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Roman Road from St Albans to SilchesterMargary Number: 163Distance: 45 miles (to Silchester) I spotted the first stretch of this road from Silchester towards Reading 10 years ago working with the late Hugh Toller and Bryn Gethin. That was on some of the very first Lidar publicly available. Its alignment strongly hinted as to its likely course (more later) but the Lidar coverage was very patchy back then so progress stalled. I left it with Hugh, who had begun work on further researching the route and it appears in the Toller Archive (2016) but unfortunately time was to run out for him. Fast forward 10 years to Itinera Volume IV (2024) and this road was extensively researched and documented by Nigel Rothwell but working in the opposite direction. Two routes from St Albans were described referred to as R163 and R163C branching off it. The former was a direct one with a Thames crossing near Bourne End and the latter branch taking a more northerly course with a Thames crossing suggested at Mill End. Also available online through YouTube is a similar route described by David Staveley again crossing the Thames at Mill End. However, these routes were not what I had envisaged 10 years ago. That original logic that I had put my faith in was that instead of a simple straight line the road targets skirting around the River Thames to the north of Henley-on-Thames. That first alignment I found from Silchester strongly suggests it was targeting crossing the Thames at Caversham, an ancient bridging point (AD1163, Wiki). Once across the Thames then crossing the Thames again would make no sense. The only logical course is to skirt around the Thames north of Henley-on-Thames. Admittedly the evidence between Caversham and Henley is not the strongest but the logic of the alignments surely leaves little doubt that this would have been the Roman route. |
Historic Counties: Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hampshire Current Counties: Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hampshire HER: Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hampshire
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Last update: March 2025 |
© David Ratledge |