Roman Road routes

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Lonewolf
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Roman Road routes

Post by Lonewolf »

Does anyone know where I can get an ACCURATE and detailed map or description of Britains Roman roads?

I already have a copy of Margary and I'm not sure how accurate the paths on OS maps are.

Also the same for France?
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nimbimbim
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by nimbimbim »

David Ratledge has a site with lots of detail

http://www.twithr.co.uk/

And the Roman Road Research Association too

http://romanroads.org/
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Lonewolf
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by Lonewolf »

Yeah I'm familiar with the RRRA but unfortunately their website map hasn't been upgraded for years and only covers Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria....
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jgharston
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by jgharston »

The OS used to publish maps of Roman Britain, but I've not seen them for some time. I once borrowed a 1:2500 scale OS Roman London map from the library.
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KeithW
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by KeithW »

The 1956 version issued by Ordnance Survey is available on the internet archive and is downloadable. Be aware that its a large file at the highest resolution (770 megabytes) but there is a smaller pdf version.

https://archive.org/details/RomanBritai ... rveyImages

PS if you download the large zip file you will need something like 7zip console to extract the files, windows chokes on it.

If you just want the map I will put it on Google Drive and send you a download link.
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KeithW
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by KeithW »

The roman roads OS map is available for download at this link, it is out of copyright.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14YsAXf ... sp=sharing
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KeithW
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by KeithW »

If anyone is having problems try this link which is unrestricted, it should open the map in the viewer from which you can simply download the file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14YsAXf ... sp=sharing

Let me know if you are still having issues and I will try and sus it out.
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by M4Simon »

KeithW wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 20:56 If anyone is having problems try this link which is unrestricted, it should open the map in the viewer from which you can simply download the file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14YsAXf ... sp=sharing

Let me know if you are still having issues and I will try and sus it out.
This is great, many thanks for sharing.

Steven, is it of a scale where it could be meaningfully put on SABRE Maps? I'd want to use the fader tool to be able to trace routes of Roman Roads on the existing OSM map. I think the scale is such that it couldn't be calibrated accurately enough to be useful?

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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by Steven »

M4Simon wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:35 Steven, is it of a scale where it could be meaningfully put on SABRE Maps? I'd want to use the fader tool to be able to trace routes of Roman Roads on the existing OSM map. I think the scale is such that it couldn't be calibrated accurately enough to be useful?
The OS Roman maps (as well as some similar maps from the time such as Dark Ages) are at 1:1,000,000 scale so they're less detailed even than Ten Mile or Route Planning Maps. Some of the other historic mapping is at the Ten Mile scale.

So yes, they're doable, but not easily as they're not National Grid maps, or any of the other projections available on the SABRE Maps toolset.
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c2R
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by c2R »

If you want ultra-detailed you could compare the Roman OS map that KeithW links to against the OS 1:25k 1950s layer available on SABRE Maps, and use the tracing tools to trace them from that.

You could then use the SABRE Maps functionality to overlay the traces over whatever map layer you choose.

It could take some time... but then again, we did it for the F99 pages.
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ajuk
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by ajuk »

Would be good to see a Roman road map that distinguishes between the known knowns, the unknowns and the known unknowns.
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KeithW
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by KeithW »

The OS Map is interesting but a world away in detail of what is known today, it is essentially a snapshot of what was known 70 years ago and we have learned a lot since then. The excavations along roads such as Ermine Street carried out when roads such as the M11, A14 and A1(M) have hugely increased the knowledge base.

If you want a modern starting point I would suggest these links.
https://roadsofromanbritain.org/
https://roadsofromanbritain.org/gazetteer.html

Best of all they are open to non commercial use of the information and have an aspiration to develop an online map. This could be the basis of a collaborative project.

This is their copyright statement
You are free to reproduce any of the text of this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided proper attribution, credit and citation is given to the author, any original contributor or source, and the RRRA. Where photographs and diagrams carry additional copyright details, this Creative Commons license does not apply.
They have carried out a lot work in Yorkshire and have come up with this map on a modern OS Base.
https://roadsofromanbritain.org/yorkshire.html

This is an active map so you can click on a road and see what is known about it.
Skipton-Settle-Ingleton for example.
http://roadsofromanbritain.org/gazettee ... rr722.html

It seems to me this would make a much better basis for tracing over OS one inch or 1:25,000 maps
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Lonewolf
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by Lonewolf »

This is the same as the RRRA one, only covers Yorks, Lancs and Cumbria
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bothar
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by bothar »

I'm not sure where to put this, it is a sort of Roman route planner
https://orbis.stanford.edu/
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KeithW
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Re: Roman Road routes

Post by KeithW »

Try this site, its reasonably up to date , there are lots of parameters to select objects if interest and you can save an image.

https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/ar ... l/map.html
Attachments
York Roman Roads.jpg
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