The lesser known Roman roads

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Glenn A
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The lesser known Roman roads

Post by Glenn A »

Everyone is aware of how parts of the A5 and the B6318 were built along the route of former Roman roads, but there are lesser and less well known roads built along the routes used by Romans centuries ago. Not far from me, the road from Port Carlisle to Burgh by Sands follows the Roman road along the Cumbrian coast and is 5 miles of driving pleasure where compared with the twisting roads around it, you can reach a decent speed and look across the Solway to Scotland.
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

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Steven wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:14 SABRE Wiki category
Looks like a lot of updates are needed on there in future - for example I should get around to writing an article for RM7 which runs between Manchester and Ribchester and is, in Blackburn with Darwen at least, imaginatively titled "Roman Road" for a good chunk of its length (it's also the C613).
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by wrinkly »

Who invented the RM numbering? Should there be a page about it?
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KeithW
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by KeithW »

There is a very nice tube style map of UK Roman Roads here
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/r ... -londinium
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by Steven »

wrinkly wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:48 Who invented the RM numbering? Should there be a page about it?
Ivan Margary in his book Roman Roads in Britain as simply a way of easily referencing Roman roads. They've come to be standards, but the prefix still gets argued over - whether it's "RM" or "RR" (IIRC Roman Margary or Roman Road respectively)

And yes, there probably should...

This is the original thread about adding Roman Roads to the SABRE Wiki.
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by WHBM »

Surprising how many completely unconnected with the Romans roads there are around named Roman Road.

This short 1920s suburbia side street in Wirral

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meols ... -3.1567246

while in Taunton this similarly suburbia road is the most twisty and non-straight of all (in fact, after a series of recent traffic calming measures on top of this, it should surely be renamed Chicane Road.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Taunt ... d-3.106849
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

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My father and stepmother used to live in this suburban residential street, Roman Way, Elworth, Sandbach. My father thought the name was irrelevant, then I found that 1" maps and the first edition Landranger showed a Roman road there.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.14810 ... 312!8i6656
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KeithW
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by KeithW »

I found this which shows overlays of major Roman roads on openstreetmap

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Rom ... ed_Kingdom

This example is Ermine Street
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/ ... 428/-0.011
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by Glenn A »

There was a Roman Way in Wallsend that was built very close to where the Wall would have ended.
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by trickstat »

Some relatives of mine used to live in a Roman Way in Lechlade which was a residential street with houses built in around the 1960s. Perhaps the nearby A361 there runs along a Roman route?
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by KeithW »

As an aside I have a high resolution scan of a 1956 Ordnance Survey map showing the Roman Roads of Britain in jpeg format. When I say high resolution the image size 9334x12647 oixeks with a resolution of 96 dpi 24 bit depth so the file is 54mb

The source was the US Internet Archive. If the copyright situation is OK I can make it available to anyone interested, below is a screenshot of a small section. It would be rather cool to have a Roman Roads layer in Sabre Maps. I also have the entire book it was bound with which includes page illustrations.
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Roman Roads York.jpg
Last edited by KeithW on Tue Jun 08, 2021 19:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Steven
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

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KeithW wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 18:58 It would be rather cool to have a Roman Roads layer in Sabre Maps.
It would, and it's on my "to do" list!
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by Glenn A »

trickstat wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 17:44 Some relatives of mine used to live in a Roman Way in Lechlade which was a residential street with houses built in around the 1960s. Perhaps the nearby A361 there runs along a Roman route?
The one in Wallsend is self explanatory, the Victorian street was built very close to where the wall started. Actually it was demolished in 1973 and seems to have been removed from maps( possibly renamed, will have to ask my cousin about this, who lived there 50 years ago).
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by jervi »

My house is exactly on Roman Road 150 (London-Hassocks-Brighton), in Haywards Heath, there are some clear earthworks to the north and south of the town.
Also weirdly my best friend's house is exactly on the road in Felbridge 10 miles north! So we say we live on the same road.

I'll make a wiki article for it at some point, gonna do some lidar research on it first.
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by owen b »

WHBM wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 13:27 Surprising how many completely unconnected with the Romans roads there are around named Roman Road.

This short 1920s suburbia side street in Wirral

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meols ... -3.1567246

while in Taunton this similarly suburbia road is the most twisty and non-straight of all (in fact, after a series of recent traffic calming measures on top of this, it should surely be renamed Chicane Road.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Taunt ... d-3.106849
We have one in Luton, the most interesting thing about it being the narrow one way bridge over the railway line, which can be quite a handy rat run towards the motorway : https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9012287 ... 384!8i8192
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by Herned »

WHBM wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 13:27 while in Taunton this similarly suburbia road is the most twisty and non-straight of all (in fact, after a series of recent traffic calming measures on top of this, it should surely be renamed Chicane Road.
The old road through that area had been referred to as Roman Road for several hundred years at least, whether there is any genuine historical background I don't know... the chicanes are a response to the minority of the current inhabitants, who the majority would no doubt be happy to see thrown to the lions
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

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Steven wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 18:59
KeithW wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 18:58 It would be rather cool to have a Roman Roads layer in Sabre Maps.
It would, and it's on my "to do" list!
For reference there is this site where you can select Roman Roads at the bottom of the menu on the right. It is obviously not accurate as the road overlay is at least 50m out to the east.
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/ar ... l/map.html
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by FosseWay »

Steven wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 18:59
KeithW wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 18:58 It would be rather cool to have a Roman Roads layer in Sabre Maps.
It would, and it's on my "to do" list!
I have the 1928 version of the map Keith mentioned, but I'm figuring the 1956 one is better (28 years more research will have uncovered more detail, I imagine). I take it the copyright on the OS historical maps is the same as on 1", i.e. 50 years? I can't remember offhand which ones I've got, but I have some other OS historical maps produced on the 10-mile base map.
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Re: The lesser known Roman roads

Post by KeithW »

If anyone wants this map I can put it on Google Drive and share it.

Keith
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