one of the biggest draws to us about Roman Rhodes isn't just the fact that
we want to learn about how people Traverse the landscape and to see those roots on the
ground but it's also the fact that with the Roman roads there's still so many unknowns
so certainly the appeal for us in covering a Roman Road is indeed that we can maybe
find something new something that nobody has ever discovered before and maybe sort
of helped contribute to uh the understanding of the Romans here in the UK now I've just reached
the top of this artificial Mound John's Mound and it was built in the 18th 1920s
to preserve the view over Oxford and look around me now this time of year
well not much of a view at the moment so in that direction is Oxford and in
the winter you'd probably have a view but today's journey is
going to take us South South West towards Wantage and maybe Beyond
my name is Paul welcome to Roman Road route number 164 the Roman Road that just stopped or did it
so let's get Back to Basics if I asked you to name a handful of Roman roads I'm sure
you probably could Watling Street, Fosse way, the portway, ermine street but considering at
the peak of the Roman civilization in the UK there were 10 000 miles of Roman roads well
names aren't hugely helpful so come the 1950s Ivan MarGary already a prominent Roman archaeologist
published this Monumental piece of work not only did he detail as much as was known at the time of
each and every route but he also came up with a simple and easy to use Road numbering system
essentially it's like the road numbering system we use today all the main routes are numbered M1 M2
Etc so Margary numbering system brings us nicely to where we are today and allows us to tell you
why this specific route is indeed a Roman Road mystery so in this diagram root M1 joins London
to Shrewsbury it passes through Saint Albans where you will find branch number one six now
M16 travels West towards bicester now a sub branch is found here heading north south it's called m160
zero so somewhere on the North End of Route 160 is where today's route starts
route 164. now when we find this starting point we'll then head Southwest down onto
Wantage and this is where current evidence suggests that the Roman Road just stops
now one thing that's super useful when researching a Roman Road are the OS notes now the OS notes do
refer to Ivan McGarry on a number of occasions but they also refer to a lot of other sources which
is great now one way to obtain those is to join the Roman Road research Association which we do
this isn't a paid sponsorship of course but it'll cost you around
about a 14 pound-ish a year it's very well worth it I can assure you
so those notes suggest that this Roman Road came North out of Wantage went into
frilford carried on North with bessels Leigh up almost in a straightish line North North
East towards alchester what is now bicester and that makes perfect sense the a34 would probably
follow that alignment and therefore there'd be nothing left but it does suggest to back
that route up that here in the churchyard to bessels Leigh I found some of the Roman
Road that's perfect and if we look just to the uh just to the north east of this churchyard
well there's nothing in the churchyard but just outside the boundary ahead of me is what looks
like a an agar what do you think could that be part of the route I'm looking at just there
the best example but it fits with the direction and the description in the OS note but it then
States after bessels Leigh the route to Oxford is unclear Oxford not alchester
so if that means that they think the route didn't go North to alchester
and fat it curved off towards Oxford over the Thames by a Ford somehow and picked up
the already established north-south route of one six oh well that now gives us two options
number one Crawford up to alchester as originally thought North Northeast number two north east east
the sharp right hand turn from bessels Leigh across balls Hill down into Oxford to pick up
160. but then we have a third issue to deal with have a look at this this is rocks map from 1760.
it shows no Road between frilford and bessels Leigh that's interesting because if there was a
Roman Road there you'd fully expect a route to still be used instead it shows a direct
route North East towards Oxford so now we've got three different routes on this Northern section
of the Roman Road well that's a bit frustrating because this video wasn't even supposed to be
about a mystery on the Northern side of this Roman Road I thought that would be cut and dry
we've headed a lot further south now so the original question mark of this video which
is why did this Roman Road stop at Wantage because that's pretty much where all the the
known route goes now I've probably about three miles south of Wantage and there's a byway
just up here I want to show you because it's quite relevant to the next stage in this video
rather frustrating me this by the way says closed and if you look at the sign it says resurfacing
work started January 2022 well it's August now and it says that would last about four months
of course it's been eight months so it's gonna be a bit sneaky and nip up here because
there is something I want to show you
what's your thoughts where do you think that route went north of Wantage the main point of the video
was going to be from Wantage itself because the road just stops the known Roman Road stops and
there's a few suggestions online of where it went so I thought I'd take a look myself on the ground
and the first thing I've noticed is this byway sort of cut into the hillside if you look on the
imagery the satellite imagery that's available not the lidar necessarily but the satire imagery
well this byway looks like it carries on going straight across where it ends into a field there's
a definite clear marking in the landscape and I'm wandering to myself if this was a chosen Direction
because what we need to do we need to head south at some point to pick up the Roman Road that went
between tadley Cleaver and up towards Cirencester a very important route there's no way in my mind
that this would have stopped at Wantage and not gone further south so if we do take this lamb
born root and head south west well then we've got this wonderfully Roman looking like Road
this is the view back towards Wantage and this is a View South towards Lamborn so let's head
to Lamborn and Carry On and see how far we can get along this possible Roman Road route
so you find me just to the south of Lamborn South East and I think around about here
is the site of an Old Railway Lamborn light Railway because just the other side of that
substation is the old Lambourn uh railway station there's Station Road still there today that's
the story of another day we're continuing our journey south of lamb wall for good reason but
I'll come to that shortly but ahead of me right now in this field as I stand next to this Gate
Post here there's an old medieval village and straight away it's got some classic Hallmarks
so the medieval abandoned Village of bockhampton and you can tell if you look just ahead of me you
can see how they cut the natural slope of the field and flattened out this whole area but it
was in the Doomsday Book 1086 and it was mentioned throughout time thereafter but abandoned I think
late 1700s it has no relevance whatsoever to today's video but I thought it would be beautiful
to uh slot in right let's continue our journey self because a couple of really interesting
things which lead me to believe this was the route for the the Lost Roman Road route 164.
so in searching for the remainder of this part of the Roman Road the southern part from Wantage
South while life gets a bit tricky because the lidar the tree and vegetation penetrating radar
well the coverage here is next to non-existent so you're back to the trusty satellite images
now if you use Google well you come up with a couple of answers but perhaps when you
flick over to Bing Maps you come up with this now this is almost directly south south east
of Lamborn and to my mind looks like a good example of Roman Road using satellite image
as you will ever find and that certainly helps us pick up the rest of the route or
at least make some guesses as to the roughly where it would have gone because it does line
up with a couple of old byways really well let's go and take a look at those
so I've just left the lambourn valley in the background you can still see the houses
there where the railway would have joined up with the main Network down at Newbury
and I'm just about to join up with shoot Lane which looks like an old byway and then that then
in itself goes on to Stoney Lane the reason why I want to do that is because they line
up perfectly with the The Junction that I've just showed you on the overlay from Bing Maps
certainly gives us a good impression of that would have been a route the fact that it stops
on that Roman Road a lot adds up there heck of a lot so is there any evidence from Shoot
Lane and Stoney Lane to suggest that they were the roots of the Romans use themselves foreign
day 27 degrees 28 degrees I was hoping for a bit of respite from the Sun but nothing yet
does this look like an old Roman Road it doesn't not look like a Roman Road
have a bank and a ditch on this side The Edge side what is this
it's like an old Gate Post perhaps it's a wonderful little thing
foreign
just bumped into this really rather helpful chap who is a botanist and he said um he pointed out
this apparently it's called a Wayfarers and the name itself sort of gives you a clue and it's uh
certainly native of this country and it often indicates an ancient root or very old Route at
least it's quite beautiful and it does add up so perhaps we are on the right track even if we're
not quite on the Roman Road that certainly gives us a uh an indication that the pathway we're on is
very old and we're just about to turn slightly to our uh South a bit more from the current
self-self East and uh he said there's quite a few of those Wayfarer sort of trees or bush systems
um on this route that he's seen so far we're going opposite directions
he was right there was quite a few of those down this trackway I guess a good indication
that those are by the red berries on them right a bit of respite and a bit of shade coming up lovely
so behind me was shoot Lane ahead of me now is Stoney Lane heading a little bit further south
but nevertheless still lines up very well with the junction we found on the maps as a couple
of Pathways at crisscross here and I'm stopping right now because I'm having a bit of respite
from the Sun foreign so I hope you've enjoyed today's Little Wonder did this Roman Road stop
at Wantage did it carry on further south either way for it to carry on further south and take
the route that we've surmised today well if it did then it means in my head that Wantage needed to be
half significant Place otherwise it wouldn't have taken that route just bearing away from route 160.
so I've been pulling this has been Rook 164 on the Roman Road Network in this country
if you like this video give it a like give it a thumbs up and we'll see you this time next week