I'm doing it. Doing what? Another Roman Road video. Oh God you know what happened last time?
No? What happened? I've no idea. In the past I've been guilty
of walking through our landscape not really paying attention to a great deal around
me as I go and whilst that guilt probably isn't a crime to everyone that
guilt is manifested itself as a bit of an obsession for me spending the last
few years indulging myself with this infatuation of human geography has
really accentuated how attached I've become to wanting to learn more about it
or want to become more engaged with the scars of our landscape who painted these
pictures we are on the ground all around us and what motivated them to shape it
in the way they did
and so today we found ourselves in this quiet little corner of southern England
looking to see if we could find some evidence of a place where two Roman
roads were set to a cross it was only when we started doing some research on
this crossing and I mean some significant research it was only then I
realized that it's actually okay to make your own theory not only that but also
if you dig deep enough you can even question what is commonly accepted by
academics and authoritative bodies so without further ado welcome to today's
mystery
To give you some geographical context of where we are today we are at a Ford here
halfway between the villages of amongst Kingston and Monkton Deverill and it's a
spot where two Roman roads are said to have crossed. There's not much argument about
their crossing point it was somewhere between here the modern crossing and
about 30 yards that way so the Roman roads in question were the lead road
which is route 45 in particular this is 45 B which went from Salisbury
and Winchester across to the mendips where they mined lead so the
second route across this point is a north-south route we went down the coast
by Poole and north up to Bath so with our Ivan Margary book in hand let's see what
Ivan Margarry made of all these routes inwards and outwards from that crossing
pointt at the ford. So you join us on the eastern section of lead road where
Margary detailed the Roman Road really well he said there was Aggars
and terraces we think we're on a terrace now because we're coming down
the side of this hill which is great so the road we're on obviously that goes
towards the Deverils as we say about 500 metres short of the Devils margarys
description of the road pretty much stops. Well it didn't just vanish did it?
No it didn't vanish, so this is the point so Margary didn't detail the road because he said
well it obviously went down to the Deverills but there's no visible evidence
so he didn't make a claim to say it's definitely there or definitely there but
you can pretty much summerise where it was from it, Where do we pick up Margary again?
We don't. We don't? But he was your guru. Margary is genius because he
wrote this massive book and he detailed it every Roman Road in the country but
he was also really good because he didn't he didn't detail conjecture so
the whole of us this area the lead road that way he said Sir Richard Hoare
detailed it but he's not sure there's no obvious evidence so he's not going to
guess. So what we're going to do next is
pick up about three or four others a conjecture because when we get down into
the Deverills it becomes really interesting the geography becomes very
interesting over the top of hill there's three or four different ideas of where
it went and that's where we also pick up on the historic England controversy
So as we're walking back to the car before we journey down to the Deverills
This is obviously the lead road east-west road and this is supposedly
the scheduled monument that is the Roman Road straight line down to the valley
where we just were the reason why they definitely know it's led road is because
they found along this route pig lead so they know it was carried from the mendips
back to Salisbury and Winchester and the ports there bare off there beyond
interesting
We're now on cold kitchen Hill we're walking up cold kitchen Hill to the west
of Monkton deverill and Kingston Deverill and we're going to continue the pursuit for
the lead road the western side of the lead road from that fall and from those
crossroads so we know now how that Margary did not have any exact theory
himself about this route from those that crossroads for another five or six miles
at least so there are however Three other theories about this route and went
number one is a man called Mayatt who wrote a book about the devil's and he said
quite clearly the road came from the Deverils behind us there up the slant
of the hill and on to the top of the ridge it went across a ridgeway he said
above Markham woods and down the Western and the western side of the hill both
maiden Bradley. Now number two is a man called Bob
Whittaker, Bob Whittaker said he found the Roman Road and you can quite clearly
see it on satellite images and that it goes up and down all the all the shoulders of
the valley all the out the bridges of this valley I think that's a little bit.....
Uppey Downy!! A little too uppy downy for Romans.
You said there was three. Yes Number three....
Yup. Its me!
it's the uneducated me so have a look on to
overlay will show you now now the overlay that I'm going to show you is
the south side of this hill the cold cold kitchen hill and you can see with
the use of this pen exactly what we've done that will flick from an OS map over
to the aerial view on Google Maps and you can see exactly what we mean there's
a line as a faint line which does go in the exact line of the lead road and it
also would meet up with just north of maiden Bradley and the cross roads
down the hill there so that's pretty much it for the lead road.
I'm still backing my theory but having said that
as we walk in a higher up Coldd kitchen Hill there is evidence of maybe that
some a ditch maybe Mayatt was right this is the route but there's no ditch this
side it's all a bit sketchy really and that really is probably why Margary
didn't make much comment about this route because it was very absolutely
looks like concrete next up just have a look at the
north-south route here equal is important it went from Poole to Bath
was a very important place for the Romans and a direct route down to the
coast to Poole was obviously of great importance then so what did Margary say
about this route we also really know not a lot he did detail from Poole almost up
to here very well but again when we get to here it all becomes very unclear and
that's really important to remember for historic England in a little bit Margary
said it "probably" joined route 52 which went north so we're just going to step
over to the other side of the hill up there and we're going to talk about a
man called George Allen.
so you now find us on the eastern end of cold kitchen hill in the search for
anything about the north-south route and some evidence that we've got from
various sources number one George Allen George Allen
walk the entire route from Poole to Bath and he tried to map as much as it
could now bear in mind Ivan Margary walked up to this point I
say walked every bit up to this point and I said there is nothing that he
could see or any evidence he gather to say the route from here went north other
than it "probably" did that's important again come back to that very shortly now
George Allen as I say what was route and he said they didn't go across this Ridge
way the north-south George Allen said that it came from down there
which is where the Ford is and came straight up the hill and across
alongside this long barrow they could see the long barrel just there and he said
that's really important because long Barrows often faced the direction of old
routes so potentially the Romans went alongside this as they went on top of a
route that was already here and exist act he said down the side the North Face of
this hill and they went continued straight line
north on the eastern side of that Ridge where there that Ridgeway housed a Roman
temple so what better way the George Allen said it was to be able to walk
underneath that and along the road off to the north the next theory and which
is also by Myatt we discussed Maya earlier when he talked about the lead
road the next various myatt's might said that it did actually go across the ridge
way and joined obviously along the lead road before it headed off north toward
Pasonage farm we're going to walk up to that point now and we're gonna get to
the controversial historic England scheduled monument of route 52 north
you join us on the last leg of this journey now this is really important
because Mayatt in his book about the deverills said the Roman Road travelled all the way
across the ridge to the WEST and down here so then it angled off north and went up through
here through Parsonage farm back on this north track so across the ridge and
north here that's really important because Margaryy said....and I think....
we read it from the from the book he says probably continued to
Bath so what Margary said by that is the
route from the Ford probably continued to bath, he didn't mention anything about
the route so he said there he must have done yes he did met him where you didn't
mention why he didn't mention it right that's really important this part we're
on now has been listed as a scheduled monument by historic England and listed
as a Roman Road now when you scroll down to the bottom of that scheduled monument
you see that their source for this information is page 107 of Ivan
margarys book that's really strange page 107 when you look at his book is
about this route but the southern end south of the Deverills route 46 not
52 route, 52 is on page 127 and as we just said it only states it "probably"
went north of Monkton Deverill somewhere and probably we're up to Bath by route
52 is only detailed from Frome north so this section from here to Frome isn't
detailed and yet historic England have this listed as a Roman Road on page 127
actually says "probably" meets the lead road near Kingston Deverill but this is
not yet certainly known that's always on 127 about Route 52 so 100 page 107 he
doesn't even talk right probably continued to bar yeah that's all he said
and page 107 so we're really confused as to why historic even have that listed
and sourced as Ivan Margary and also more importantly it doesn't look like a
Roman Road there's there's no evidence like we
found with the other scheduled monument on the lead row to the east
that looks like a road clear there's terraces and aggers which are listed by
Margary there's a terrace and an agger quite clear but here nothing you can see
there's obviously two more of a farmers tractors bit more modern
farmers track and loads of our old quarry work so that's pretty much it
from us today we've explored two Roman roads their crossing point by the Ford
and we've explored lots of different sort of people's ideas about where this
went most interestingly probably is historic England's concept of this being
a scheduled monument because margary said so yet Margary makes no mention
of it actually being a Roman Road in fact to other people suggested the
zigzag down on the east side of cold kitchen Hill is actually the route.
we're near here anyway right we are going to sign off from Rome roads back
to the usual abandoned railways and such next week I'm sure thanks for watching
appreciate your support as always and we will see you next time
You know what happened last time no well we're all the comments about coffee cups
and all sorts even got coffee calendars this time welcome to another Roman Road
video.