Issue 19 - March 2001

By

In the September 2000 issue of our newsletter, Brenda Ludvigsen suggested that road accidents in her home area may have been caused by drivers unwittingly turning down the line of buried Roman roads having sub-consciously dowsed the ancient and invisible track as a highway. At one intersection of ancient and modern roads, the farmer has given up mending the fence where cars have repeatedly left the modern highway for no apparent reason and on a straight stretch too.

There are parallels, which may give this theory some credibility:

In 1925, a French Jesuit Priest, Pere RP Antoine Poidebard, who had served as a French army chaplain on the Western Front in 1917, was given the job by the Geographical Society of France of finding ancient aqueducts in Syria in order to rebuild them for modern irrigation purposes. Pere Poidebard was given an honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the French air force and flew as an observer on aerial archaeological searches. In addition to aqueducts, on his very first flight, he found a whole network of unknown Roman frontier fortifications and roads, all covered by windblown desert sand but still visible as shadow marks from an aeroplane.

Unfortunately, his subsequent ground searches failed at first to locate tangible evidence and Poidebard was ridiculed in Paris as an impostor who produced fantasies of the Jules Verne type. There has never been any shortage of those who, at the drop of a hat, pour scorn on subjects they do not understand. Poidebard however had read the writings of the Roman author, Vegetius, and noted the comments about camels being able to follow invisible desert trails. Vegetius had written: "These animals seemed to have a natural instinct for following in the steps of their long departed kin." Poidebard therefore obtained a string of camels and drove the animal train at right angles over a suspected Roman road. The camels turned and followed the invisible road. He repeated this experiment many times and was able to publish a book on the Roman "limes' (defensive network) of Syria. This book is still in use today and is the only authoritative work on the subject. The Roman frontier roads had evolved from marching routes in a conquered land, into a fortified line, and later formed the basis for a grid work of defence in depth. The Roman engineers had often reused Hittite and Assyrian sites and had placed their buildings on the old foundations.

Here at home in northern England, we are finding a similar grid of Roman military roads along the east-west ridges of Northumberland and Durham. Chair borne critics are finding this difficult to believe but publication is not far away.

To return to the camel trail-finders: if a camel can sense an invisible ancient road, then it seems feasible that the human animal should have, or at least have had at one time, before endless cacophonies both broadcast and locally produced, dulled the brains of "civilised mankind." Dowsing may therefore be some kind of sixth sense, lost by most city-dwellers and practised only by primitive peoples and a few dedicated enthusiasts nearer home, whose brains have remained uncontaminated by the modern noisy rat race.

I am not much good at dowsing myself, but I was very impressed by Professor Richard Bailey and his academic team who dowsed so much new evidence about Saxon churches in Northumberland. When the expert dowser, Mr Briggs, sensed and marked the lines of foundations of unknown parts of these ancient churches, subsequent excavations showed that he had never been more than three centimetres in error.

An archaeologist must use all means at his disposal and for my own searches, I use aircraft, field-walkers, divers, historical records, metal detectorists, dowsers of proven ability, geophysical surveys, dendrochronology, radio-carbon-dating and anything else I can lay my hands on. I have not yet tried camels but would do so if given the opportunity!

Many years ago during my airline-flying career, my aircrew duties took me to Singapore where our Avro York air-freighter, on charter to RAF Transport Command, often flew military stores into the RAF airfield at Changi, which was quite close to the famous prison where the Japanese had held allied prisoners of war under the most dreadful conditions. The Japanese had also used gangs of local people as forced labour for airfield construction. Fortunately, during my own duties, the Japanese were long gone but memories of some of their evil deeds may have been locked-up in inter-molecular space, to reappear at intervals as manifestations, visible only to certain people with the "sight" or ability to detect coded or modulated vibrations or disturbances which displayed themselves as a pictorial scene in the brain of the privileged beholder. I hasten to add that I am not one of these gifted people, but I knew that on several occasions, British military aircraft had been cleared to land on the main runway at Changi, but just before touchdown, the pilot had opened his throttles to full power and climbed away to begin another circuit for a second attempt. When the controller asked the pilot the reason for his overshoot, the reply was: "There was a crowd of people on the runway threshold."

The controller had become used to phenomena of this type but told the pilot that the airfield would be checked for trespassers. The tower staff knew however, that no unauthorised human beings had been anywhere near the runway. Overshooting pilots always landed without incident on the second attempt after unexpected "go-arounds," and controllers entered brief details in the tower's logbook. Although nothing was mentioned over the radio, the airfield authorities knew that underneath the end of the runway, was a mass grave of Japanese victims. The media were never given any information about these incidents as both pilots and controllers kept quiet because they were loath to present themselves as targets for the ridicule for disbelieving pooh-pooh mongers

We must learn never to dismiss out of hand, things our puny human brains cannot understand. Dowsing is one of these subjects.

We recently had a successful Roman Convention at the George Hotel, Piercebridge which is based at the southern end of the Roman bridge which used to cross the Tees at this point. The remains of the bridge abutment can now be seen peeping out of the riverbank below the hotel, exactly on the line of Dere Street. The structure downstream labelled “Roman Bridge” is not a bridge at all but the high and dry flood spillway of a Roman dam. The divers, Bob and Rolfe, had on display again the ever-growing great Roman Treasure taken from the line of the genuine Roman bridge. This covers the whole span of the Roman occupation in this country, and into the Saxon period as a Saxon brooch has also been discovered. It’s a disgrace that the establishment do not wish to recognise this Treasure: it should be on permanent display in a museum for all to see. For more information on the subject please read Raymond Selkirk’s books The Piercebridge Formula and On the Trail of the Legions.

At the meeting, we met one of our Cumbrian colleagues, Cedric Bell and his wife Paddy, who live near Ullswater, my favourite lake. He is a Chartered Engineer with a Marine Engineering background and was employed by the prestigious Blue Funnel Line. He also has experience of Factory Works Engineering including responsibility for the engineering in the non-ferrous metal industry. He also has a great knowledge of geology and is now an Honorary Warden of Lakeland Footpaths. So, he is a man of wide experience and interests, capable of knowing what he’s looking at.

He has had an active interest in Roman engineering for the past 30 years, and after reading Ray’s books became another convert to Roman river navigation. For several years he has been searching the Rivers Eden and Eamont looking for dams and canals, with successful results, and regularly sends us detailed reports, maps and photographs. In the process of searching the rivers he has also discovered fortlets, a Roman mining complex, together with Roman jetties on the shore of Ullswater. On display at the Hotel was a collection of models of the dams he has discovered and as we have seen similar structures in our own searches in County Durham and Northumberland decided to organise a day trip to Cumbria, no matter what the weather.

A group of us made an early morning start for the two hour drive to our meeting place at Armathwaite. I had ensured that each of the five cars had a mobile telephone, which came into use when one of our party did not appear, but fortunately was found in another part of the village. Heavy rain had accompanied us on our journey but luckily had stopped for our first walk. We parked beside the bridge on the east bank of the River Eden and walked south on the public path by the riverside. I’ve had two hip replacements over the passed six years so I have to take care not to slip when going up or down steep banks, and depending on the gradients, have to decide whether it’s a two or three-man job to get me down. This bank was a two-man affair, my husband, Len, to hang on to, and Ray Selkirk to sweep the wet leaves from the precipitous path. Mill Farm is on the west bank and the dam has been constructed using a natural igneous Sill crossing the river. The gap in the east end of the Sill to the bank has been infilled with a wall of stone blocks, measuring 11.7m wide, 1.5m high and 1.5m deep, forming a spillway for the dam, to bypass excess water. Owing to heavy rain the river was high and we could only see white water crossing the main dam. Water was also flowing over the spillway but we managed to cross it for a further look at the Sill (one-man job) and in the process could see lewis holes and cramp holes in the stones. Some form of lifting gate would have been installed in the centre of the dam but Cedric advised that this section had been filled with smaller blocks and concreted over. We were also informed that the canal to bypass the dam would have been where the mill building now stands. He advised that the Roman fort platform can be seen just south of the Castle on the west bank, but this is on private land and we did not have access. We returned to the cars and went off to Cedric’s home for lunch, where we met Paddy and also his famous black and white collie, Corrie. Instead of using a striped measuring pole Cedric poses Corrie on any structure he wishes to photograph. Before we arrived at the house we called at Voreda Roman Fort on the A6, where part of the east gate can be seen. We also called to see the fortlet discovered by Cedric at Tirril, NY 502 266, which would control the northern section of High Street. The mobile phone came in handy again to give further guidance to errant navigators.

Intruded igneous sill across River Eden.  Roman spill dam to left (east bank).  Mill site to right (west bank).

After lunch we continued our exploration to Pooley Bridge where we called at Hole House Farm, again on public paths and walked south through the farmyard. The suspected fort is on a high platform 98m by 70m overlooking the River Eamont, with a beautiful view towards Ullswater, and indentations of the 350m by 3m canal could be seen in the field below us. The soil taken from the canal would have been used to build up the embankment for the fort. Again owing to the heavy rain the canal had started to refill which helped us to plot its course. Cedric advised that a weir in the vicinity had been removed. Up to this time the weather had been dry but the rain came in torrents and blew horizontally into our faces as we tried to survey the fort. One of party mentioned that it was no good being a “namby pamby” to be a member of the NAG. The west gateway of the fort was visible, with some stone, and the ditch could be traced on the east side. An agger of a road could also be seen coming down the bank to the south of the fort, heading towards the canal. On our return to the cars we could see that the farmhouse was also constructed on an artificial embankment.

Our next port of call was at Waterside Farm on the edge of Ullswater. As I said previously this is my favourite lake and I have happy memories of camping at this farm with my husband and children. The winter rain did not spoil the beauty of the view as I recalled we also had heavy rain in the summer. One of the lake steamer’s The Lady of the Lake was pulled up onto the slipway for its winter holiday and we walked past it to a smooth hill marked as Hodgson Hill on the map. The poor sheep were not too happy in the rain and one had climbed into the covered food trough to find shelter. Cedric has surveyed and probed this hill which is a possible Roman fortlet and just to the north of it could be seen a causeway heading to the water. Beside the causeway was a large marshy sedge-filled area, which could be a Roman barge basin used for transporting the products of the mines also discovered in the area. On retracing our steps we were met by a white goose and a Canada goose coming to inspect the mad strangers.

The day was loosing its light but we had time for one more visit, this time to the suspected Roman mine at Swarthbeck. The rain had eased as we parked at the farm buildings and walked up the public path which looked remarkably like Roman roads we have excavated in our home area. Swarthbeck Gill was rushing past us in full flow and we met a large horse wearing its raincoat, standing half out of its stable (a former cottage), very curious as to passers-by. The path joins another public path coming down from The Cockpit and ending eventually at Patterdale. I have walked this latter path many times, before I had any knowledge of Roman roads, and was surprised to see that it was also possibly Roman, but then it was likely to be when it was coming down from High Street. We turned right along this path and Cedric advised that the Roman mine was up to our left on Raven Crag. I managed to be dragged up the hill by my husband and saw the outlet (adit) of the drainage system from the mine. Just above the stream was a pile of stones covering the opening of the drift mine into the side of the Crag. It was a three-man effort to get me back down, one for each arm and one to walk in front to stop any slippage. In the field to the west of the path Cedric pointed out further remains of the mine workings, drainage ditches, roads, and possible buildings. On the way back to the cars, Cedric advised that Swarthbeck Gill had been converted to form an ore recovery plant. A second stream bed had been formed parallel to the original and both watercourses had been turned into a multi-pooled descending system for breaking up the ore. I have never seen a Roman mine before and have no knowledge of its workings but it was well worth the effort. We returned to Cedric’s home for tea and warmth before our return journey.

Cedric told us about his other discoveries, such as the dam at Wetheral, the forts at Portinscale, a fortlet at Dacre and many others. All the information has been passed to the relevant authorities with invitations to be taken to see these fantastic discoveries. Some don’t even bother to reply; none have taken up his offer giving various excuses, the silliest being that “the office was being refurbished”. Surely that’s all the more reason to get away from it and be an archaeologist, not an office boy. Sadly, it seems that the Cumbrian archaeologists are cloned from the same mould as the chaps east of the Pennines who are quite happy to look at known sites, but are not willing to consider new discoveries; more like historians than archaeologists. However, it is their loss and we had a super day and most likely on our next visit when the days are longer Cedric will have more discoveries to show us.

THOSE MAGNIFICENT SURVEYORS AND THEIR FLYING MACHINES

In 1918, a crewmember of a two-seater British reconnaissance aircraft on the Western Front was a certain Major Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford of the Royal Flying Corps.  Major Crawford was the aeroplane's "observer" and this was the old name for the crewman who was a combined navigator/photographer/radio operator/ bombardier and gunner.  Before his military service, Crawford worked for the Ordnance Survey and had become very interested in ancient monuments.  His flying career had introduced him to the phenomena now known as "crop marks" which allowed, under certain conditions, the shapes of the foundations of buildings and other works from past historical occupations to manifest themselves as lines of different shades in acres of overall spring-green or harvest-gold cereals.

This method of detection of archaeological sites was regarded by most of the "establishment" of the period as what would now be termed "fringe archaeology"; but the appearance of the botanical facsimiles of past human works had been noted long before the advent of powered aircraft: in 1770, the Rev Dr Stukeley had looked down from a hill in southern England and was astonished at the shape of a Roman temple in the corn below.  His report was ridiculed.

Various early aeronauts who ventured aloft in balloons also mentioned the sightings of ghostly shapes of ancient architecture in the farmlands.  Their reports were likewise pooh-poohed.

Unfortunately, cloister-bound self-confessed "experts" have always denigrated activists in all fields of exploration.  The German explorers of East Africa, in the 19th century were lampooned when they reported snow-capped, twenty thousand-foot mountains almost on the equator.  The sages in London said it was impossible for ice caps to exist in the tropics.

Experts in Paris also criticised the flying priest, Pere Poidebard when he reported that while he was being flown over Syria in 1925, looking for ancient irrigation channels, which could possibly be refurbished for modern cultivation, he spotted a whole network of unknown Roman roads, forts and signal stations.  When he landed, these became invisible on the surface and he couldn't find them.  He was a resourceful man and discovered a unique method of locating buried Roman roads from ground level - he drove a train of camels across the area of the invisible road, and when the beasts intercepted the line, they turned along it.  The Roman writer, Vegetius, had also known of camels' trail-finding abilities: he wrote: "These animals seem to have a natural instinct for following in the steps of their long departed kin."

Poidebard used to get his pilot to skim along lost Roman roads at a height of fifteen feet, while he tried to photograph inscriptions on Roman milestones, which whizzed past.  If the surface of the desert allowed, his plane would land to allow him to dig a quick sondage (trial trench) across a buried feature. Poidebard's subsequent books remain the standard reference works for the Roman Empire's eastern frontiers.

In 1918, a crop mark probably saved the lives of Major OGS Crawford and his pilot: they became lost behind enemy lines in bad visibility.  Major Crawford then spotted the double telltale lines of the crop marks over the drainage ditches of a Roman road.  He recognised this feature as one he had noticed previously and was able to guide the aircraft back to the allied lines.

On a later sortie, he was shot down by a German aircraft and spent some time in a German POW camp where he studied books on archaeology.

After the war, he returned to Flanders and excavated some of his crop marks, thus proving his techniques.  He eventually became a university professor and is now recognised as one of the pioneers of "aerial archaeology."

Also during the 1914-18 war, a certain Lieutenant-Colonel GA Beazley of the Royal Engineers, was carrying out an aerial survey of the Tigris-Euphrates plain, when about sixty-five miles northwest of Baghdad, he sighted the outlines of canals, and the square grid system of an ancient city.  He had discovered the ninth century "Old Samara." Beazley continued to investigate these sites, both from the air and on the ground, but in May 1918, the searches were cut short when an enemy aircraft shot him down.  Thus another flying archaeologist was awarded ample study time in a prison camp.  After the war, Beazley's accounts were published in the Geographical Journal of 1919 and 1920.

In 1925, Squadron Leader GSM Insall, who had been awarded the Victoria Cross in the war, was on a flight out of his base at Nether Avon and from a height of two thousand feet, he looked down on what was thought by antiquarians to be the mutilated remains of a very large "disc barrow." To Insall, it looked very much like a much-eroded version of the famous Stonehenge just a couple of miles away.  The following year, when the site was under wheat, Insall took a photograph of the crop marks of the so-called "barrow" and the result caused a stir among archaeologists.  Insall's photograph suggested that the site had been a wooden version of Stonehenge, and excavations confirmed this and it became known as "Woodhenge." Further monuments of this type, hitherto unknown, were found throughout Britain and dated to the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages.

About the same time, OGS Crawford received help from a kindred spirit, Alexander Keiller, who had been a pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service during the war.  An aircraft was hired from the De Havilland Company at the RAF base at Weyhill, and a captured German camera installed in the observer's cockpit.  The results of the Keiller/Crawford survey were published in Wessex from the Air in 1928.

In the 1930s another amateur aerial surveyor was Major George WG Allen, an engineer who owned his own aircraft.  His photography was mostly of the Oxford and Thames valley areas, and he must be admired for the excellent results he obtained while flying his De Havilland Puss Moth solo, handling a large, unwieldy and complex camera while gripping the aircraft's stick between his knees.

During the subsequent 1939-45 war, OGS Crawford lost many of his photographs when a German bomb hit his office at the Ordnance Survey during the blitz.  One of Crawford's last speaking engagements before the outbreak of war had been to a group of Luftwaffe officers!  Allen's large collection at the Ashmolean Museum partly compensated for Crawford's loss,

In 1945, an amazing French air force pilot, Colonel Jean Baradez, became a temporary archaeologist when he searched North Africa for evidence of the Roman occupation.  Pere Poidebard had inspired Baradez but he used modern military methods.  Baradez had no knowledge of the Romans but he was a reconnaissance pilot and was used to searching for camouflaged enemy camps, roads and fortifications.  He used the same technique in his search for the Romans.  On his very first flight, from his American built 300 mph Martin Marauder bomber with two x 2,000 hp Pratt & Whitney engines, he photographed from high altitude, 150 square kilometres in one hour.  Although the area had been well studied by experts, the Colonel confounded all concerned with the discovery of an unknown wall and ditch system similar to Hadrian's Wall in Britain.  This first grid of photographs also produced a hundred kilometres of unknown Roman roads, a Roman fort, thirty fortlets and other buildings associated with the roads; also sixty stone towers along his Fossatum, many integral with his frontier wall.

The Algerian war of independence prevented further work.  One day the task may be completed, possibly from cameras in orbiting satellites.

Aerial searches continue world-wide and it is now thought by British survey pilots including the author that more than half of the Roman roads in Britain have yet to be found.

Bibliography

Baradez J,                    Fossatum Africae.  Vue Aerienne de l'organisation romaine dans le sud-A1gerien, 1949.

Beazley GA,                   in Geographical Journal, 1919 & 1920.

Keiller/Crawford,           Wessex from the Air, 1928.

Poidebard RP,               La Trace de Rome dans le desert de Svrie, 1934.

Poidebard RP,                Le Limes de Chalcis, 1945.

Selkirk R,                    The Piercebridge Formula, PSL 1983.

Selkirk R,                      On the Trail of the Legions, Anglia 1995.

Comparable Images

By Alan Richardson

The picture on the left is from Current Archaeology 163. It is a pendant fitting dangled from the bridle of the harness buried with a horse in an Anglo Saxon cemetery, excavated at the American Air Force base in RAF Lakenheath.  The photograph on the right is of a stone recovered from the River Skerne at Darlington and, thanks to the work of Dave Shires, is now in Bowes museum.

Whether or not there is any relationship of concept behind these two images, they do seem strikingly similar to me. Just to stretch your imagination a little, are there any similarities with the figure in the photographs below?

            `      

The photograph on the right is an enlargement of part of that on the left. This little creature is a Horned God from Bremenium (High Rochester) Roman Fort. There is no apparent literary link between any of these three images, but if you think you know better, then I would like to hear from you.  

BY

Brenda R Ludvigsen

The very wet weather we have had over the last few months has caused much damage throughout the country. At one time I thought it would be idyllic to have a country cottage with a garden stretching down to the river, but not any more; I’m quite content with the situation of my home. It’s been heavy going at times on our field-walking trips; slipping and sliding through muddy saturated fields, trying to cross swollen becks, and looking for features when rivers are in spate. However, it has proved a bonus for archaeologists interested in Roman water navigation when flooded fields have given up their secrets and a rain-filled indentation going through a meadow shows its original purpose.

DURHAM LAKES. Some time ago our Group Secretary, Ray Selkirk, rediscovered the ancient lakes of Co Durham, which at one time stretched from Bishop Middleham and Bradbury to Mordon, with a Roman canal coming in from the north via the Ferryhill Gap linking to the River Wear, and the River Skerne leaving south towards the Tees. A possible Roman dam can be seen at Bishop Middleham just south of the castle and used as a causeway by the farmer at Island Farm, where Roman coins have been found. The photograph was taken to the south of the Bishop Middleham lake standing on another likely Roman dam at approximately NZ 327 305. A tree is growing near to the spillway, which has been partly filled with farm rubbish. A further lake is trying to reform to the left. These fields are normally dry and dotted with sheep. Other significant farm names in the area are Little Isle and Great Isle farms, with earthworks of a possible Roman jetty near to the latter farm. At Bradbury, a Millennium notice board has been erected to commemorate the Romans using the lakes for their supply routes.

HOLE HOUSE FARM, POOLEY BRIDGE. On our recent visit to Cumbria to meet with our colleague, Cedric Bell, we were shown the site of the possible Roman fort, which stands by the River Eamont, at Pooley Bridge. The indentations in the field are normally dry but the heavy rain has brought out the line of the Roman canals. Since our visit Cedric has discovered a large ditch near to the site of the fort, and the farmer advises that this has always been known as the “Roman Ditch”.

FLATTS FARM, BISHOP AUCKLAND.

Flatts Farm lies on the loop of the River Wear across the river from Binchester and sometime ago Ray Selkirk, whilst on an aerial survey, noticed the crop marks of a possible canal on the north side of the farm coming in from the river. Roman coins have been found near to the farm. On a recent visit to Binchester we could see that the canal had flooded and that a square-shaped pond had formed next to the farm. Ponds don’t normally have corners so we wonder whether this could have been the remains of a barge basin used by the Roman supply barges. Ray flew over this area during the summer and discovered the earthworks of a Roman fort at Newton Cap Farm, which is on top of the hill, west of Flatts Farm, so the canal could have supplied this new fort. The earthworks can be seen up the hill on the left when driving north over the viaduct at Bishop Auckland; car passengers only though as it’s a long way to fall. This fort could be Vinovia as there is no evidence of the fort at Binchester being called Vinovia, which takes its name merely by being on Dere Street, as mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary. There is a canal on the east side of Binchester fort, which would allow that fort to be supplied by barges.

From Fylands Bridge, south of Bishop Auckland, we think Dere Street continued on and passed over Newton Cap Bridge, built by Bishop Skirlaw in 1388 after demolishing an older bridge, which could only have been Roman. Historians have Dere Street changing direction at Fylands Bridge but Roman roads usually realign on high points. Proto Dere Street continues under the public path to the Equestrian Centre at Hunwick where it rejoins with Dere Street from Binchester. We think this latter section is a loop which crossed the river via a ford; the bridge at Newton Cap being used when the river was in flood.

DERE STREET, BRUSSELTON WOOD.

Dere Street runs north, down the steep bank in Brusselton Wood heading towards Fylands Bridge at Bishop Auckland. The cobble stones of the Roman road were visible recently at NZ 206 252 where the heavy rain had washed off the soil, and a little bit of tidying up revealed the extent of the road. It is well constructed with the kerbstones intact on both edges but the rammed gravel surface has disappeared. However it is only four feet wide, so not exactly the superhighway we were led to believe. The bank is too steep for ox-wagons and may have only been used by the infantry and pack-animals and therefore a wider road was not necessary. An article in the Arch. Soc of Durham & Northumberland Vol 7 1934-1936 written by Ada Temple advises that earthen pack-horse tracks could be seen in Brusselton Wood as the unshod animals could not use the paved roads. This type of road was also mentioned by Henry MacLauchlan in his report Survey of the Watling Street and Jessie Mothersole in Agricola’s Road into Scotland. We have excavated three-lane roads at Netherwitton and East Shaftoe Crags in Northumberland, and both have a central paved area with ditches and earth animal tracks either side. The cobbles at Brusselton Wood have been recovered with soil to protect them from the elements.

***

19 January 2001

On the preceding page, Brenda has described the narrow nature of the road when excavated. We have often observed the varying widths of Roman roads, in which the same road can vary from being a 3 lane highway on some sections to being a narrow path only 4 feet wide at other points. The logic was not initially obvious, but with continuously experiencing this width variation a pattern may have emerged.

The wider roads are always on the better surface, on close to level ground. The narrow sections are on steep inclines and approaches to river crossings. Ray Selkirk has often described the logistical impossibility of using steeply inclined roads for heavy transport in Roman times, this led us to the conclusion that these major highways were military ways, primarily constructed for the rapid deployment of troops from one location to another. This was very much in line with the ‘limes’ system discussed in previous issues, in which it was observed that all of the transverse intersecting roads in some parts of Northumberland and Durham took a military line. In the case of the central Northumberland system, these always crossed high ground and took a line south of the highest point. This allowed troops to pass roughly east to west (or vice versa) without being visible from the north, yet a short walk of only a few yards would give access to the highest points, providing a good view to the north for scouts.

In the case of road sections narrowing, this appears to take place at potentially vulnerable locations. A favourite cavalry tactic, like so many other techniques that the Romans learnt from their enemies, was ambush at river crossings and other locations where foot soldiers had limited space to react and form a defensive line. Alistair Moffitt described this very effective method in some detail in his book (Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms – 1999). Cavalry techniques such as this were practised by client tribes on the fringes of the empire and, in the case of some north British tribes, they also supplied both horses and men to the Roman cavalry units. The Roman Empire had a long track record of employing barbarian soldiery to fight for it against its enemies. The reason for this was painfully straightforward. In Britain, south of Hadrian’s Wall and just like the rest of the empire, Pax Romana was imposed, the local civilian population were not permitted to bear arms or engage in military training. At the same time, the often frenzied and savage nature of those beyond the borders of the empire could be employed very usefully to support Roman objectives.

Having stated the potential risks associated with river crossings, I am also suggesting that those risks can be minimised by the use of deliberate counter measures, including the narrowing of roads in vulnerable locations. This forces the travelling soldiers to expose only small numbers to attack in the most difficult locations at any one time. Conversely, it may also have been the case that the roads were built in such narrow fashion because it was standard practice to reduce the width of the advancing column, so there was no need to build anything broader.