The North Somerset Roman Road Project
The North Somerset Roman Road Project
The idea is to investigate the transport connections between communities and economic activities, especially via roads. Not the long-distance strategic roads such as the Fosse Way, but the equivalent of modern B and minor A roads, although of course major roads like the Fosse Way could be used locally for short stretches much as motorways can be today. Not routes for legionaries to march up and down; there was no military presence here after the initial conquest period since all forts were decommissioned by the 80s A.D. and there is next to no evidence of military activity in our area for most of the Roman period.
North Somerset is a microcosm of much of the Roman world; it has no major sites such as Bath or Chedworth Villa and certainly no forts or legionary bases but is full of commercial and community life. There were local industries such as salt production, lead mining, iron working, stone quarrying, pottery making, and of course agriculture. And settlements, villas , farmsteads. Also small towns such as Gatcombe (whose walls encompass 13 ha), Winthill (at Banwell, bigger than the walled area of Bath, according to a local council archaeologist, though largely unpublished), Charterhouse on Mendip ( upwards of or even more than 30 ha). And all this needed roads of a reasonable standard. Using the historic environment records kindly provided for us by the local archaeological officer and also aerial photos and LiDAR, we have begun to investigate some of the possibilities in the area.
1. Broad Down (where there is a lot of iron working) via Iwood Manor which may well lead to the important small town at Winthill near Banwell, involved in lead production amongst other things.
2. Nempnett church to Regil village which could be aiming for the complex site at Gatcombe, west of Long Ashton, coming from the south: first picture below - looking across possible agger on the presumed Line.
3. Charterhouse lead mine settlement via Winthill/Banwell to the Uphill area where a Settlement is being excavated on Bleadon Hill, south of Weston super Mare. Second picture below - possible Line of Road.
4. Banwell/Winthill via (for the most part) Wolvershill Road to St Georges (east of Weston-super-Mare), where there was a Settlement and salt production 'on an industrial scale' (according to the excavators, Neil Holbrook et al) intended for 'export'.
The object is to explore not just the routes of these kinds of roads but also the non-military uses and purposes, by looking at the connections they make. A document survives granting permission to a town in south Italy to construct a road in its area. The letters of the younger Pliny clearly show that in the province of Bithynia, cities had responsibility for local municipal projects but that if mismanaged, central government would intervene. In Britain the emperor’s representative was the Governor, legatus Augusti pro praetore; I suggest he was the person who granted authority to the Civitates for local administration and works, such as construction of local roads and especially their maintenance over long periods of time. For example the road south west from Exeter to the modern village of Ipplepen in Devon is about 20 miles and was repaired many times; surely this was the responsibility of the council, the ‘Ordo’, in Isca Dumnoniorum.
Of course the strategic roads could also carry merchandise and provide important routes for commerce. South of Bath on the Fosse Way, excavation revealed no less than 13 layers of rebuild and refurbishment including a number of former top surfaces identified by ruts and general wear and tear (image below). Clearly once its probable original function of linking the early legionary fortresses at Lincoln and Exeter had ceased, its continued heavy use requiring such major works over a long period of time argues significant commercial traffic; there was no military presence in this area for most of the Roman period.
The idea is to investigate the transport connections between communities and economic activities, especially via roads. Not the long-distance strategic roads such as the Fosse Way, but the equivalent of modern B and minor A roads, although of course major roads like the Fosse Way could be used locally for short stretches much as motorways can be today. Not routes for legionaries to march up and down; there was no military presence here after the initial conquest period since all forts were decommissioned by the 80s A.D. and there is next to no evidence of military activity in our area for most of the Roman period.
North Somerset is a microcosm of much of the Roman world; it has no major sites such as Bath or Chedworth Villa and certainly no forts or legionary bases but is full of commercial and community life. There were local industries such as salt production, lead mining, iron working, stone quarrying, pottery making, and of course agriculture. And settlements, villas , farmsteads. Also small towns such as Gatcombe (whose walls encompass 13 ha), Winthill (at Banwell, bigger than the walled area of Bath, according to a local council archaeologist, though largely unpublished), Charterhouse on Mendip ( upwards of or even more than 30 ha). And all this needed roads of a reasonable standard. Using the historic environment records kindly provided for us by the local archaeological officer and also aerial photos and LiDAR, we have begun to investigate some of the possibilities in the area.
Possible roads we are investigating:
1. Broad Down (where there is a lot of iron working) via Iwood Manor which may well lead to the important small town at Winthill near Banwell, involved in lead production amongst other things.
2. Nempnett church to Regil village which could be aiming for the complex site at Gatcombe, west of Long Ashton, coming from the south: first picture below - looking across possible agger on the presumed Line.
3. Charterhouse lead mine settlement via Winthill/Banwell to the Uphill area where a Settlement is being excavated on Bleadon Hill, south of Weston super Mare. Second picture below - possible Line of Road.
4. Banwell/Winthill via (for the most part) Wolvershill Road to St Georges (east of Weston-super-Mare), where there was a Settlement and salt production 'on an industrial scale' (according to the excavators, Neil Holbrook et al) intended for 'export'.
Just as in the north you might look at the connections between forts (although of course there are towns), in North Somerset we need to find connections between towns and centres of commercial production. An example is the small town at Gatcombe (see Britannia 2014, pp19-29, Smisson R P M and Grove P, Gatcombe Roman Settlement), which has 3 gates in the defensive walls and probably a 4th; so where do they lead, and especially how do they connect with other towns and centres of production? Particularly the latter, bearing in mind all the commercial and light industrial activity in the town.
Further abroad, I visited Ljubljana in Slovenia recently, where an original Roman road sits in the basement of the city museum in its original location. Ljubljana’s Roman ancestor, the city of Julia Emona, straddled the important Via Gemina on its route over the Julian Alps to Pannonia and the Danube from Aquileia at the head of the Adriatic. Aquileia was an emporium where according to the Roman geographer Strabo "They load on wagons and carry inland the products of the sea, wine stored in wooden casks, and olive oil". Probably this road also carried Samian ware for trade north of the Danube as far as Poland where widespread deposits of this type of pottery have been found. The pictures below are of the Roman road in the basement of Ljubljana city Museum.
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