this is one of many parts of Exeter City walls and this part is like a patchwork quilt in the
middle here you've got Saxon up there you've got some medieval sections up the top there you've
got some Norman bits you down here you've got what's important to us today original
Roman Walling what is curious is the entire Roman town of Exeter and it's it's placed in
the landscape in Great Britain it was completely misunderstood until about two weeks ago [Music]
having just read the extremely useful signboard back there I now should be an
expert at deciphering which bit of the wall is from which era so if I come around this
corner and find another bit I should be able to tell you that is Maybe medieval anyway let's go
back 285 million years to win this hill was stood on right now was a volcano the Romans
had been here for 140 years before they decided to Quarry some of the volcanic trap really hard
wearing masonry let's call it and they use that to build the first walls here at Exeter at that
time they also dramatically expanded the city to 93 Acres now that rectangular shape they had then
from that point forward pretty much every major civilization thereafter played their part here
and of course the Romans lived here for around about 400 years or so and that's exactly where
today's story starts you see every article every map every Source you read this place was
a major civilization a major Outpost in fact more importantly the most westerly life here
started as a thought a Roman legionary Fortress for the second Augustine Legion established 80
55 over the next 100 years it became a major civilization a big settlement and similarly to
silchester bolstered by walls around 150 years into its life now as you probably worked out on
trying to follow the rules today around Exeter and tell you this quite quirky story however
danger keep out a regular inspection of the city was highlighted some areas of concern
and is leaning quite that way so we'll avoid this head back down and see what else we can find now
even the maps of the old Maps from the regular sources the Peutinger table my
favorite map that's got a little bit of Britain on the bottom and that does highlight Exeter it
looks like if you would rotate the map that is the most westerly point in fact
it's got gittisham to its North with a 15 mile marker between the two foreign
The Roman Road
research Association have suggested that these two are the wrong way round on a map that's
understandable and perhaps they've done this for one of two reasons number one Exeter and
limply in Kent appear very close together when actually in real life they're not and number two
well this map is East-West in its orientation your immediate eye view wants to suggest that
indeed Exeter and kisses him should be swapped let's take a brief closer look at the putting a
table it's a transit map for want of a better word it's absolutely Bonkers it's more of a
show of strength the entire Roman Empire there's even cities on there that didn't co-exist as the
same time as one another it is indeed a show of strength rather than a map that would be useful
to you or I so that information in mind let's hop back to the tiny bit the remains of the UK
and assume for a second that the rest of Britannia was indeed elongated like the rest of the putting
a table remember there's no scale here this is really a transit map now only when we do this to
something else come to light Exeter might not be the most westerly Point not least as Gittersham
road carry on past Edition and therefore in their eyes it is indeed the right way around but also
the entire Devon Cornwall and Wales that could extend halfway up the map if we elongated it
survived the hustle and bustle bustle town into this Courtyard and found some more wall so the
whole relax section between top of the High Street down here is pretty much gone but there is more
here although not a lot of that I don't think is Roman where we're gonna go now I don't know
it's my belief that this map perpetrated this idea the Exeter was the most westerly
point in the Roman Empire even more so over the years and from that point on the next 700 years
gorgeous bit of wool there but again nothing in Roman that I can see you see from Exeter
down to Land's End that's 120 mile straight line it wouldn't have just managed itself even in the
early part of the Roman Empire so I just think that there was nothing beyond the exercise was
that a bit naive even the great Ivan Margary only had one route down here route 492 A and B
heading right down now to the South Eastern Corner maybe and we're still I think there's
a lot of medieval sections just there nothing more Roman to report so far
yeah tell a lie as I approach what would have been one of the major Gates I'm not quite sure which
I've got a funny feeling this here could be Roman I'm sure you'll correct me now this
looks very much like the volcanic trap that we saw earlier in the start of the video could be wrong
I really dislike the naming of Roads our Roman network does seem to end up in the media in many
ways a little attention is paid to any formal system we're just left with names banded about
none bearing any resemblance to a name the Romans would use and only a few bearing any resemblance
to a formal Roman root now we know this from the itineraries I've just crossed one of the many
Gates or what would have been one of the gates for the first time and probably last time today
I can actually walk on top a bit of a bit of the wall here we are um about 10 yards in total
now those roots with names can be misleading they imply a route was joined up thinking a
route with a purpose a mission and a goal in place take for example the Foss way
the route that leads us from way up in Lincoln down through Leicester cirencester bath and then
extra not really a close-up shows the route more or less heads directly south down to axminster
and then on down to the coast now if Exeter was really the the center uh of everything in this
southwest part of the country and surely the Foss way would have headed right there [Music]
in fact some Scholars have suggested that the root texter was more of a branch from the south from
the real fosse way which headed to the North Henry of Huntington 12th century writer talks of the
Foss way with almost an air of romance suggesting that its root went from the beginning of Cornwall
to the south end of Scotland now despite this perhaps overzealous notion while antiquarians have
pondered on its endpoint in the South for a number of years have a look at the OS Roman road map we
have on here the importance of the Roman mines in Cornwall and the resources that they bought
one Road in and one road out just doesn't add up if you have resources you have a community you
have people markets towns economies built around those resources and along those routes foreign
steps Exeter University with a study finalized in mid-2023 and indeed it did suggest that the Roman
Empire extended much further west than Exeter not only did it do that but it also thrived there with
many communities and many routes the vast courage of lidar now helped the team search for more
routes in fact this alone added 60 further miles to the database but it didn't stop there because
a lidar on its own gave you fragments sections of Roman Road they added those routes existing Roots
permanent forts towns and known Roman settlements and then they plotted these primary and secondary
nodes and predicted a further 10 miles now finally the team used focal Mobility networks essentially
corridors of movement through predicted routes and now we have this now if I read this right largely
these are predicted routes possibly a lot are pre-existing trackways military routes and such
that was likely turned into Regional communication routes and perhaps adopted thereafter on the main
circus publicus [Music] above all though this is two things to me number one how little we already
know about the Roman Road Network in this country and number two well that now is the time for the
Roman Road Network to shine Now's the Time to get your map out get the lidar out join the
Roman Road research Association and well let's start get into grips with some of these parts
that we don't know about Devon and Cornwall for one a lot of work to be done but a big
part of that has been done by Exeter University I've been poor I'll see you this time next week
[Music]