may not be of first importance; for we have, passing through the county, none of those great Roman thoroughfares, running completely across the Kingdom, almost from end to end or side to side, such as Watling street or Erming street, though the latter skirts the eastern border of our county. Our roads of Roman origin seem to have been, for the most part, what may be called local roads. Nevertheless, two of them were (and still are) of considerable importance-main roads, as we should call them now; for both run straight across the entire county (or, at any rate the greater part of it). These two roads are, first, that now known locally as "the Great Road," which runs north-eastward from London, through Romford, Brentwood, Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Witham, and Kelvedon, to Mark's Tey, and is continued on into Suffolk by another road, through Colchester and Langham; secondly, that known as Stane Street, running straight across the county, almost exactly due east and west, from the head of navigation on Hamford Water, through Colchester, Mark's Tey, Coggeshall, Braintree, Dunmow, and Bishop's Stortford, to Braughing, in Hertfordshire, where it joins Erming street, and continues to Baldock and Biggleswade." It is now more than twenty years since I first began to take an interest in our Roman roads and started to trace the routes followed by them and their branches. I have been able to trace, more or less precisely, eighteen fairly-distinct "Routes" (as I have called them). Together, these extend to about 260 miles in the county; and there are very few of these miles which I have not covered personally, either on foot, on horseback, or by cycle, 1 Trans Essex Arch. Soc. (N s ), vol. iii. (1889), pp. 123-135, with map. 2 This Essex Stane Street must not be confused with another of the same name, which runs through Sussex, from near Chichester towards London. In each case, the name indicates, of course, a road the surface of which has been made hard by stoning, "staning," or "steyning " it. Hence also the name of Stanway (a parish on the Roman road a mile or two south from Colchester), of Steyning (a town in Sussex), and of the Steyne (an open space in Brighton). 3 My "Routes" are divided arbitrarily and largely at convenience. I have regarded as a Route" any stretch of road obviously of Roman origin, however short, so long as it runs directly from one place to another. It may run further or it may branch; but I have found it convenient to regard the extension or the branch (as the case may be) as a different "Route." usually with the main object of tracing or verifying the courses of the roads. In the following pages I give in detail the results of my researches. The roads themselves are shown clearly on the accompanying map. The eighteen "Routes" described represent, probably, all the important Roman ways which ever existed in Essex. In addition, there must have been countless smaller ways, of which little or no trace now remains. One such must have led to each of the Roman villas in Essex. Some of these have been explored, but many others have been neither explored nor their former existence even detected.2 In treating of these chief roads and their branches, I have, for convenience, numbered each "Route"; but my numbering is largely arbitrary and is of no importance, except as a matter of convenience in identification. The numbers in question are all shown on the map referred to above. My remarks on our Roman roads must be regarded as tentative only; for I am not an authority upon Roman subjects. I do claim, however, an extremely thorough topographical knowledge of the county of Essex; and, in studying such a subject as this, even a leading expert must rely to a large extent on local knowledge. These facts, then, combined with the extreme indefiniteness of much of the information hitherto published on the subject, must be my justification for taking it up. The enquirer, tracing Roman roads in Essex, meets with one difficulty from which those making similar investigations in most other counties are largely free-the fact that, over a very large part of the county, the surface is, geologically speaking, “Drift "-soft material (chiefly clays and sands), which retains little or no evidence that roads have formerly passed over it. Thus, we have in the county no "rock" harder or older than the Chalk, which, moreover, forms the actual surface over a small portion of the county only, being overlaid almost everywhere by later and softer deposits. This is particularly the case in the south-eastern portion of the county, where the surface is mainly Alluvium. In that part of Essex, the lines followed by the Roman roads which we know must 1 Some such are shown, no doubt, on the map of Roman roads in Essex prepared by my friend, Mr. Guy Maynard (Memorials of Old Essex, facing p. 44; 1908). I think, however, that on his otherwise-excellent map, Mr. Maynard has shown a good number of roads which are of Mediæval (not Roman) origin. 2 How numerous such buildings must have been in our county is shown by the fact that the Normans (who were not a brick-making people) used Roman bricks-taken, without doubt, from Roman villas and the like for forming the quoins, doors, and windows of their churches. I estimate that in Essex to-day something like seventy per cent, of all Norman churches are constructed in part of Roman bricks. have existed there formerly have become extremely difficult to trace and are often lost altogether. Many years ago, the late Mr. Henry Laver, F.S.A., of Colchester, favoured me with some remarks, which were afterwards published,' on the roads in Dengie Hundred. They dealt with the difficulties of road-making in that district, largely owing to the almost-total lack of good road-making material there. For this reason, the lines followed by the Roman roads which ran through that Hundred are lost almost completely; while, as to modern roads, few attempts to make them hard were made before the end of the eighteenth century. On the other hand, the searcher after Roman roads in this county has one advantage which such searchers in many other counties lack. Our ordinary modern roads are all exceptionally crooked and indirect. Consequently, a road of Roman origin (which always has the appearance of knowing where it is going) invariably stands out with prominence and is easily recognizable on any good map, such as the Ordnance-a fact which is, for obvious reasons, very helpful. It will be observed very clearly that, in Essex, as elsewhere, the Roman road-builders kept their roads, as far as possible, to the higher grounds, never descending into low country, unless to cross a valley or through some such unavoidable cause. It will be observed, too, with what consummate engineering skill they selected lines which presented, for the longest distances together, the fewest occasions for descending into the lower grounds. All the principal routes through the county exhibit this peculiarity, but Route 1 (London to Mark's Tey), Route 3 (Beaumont Quay to Braughing), and Route 6 (Little Waltham to Gosfield), show it more clearly than most others. Yet another point which is noticeable is the fact that, in Essex, as elsewhere, straightness is a very marked feature of all our roads of Roman origin. Whenever any one of our roads does show a divergence from the straight line, it is due, as a rule, to one or other of two definite causes :-(1) the need to cross a stream" or (2) the 1 The Dengie Hundred is that portion of Essex below Maldon, lying between the estuaries of the rivers Blackwater and Crouch. 2 Trans, Essex Archæol. Soc. (N.S.), vol v., pp. 33-40 (1895). 3 Some slight diversion for a short distance is usually observable wherever one of our Essex roads of Roman origin crosses a stream, however small. This is due to the fact that the soft boggy ground in the bottom of a river-valley soon becomes "poached up" (as we say in Essex), and it then becomes necessary for the road to seek firmer ground, either slightly above or slightly below the original crossing. Often, no doubt, this slight change has taken place many times. Nor does it follow, in the case of a road of Roman origin which is still in use, that the first such diversion took place in Roman times. I have seen exactly the same kind of thing very many times on the prairies of the Canadian North-West, where there are few hard roads, because there is practically no suitable road-making material. Most roads there are, therefore, soft, except when frozen in winter. need to build the road towards some definite mark, situated on high ground and visible, therefore, a great distance ahead (as, for instance, a tall tree, a mound of earth, or a smoke-signal). It was not, of course, until many centuries later that it became possible to lay out a road accurately, in any desired direction, by means of the magnetic compass; while, inasmuch as it is not possible to see miles ahead and build roads in the darkness of the night, even the guidance afforded by the stars, which serves the mariner at sea so effectively, must have been almost useless. It should be noted that I have not attempted to identify any of the Roman stations in Essex, named in the Fifth and Ninth Itineraries of Antoninus and in the Tabula Peutingeriana, with localities existing in the county to-day-a task of very great difficulty. It has kept learned antiquaries busy guessing for several centuries, and their views are still as discordant as ever, there being among them no approach to a general agreement. It is noteworthy that, among all the many elaborate studies of this subject, the latest, fullest, and most scholarly (that of Canon Yorke) introduces many novel and extremely-surprising conclusions, totally at variance with most which had appeared before it. With our present knowledge, indeed, the problem seems insoluble. A reference to any of the tabular comparative statements, showing the solutions at which the various writers have arrived, will show at a glance their truly amazing diversity. I have some hope that my observations and map may throw new light upon the problem and thus tend to a solution. Another question is as to the approximate date of our Essex roads of Roman origin. On this point, it is manifestly very difficult to arrive at any precise conclusion; but there are, I think, good reasons for believing that most were made in the later days of the Roman occupation of Britain. It may very well be that Stane Street (Route 3) is the earliest of all. If the invading Romans desired, as s probable, to get at, and attack, the British headquarters at Camulodunum (Lexden), they could do so more easily by sailing round the coast, landing either in the Colne or in Hamford (or Handford) water, and then marching thither overland (about ten or twelve miles), than by undertaking a long land march (nearly fifty miles) from London, through what were then, no doubt, almost impenetrable forests. Further evidence that Stane Street was, at least, a very early Roman road is to be found, I think, in the fact 1 See, for example, Beaumont, East Anglian, vol. v., pp. 289-298 (1894), and Yorke, Cambr. Antiquarian Communications, vol. xi., pp. 13-14 (1907). For criticism on the latter paper, see Trans. Norf. Archæol. Soc., vol. xvii., pp. 1-30 (1910). |