King Street (Roman road)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

King Street is the name of a modern road on the line of a Roman road. It runs on a straight course in eastern
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, between the City of Peterborough and South Kesteven in
Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
. This
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
name has long been applied to the part which is still in use and which lies between Ailsworth Heath, in the south and Kate's Bridge, in the north. The old road continued to Bourne thence north-westwards to join
Ermine Street Ermine Street is a major Roman road in England that ran from London ('' Londinium'') to Lincoln (''Lindum Colonia'') and York (''Eboracum''). The Old English name was ''Earninga Strǣt'' (1012), named after a tribe called the ''Earningas' ...
south of Ancaster. This part of Ermine Street is called High Dike. In the south, King Street joined Ermine Street close to the
River Nene The River Nene ( or : see below) is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in Northamptonshire.OS Explorer Map sheet 223, Northampton & Market Harborough, Brixworth & Pitsford Water. The river is about long, about of w ...
, north of '' Durobrivae''. The whole is I. D. Margary's Roman road number 26. (Margary pp. 232–234)


Route

Archaeological work has revealed more of its length than is in use nowadays. Its course is regarded as having run from the boundary between Ailsworth and Castor, at the north-west corner of Normangate Field, just north of the
River Nene The River Nene ( or : see below) is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in Northamptonshire.OS Explorer Map sheet 223, Northampton & Market Harborough, Brixworth & Pitsford Water. The river is about long, about of w ...
(TL113980). This is where it left the Roman
Ermine Street Ermine Street is a major Roman road in England that ran from London ('' Londinium'') to Lincoln (''Lindum Colonia'') and York (''Eboracum''). The Old English name was ''Earninga Strǣt'' (1012), named after a tribe called the ''Earningas' ...
, north-west of ''Durobrivae'' in what was by the end of the 2nd century, an extensive industrial region producing
tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...
s,
metalwork Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...
and particularly,
pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
. To the south of this point, Ermine Street runs along the edge of
The Fens The Fens, also known as the , in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a ...
; but to the north, lies further inland. King Street continued the course nearer the fen edge. While Ermine Street crossed the
Welland Welland is a city in the Regional Municipality of Niagara in Southern Ontario, Canada. As of 2021, it had a population of 55,750. The city is in the centre of Niagara and located within a half-hour driving distance to Niagara Falls, Niagara-on ...
near the natural ford at Stamford, King Street crosses at Lolham Bridges, which required more engineering. At Kate's Bridge, the road crossed the River Glen. Until the 1820s the road still used the same crossing point despite the river's having moved from it at some time, probably well over a thousand years before. At Park Wood, the road appears to have come close to the
Car Dyke The Car Dyke was, and to a large extent still is, an long ditch which runs along the western edge of the Fens in eastern England. It is generally accepted as being of Roman age and, for many centuries, to have been taken as marking the western ...
but this is not well supported by evidence. From near Thurlby crossroads, the Roman line headed straight for the point at which Bourne Abbey was later built on. In this length, there are points where the road seems to show in the modern landscape - for example, her

In the south, the modern road lies on the Roman one which continued through Elsea Wood and along the field boundary to its north. The Car Dyke lies to the east and the boundary between Elsea Wood and Math Wood seems to lie along the edge of the 2nd century road verge, which was cleared for security. The carriageway, the Car Dyke and the Math Wood boundary are all parallel here. When allowance is made for the now-missing outer works of the Car Dyke, the carriageway lies halfway between the other two features. North of Bourne, little of the road is still in use but it has left its mark in the form of property boundaries and soil marks. This section is sometimes called the 'Long Hollow Road' because some of it runs along the bottom of the Long Hollow, a broad, shallow valley which is the upper part of the drainage basin, basin of the River East Glen. From Bourne Abbey, it passed along Meadowgate, then by Cawthorpe to Clipseygap Lane, Hanthorpe and the Roman town at '' Stainfield''. On the
boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists o ...
ridge, it forms boundaries of woods before, in the East Glen valley, its line is picked up by a minor road at Hanby. It passed through the small Roman town at Sapperton and up the Long Hollow to Ropsley Heath whence it is more or less closely followed by a modern road to its junction with Ermine Street, a kilometre south of the Roman town of Ancaster. The road can be seen as a soil mark in The Long Hollow, just right of centre i
this aerial photograph


Economic significance

Ermine Street was one of the strategic roads built in the 1st century, early in the period of the Roman occupation of ''
Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...
''. The features of King Street are consistent with its having formed part of a development of the region along with the Car Dyke, in the reign of Hadrian (117–138). It may well have been a result of his visit to ''Britannia'' in 122; fairly early in his reign and just after he had spent time sorting out the ''
Limes Limes may refer to: * the plural form of lime (disambiguation) Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a ...
'' between the
Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...
and the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...
. From Bourne, the
tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...
waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...
known to archaeologists as the Bourne–Morton Canal and to the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
as the Old Ea, seems to have given Bourne access by boat to the sea, which lay only at the far end of Bourne North Fen. This meant that the products of the
fen A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich Groundwater, ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as ...
and
coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...
such as
salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...
and animal products such as fowls, meat,
wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...
,
fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
and
leather Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hog ...
, could be brought across the fen which would normally have obstructed such traffic. This trade may be enough to explain the six Roman roads which radiated, directly or separating a short distance away, from the site. The Long Hollow Road and King Street were two of these, linking respectively, north and south, into the trunk road system by way of Ermine Street.


Construction

In an archaeological excavation of the road at the southern edge of Bourne (TF098193), where it ran across a margin between Kellaways clay and the argillaceous (clayey) Kellaways sand, it was found that the construction of the carriageway had been done by digging two parallel shallow trenches into the subsoil and over-filling them with gravel ballast so as to form kerbs. Coarse sand was used to form the carriageway between them. This was a skilful use of the available materials as south of Kate's Bridge, the road passes over such minerals but little but rather friable
Cornbrash The Cornbrash Formation is a Middle Jurassic geological formation in England. It ranges in age from Bathonian to Callovian, the uppermost part of the Middle Jurassic. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the form ...
is available near the excavated site. Clearly, this part of the road was constructed from the south, northwards and the materials carried along it. However, further north, in the Long Hollow, cornbrash from Sapperton TF019239, seems to have been used (Lane p. 23.) Again, the use is north of the source. B.B. Simmons has spent much time excavating a roadside Roman town in the parish of Sapperton. His publications are listed in Lane's Ropsley and Humby book. The latter (plates 7a & b) also shows aerial photographs of the road as a soil mark around TF003367. This is the same mark as appears in photo 4 below.


Aerial photographs



King Street meets High Dyke (Ermine Street) near Ancaster.

High Dike (Ermine Street) and King Street meet at the top of this photograph.

Soil mark of King Street in the Long Hollow, near the A52.

By Ropsley Heath quarry.

The small roadside Roman town at Sapperton is centred on the long, green field.

Road, soil marks and field boundaries at Lenton.

Soil marks in the bare field at top centre and in the long field west of the airfield.

Woodland boundaries on the chalky till near Kirkby Underwood.

Property boundaries from Stainfield Roman town north-westwards.

Stainfield Roman town and Clipseygap Lane, Hanthorpe.

Clipseygap Lane and soil mark.

The road, heading northwards turns aside from its Roman course as it meets Elsea Wood. The white patches towards the eastern edge of the field to the east of the road are the ploughed-out banks of the Car Dyke.

The present road runs up the picture while the old turnpike bridge over the Glen is to its east. Until the 1820s the road northward descended from it to the tight turn seen under the crop in the pale field. John Loudon McAdam, McAdam took the tight bend out and in the 1970s, his new line was projected across a new bridge.

The northern end of the modern King Street.

The Maltby Drive houses are built on the Urns Farm early English people, English cemetery, dated around the year 500. This was at the limit of the English advance into Britain at the time when the ''
Dux Bellorum ''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, ''dux' ...
'' known as Arthur held the spread of settlement back for fifty years by his battles, beginning at the mouth of the Glen.

Lolham Bridges. The diagonal brown feature is the London to Edinburgh railway.

The junction between the two roads, Ermine Street and King Street, which are here, both defunct (just west of Station Road).


See also

* Mareham Lane


References

* Margary, I.D. ''Roman Roads in Britain'' (1973) *Phillips, C.W. ''The Fenland in Roman Times'' Royal Geographical Research Series No. 5. (1970) *Bennett, S. & Bennett, N. ''An Historical Atlas of Lincolnshire'' (1993) *Hayes, P.P. & Lane, T.W. ''The Fenland Project Number 5: Lincolnshire Survey, The South-West Fens.'' (1992) *Lane, T.W. ''The Archaeology and Developing Landscape of Ropsley and Humby, Lincolnshire''. (1995) *Simmons, B.B. ''Sapperton, an interim report'' Lincolnshire Hist. & Archaeol. Vol.11, 5-11 (1976) *Anon Institute of Geological Sciences ''One-Inch Series, Sheet 143, Bourne''. Drift Edition (1971).


External links

There is a little information in these two but you will need use Edit - Find - King Street.
Vicar of Maxey’s Talk
{{DEFAULTSORT:King Street (Roman Road) Roman roads in England Archaeological sites in Cambridgeshire Archaeological sites in Lincolnshire Roads in Lincolnshire