Woolvershill Road - 26 September 2018 >

Woolvershill Road connects St Georges, site of Roman salt manufacturing of “industrial scale“, and Banwell, full of Roman stuff and with the Roman town just over the hill. At the northern end is West Wick and Gav tells me Wick often indicates the Latin Vicus, a  settlement. Halfway along is Stonebridge, another possible indicator of a Roman road although why there would be a stone bridge here is not at all clear.

Apart from a small kink, it is pretty straight for most of the way. However at the northern end not far from the M5 it swings away from the straight course and makes a wide loop to the north-east before crossing the motorway by a bridge and then swinging back to near its former line. Aha, I thought, this is a route modification of the modern road to allow it to mount a ramp, the land being very flat around here, across the M5; surely the Roman road carried straight on in a direct line and can be found somewhere just east of the motorway or just west.

First we looked East of the M5 for the continuation of the line after the bend of the modern road to the right. The road is lined on its left side by houses; even what looked like promising open fields on the map seemed to now have properties. At one house, Little Orchards, we met a very amenable owner who allowed us to walk a private roadway until we reached the putative line; there was, alas, no trace. He told us his house had been built in the 1930s so this put paid to the idea that the road’s bend to the right was a relatively recent diversion in connection with the construction of the M5. No topographic reason for a possible change in the Roman road route to the right can be seen; the land continues flat and lacking awkward features. However, modern roads that follow a Roman course do swerve off the line for various reasons; building road houses may have destroyed the road or it may still be evident in someone’s back garden.

West of the motorway, there seemed on the map to be traces of what might have been the original continuation of the straight line from the south. However there are two main possibilities.

Firstly, we parked where Summer Lane meets the Woolvershill Road. Here, the lane makes a right angle turn to the east to meet Woolvershill road; this is presumably a recent alteration as part of the massive raising of land levels here no doubt for housebuilding, which will deeply bury any possible Roman road.

However, north of the right angled bend, course of the lane continues as a path with a deep ditch on one side and the Blind Yeo Rhyne on the other. Width at  one point: 5 m or 16 feet (the same as the average width of the Fosse Way or Akeman Street). Where Woolvershill road ( now Churchland Way ) bends west to meet it, there are traces of tarmac surface, (see picture above),presumably of Summer Lane.

Across the main road the line is continued by a tarmac path alongside the Blind Yeo Rhyne.   Both follow a long straight alignment as far as the A370 where the path loops underneath. Beyond, it resumes, very roughly, the original line....... Now named Summer Lane. An overall roughish straight line continues until the lane takes a right angle bend to the right. However, Summer Lane North continues the line until it meets the B3440, New Bristol Road.

What are we to make of all this? Clearly we have the remnants of a presumably old lane, pushed around by modern development. We did not follow Summer Lane south of where we parked but on the map, just before it reaches the M5, it makes a right angled double bend, is then obliterated by the motorway then  emerges on the other side as Summer Lane. It continues on a fairly direct but not quite straight line to the south until it meets the A371 a mile or so west of Banwell. It would be useful to look at old maps or Know Your Place. Does the name Summer Lane tell us anything? If the main stretch of Woolvershill road South of the M5 is considered the line of a Roman road, there is nothing to stop Summer Lane north and west of the motorway from taking over the line. 

The second possibility, which we did not explore and probably wouldn’t tell us much on the ground anyway is to draw a straight line northwards from the Woolvershill road straight alignment east of the M5. On the far side it aligns roughly with Kent Road........ which,  surprise surprise, becomes Woolvershill road again! Until it meets a Summer Lane coming from our path along the Blind Yeo Rhyne!! All very confusing! But if the Woolvershill road East of the M5 is the line of a Roman road then the straight line continuation to Woolvershill on the west of the M5 might be the better line.

Geophysics of the Summer Lane option is confined to the bridleway and although it would be easy to do, it would have to be borne in mind that the remains of a modern road might lie immediately the beneath the path surface.

Geophysics of the Woolvershill road (east of M5) to Woolvershill road ( west of M5) in the areas just south east and north west of the M5 look possible but perhaps more tricky in terms of access.

A final thought. We are talking here about a minor non-strategic commercial Roman road, most likely financed and managed locally. So why would it be straight like a major strategic road? One reason would be that the topography allows it; plenty of roads in similar topography are straight . Another might be that the local elites, having bought into the Roman world, might want to emulate Roman ways. Yet another might come from an interesting idea by Steve that expertise could come from retired Roman legionaries, especially technical staff, living at the Gloucester Colonia; Contractors were used by the state in Italy (The great Corbulo complained that contractors were taking the money but not doing the work!)