Summary
Section of Roman road 200m north of Stockbottom Farm.
Reasons for Designation
Roman roads were artificially made-up routes introduced to Britain by the Roman army from c. AD 43. They facilitated both the conquest of the province and its subsequent administration. Their main purpose was to serve the Cursus Publicus, or Imperial mail service. Express messengers could travel up to 150 miles (241km) per day on the network of Roman roads throughout Britain and Europe, changing horses at wayside `mutationes' (posting stations set every 8 miles (12.87km) on major roads) and stopping overnight at `mansiones' (rest houses located every 20-25 miles (32km-40km). In addition, throughout the Roman period and later, Roman roads acted as commercial routes and became foci for settlement and industry. Mausolea were sometimes built flanking roads during the Roman period while, in the Anglian and medieval periods, Roman roads often served as property boundaries. Although a number of roads fell out of use soon after the withdrawal of Rome from the province in the fifth century AD, many have continued in use down to the present day and are consequently sealed beneath modern roads. On the basis of construction technique, two main types of Roman road are distinguishable. The first has widely spaced boundary ditches and a broad elaborate agger comprising several layers of graded materials. The second usually has drainage ditches and a narrow simple agger of two or three successive layers. In addition to ditches and construction pits flanking the sides of the road, features of Roman roads can include central stone ribs, kerbs and culverts, not all of which will necessarily be contemporary with the original construction of the road. With the exception of the extreme south-west of the country, Roman roads are widely distributed throughout England and extend into Wales and lowland Scotland. They are highly representative of the period of Roman administration and provide important evidence of Roman civil engineering skills as well as the pattern of Roman conquest and settlement. The section of Roman road 200m north of Stockbottom Farm survives well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction, development, maintenance, social, strategic, political, economic and military significance, its role as a major communications route through time and its overall landscape context.
History
See Details.
Details
This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 16 July 2015. This record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records. As such they do not yet have the full descriptions of their modernised counterparts available. Please contact us if you would like further information.
This monument includes the most westerly surviving section of the Roman road from Winchester to Old Sarum situated on the gently rolling downland countryside in and around Winterbourne Down. The agger and its associated buried side ditches survive differentially as earthworks throughout the approximately 2590m length. The agger is composed of small stones and measures up to 10m wide and 1m high and the ditches where visible are up to 4m wide and 0.5m deep.
