legio ii building stone

Mike Bishop

You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles

MENU THINGY

From trackway to road

Continued...

M.C. Bishop

Conclusion

[Two of the three Devil's Arrows]So was there a prehistoric predecessor to the Dere Street? At Roecliffe, the nearby standing stones have been suggested as pointing to a fording point of the Ure.[29] This idea was dismissed by Aubrey Burl in his paper on the Devil's Arrows, [30] pointing out that the Ure was too deep to ford. However, he overlooked the fact that the river has been canalized in modern times and that, in 1322, a major portion of the Battle of Boroughbridge took place at a ford near the town itself![31] Even today, it is reported that the river can be forded at Langthorpe, despite its being canalized. [32] During the excavations of the Roman extramural settlement at Roecliffe, the remains of neolithic post alignments (two parallel rows of apparently paired posts) were discovered, one aligned north-south and joined by another respecting the line of the river. Another was identified some distance to the north, directly opposite Dishforth airfield.[33] Interestingly, parallel alignments similar to those at Roecliffe were found at Bishop Rigg near Red House,[34] although they were there interpreted as successive palisade trenches. The route indicated by the Devil's Arrows would, as it headed north, pass the important series of henges at Cana and Thornborough Rings. [35]

It is now generally accepted that, when Cerealis moved into Brigantia in AD71, he proceeded north as far as Scotch Corner, and then almost certainly north-west along the line of what is now the A66, to Carlisle.[36] The castra at Rey Cross, bisected by the Roman road, is usually assumed to have pre-dated the road;[37] once again, the course of the Stage One route may have approximated to that of the Stage Three road. It was therefore left to Agricola to follow the route northwards through Red House into lowland Scotland, but probably also utilizing the Devil's Causeway, touching the sea at the mouth of the Tweed, as much as the proto-Dere Street route to Newstead.[38]

Clearly, more work needs to be done. What has been offered here is but a mere hint of the existence of a predecessor to the Dere Street, but it does potentially offer insights into the development of the Roman road network in Britain and, perhaps, some clues to the strategic thinking behind Cerialis' Brigantian campaign. It is entirely plausible that other sites on the line of this route lie undiscovered and here one naturally thinks of Piercebridge and the postulated - yet still 'missing' - early castra there.[39]

We have long cherished the notion that the basis of the network of trunk roads in modern-day Britain - and with it the location of many of our important towns and cities - derives from the Roman road system. What is less often commented upon is the possibility that much of this network in fact derives from major prehistoric routes that were exploited by the Romans during their conquest of the island: our Roman roads have lasted a long time, but their routes may be even older.

Notes

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1. Burnhamet al. 1994, 265-6. The final report is in preparation, but more details of the work at Roecliffe will be available on Oculus in the near future.

2. A useful comparison can here be made to aerial photographs of the site at Stanway (Gosbecks Farm) near Colchester, where a box rampart is also detectable (Wilson 1977).

3. Wacher 1975, 398-404.

4. Ibid. 399.

5. Myres et al. 1959, 52-3.

6. Bishop 1996, 2.

7. Ibid., Nos.2-7.

8. Bishop 1994.

9. Hanson et al. 1979.

10. Bishop and Dore 1989.

11. Ibid. 219.

12. Frere 1987, 101-2 with fn.20; , 151.Hanson 1987

13. Selkirk 1995, 98-9.

14. I am grateful to John Dore for discussion on this matter.

15. For discussion of the bridge see R.H. Forster in Woolley 1907, 177-80; Bourne 1967; Bidwell and Holbrook 1989, 103-5. The most recent survey work is outlined in Bidwell and Snape 1996.

16. Daniels 1959.

17. For recent work on the Dere Street at Riding Mill, see Snape 1995.

18. See above, note 13.

19. The term has also been used by Selkirk (above, note 13), although not to describe the same thing. He uses it for an earlier road, whereas I prefer to use it for a route, more-or-less firmly adhered to by the later road(s) that came to be known as Dere Street in the post-Roman period.

20. SE 445 564 to SE 452 470, then across the River Wharfe (near Newton Kyme castra) at SE 453 457 and down to a junction with the 'Roman Ridge' York road at SE 465 419. Thence to a point north of Aberford (SE 434 390), where a course change to due south takes the road down to the north bank of the CAlder, opposite Castleford.

21. Rivet and Smith 1979, 162-4.

22. Hyland 1990, 123-4. The cavalry burials at Krefeld-Gellup were evidently unshod, as no shoes are ever mentioned in the publications (Pirling 1971; 1977;1986).

23. In the literary sources, chariots were encountered in southern Britain by Caesar (de Bello Gallico IV,33-4) and in what is now eastern Scotland by Agricola (Tacitus, Agricola 35-6), whilst archaeology has supplied the chariot burials of East Yorkshire (Stead 1991). Linguistic studies suggest that many Latin words to do with wheeled transport have been borrowed from the Celtic (Stevenson 1983, 49).

24. Peddie 1987, 187-90.

25. Ibid. 189, Table VI.

26. Bagshawe 1979, 21.

27. Slavin 1988, 46.

28. Orton 1995.

29. Tutin 1954.

30. Burl 1991, 21.

31. Denholm-Young 1957, 124.

32. An unsubstantiated report to the writer by a present-day inhabitant of Langthorpe.

33. Final report in preparation.

34. Jobey 1979.

35. Thomas 1976, 247-9.

36. Hanson and Campbell 1986, 88.

37. Frere and St. Joseph 1983, 24.

38. Hanson 1987, 102.

References

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