The Forgotten Roman Wall.
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Welcome to this weeks video where we take a look at the role of The Fosse Way in Early Roman Britain.
Usual notices:
1. We are not historians. We enjoy researching and learning, and with that we enjoy sharing our journeys with you. That said, sources for information often listed below with credits.
2. Errors. Whilst we make every attempt to not include any errors, research, and piecing stories together from dozens of sources sometimes leads to one or two. I will note here if any are found:
A. Did I say "Walken"?
B. A couple have question why I have suggested this is a Wall. Firstly I would urge you to watch the video in full. This is a theory that I have seen numerous times now, so why not delve deeper. I really try to avoid presenting theories that are my own, I am no academic and absolutely don't want to fly in the face of archaeology or scientific process in any way. What I try to do is question theories presented that seem long held and have no scientific or academic basis, in this case the website rural-roads (link below), wiki and Tacitus himself, that all suggested this was some kind of border, or ditch or wall.
Credit for assets
Long UK Maps: mapswire.com/maps/united-king...
Filter: Snowman Digital and Beachfront
B-Roll Maps: Google Maps and Google Earth Studio
Maps: National Library of Scotland Maps:
OS Maps. Media License.
Stock Footage: Storyblocks
Music: Storyblocks
Old Map: NLS - www.nls.uk/
Credit for images under Creative Commons.
Clodius_Albinus: Jose Luiz Bernades Ribeiro
Galleria Degli Uffizi Florence: Carole Raddato
Julius Agricola: Ad Meskens
Suetonius Paulinus: Ad meskens
Statianus: Jose Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro
Ostorius: Ad Meskens
Sources:
archive.org/details/archaeolo...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius...
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/...
www.nottshistory.org.uk/articl...
roadsofromanbritain.org/
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...
www.rural-roads.co.uk/fosse/fo...
www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Ga...
archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/...
historicengland.org.uk/listin...
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:48 - The Problem
03:12 - The Fosse Way
04:55 - Whats in a Name?
07:14 - Town Plan
09:00 - The Governor
11:33 - Conclusion. - บันเทิง
If you visit the Fosse Way as it runs north of Bath, at the top of Bannerdown Hill, you can absolutely see an obvious agger. The modern road surface is slap bang on top of the ancient road, and is at least a metre/metre and a half above the surrounding landscape. The road called (obviously) Old Fosse Road south of Bath has a clear agger on one side, where the ground slopes down to the houses that line the road, and it's continuation slightly to the north as it drops down into Bath has a clear agger in parts. Parts of the road as they run through Somerset are clearly raised too, in multiple different locations: for example the short disused section that runs through Beacon Hill Wood just north of Shepton Mallet has a slight agger. Hope you found this interesting!
Thanks Rob. Appreciated. I'll keep digging for this one
@@pwhitewick Many thanks to you too, love your videos! You seem like a kindred spirit 😊
I'm intrigued by this Rob. I know Odd Down well but I have two queries: which is the road with the anger as Old Fosse Road runs at 45 degrees out from modern Wells way (presumably the course of the Fosseway (despite being realigned by a Turnpike); and which route exactly was taken by Fosseway from Odd Down to the Roman Aquae Sulis (was it Bloomfield Road)?
*agger
@@johnspurgeon9083
The Wellsway is a modern road, built in the early 1800s, before that, it was just farm fields, called Barracks Farm, which encompassed the hillside up towards the sports ground, and most of what is now the old golf course. The original Wellsway was actually Bloomfield Road, and the Fosse Way did indeed follow the route of Old Fosse Road, before striking off through the fields past Corston View and down through Stirtingale Farm/Road. At least, a couple of academics have made a convincing argument for this being the case: a key part of the argument being that there is an ancient municiple boundary which follows this route all the way down to the river by Victoria Bridge in a nice straight line.
Thank you for this.
Whats interesting is that in the much older Welsh mythology and tradition, there was an ancient cultural boundary line which is said to have ran between the Severn and Humber estuaries.
With the “Combric” peoples being north of that line and the “Loegric” peoples being south of that line. This was long before the Romans came.
Note that in the Welsh language today, “Cymru”, the Welsh language for Wales is etymologically connected with “Combric”. Also England in the Welsh language today is “Lloegr / Loegr”, which is etymologically connected with “Loegric”
Offas Dyke??
Thank you for your message.
Offas Dyke has later and in a different position. It ran roughly along the modern Wales / England border.
However, following on from the much older Welsh mythology and tradition, where the older line ran between the Severn and Humber estuaries, between the Combric and Loegric peoples.
Regarding the later Offas Dyke line, you could possibly argue was a later successor to that line, but in a different location, dividing the Welsh and the English peoples, with Wales in Welsh being “Cymru” (etymology related to “Combric) and England in Welsh being “Lloegr / Loegric”, which is etymology related to “Loegric).
@@bernardmolloy6241Catch the Welsh Viking he has been exploring Cymru & the Welsh place names in Northern England
Indeed the line still is arguably on of the main "North/South" divides of England
And the welsh word for ditch is ffos.
If the other two Walls are anything to go by ... there would have been a road as well as a wall so it could be patrolled
The fact that it doesn't really connect anywhere is the telling feature, it could have been literally a ditch and bank, with a patrol road, and fortlets, to mark the boundary, but did not last as a useful border long enough to get upgraded to a proper wall, proper road (except in a few places) and the forts generally didn't grow into towns ...
But a cleared path will tend to hang around and get used just because it's there ...
I agree. On a border you start with cutting the trees followed by building a road, a fence and a ditch.
@@rikulappi9664 Borders, ancient ones in particular, tend to be along geographical features. The Fosse way does not? Did it start at the Severn and end at the Humber? Or, as the maps seems to imply, just ran from one place to another?
Why can't it just be a road?
@@I_Don_t_want_a_handle
Because roads tend to connect places people want to go and it doesn't really do that either?
It seems the Romans sunk a lot of effort into clearing a straight line across half of England, which doesn't connect much of importance and doesn't really follow natural, defensive terrain, then more-or-less abandoned it later before upgrading most of it into a more substantial version of whatever it was supposed to be.
Leicester City Football Club were founded as Leicester Fosse FC in 1884 as they played next to the Road.
Ooooh love that.
That map feature you had around the 11 minute mark was fantastic!
Ahh yes. The National Library of Scotland Maps with 3d Lidar. IS AMAZING
Nettleton Shrubb, if I am not mistaken? The Temple of Apollo was re-built three times, each time bigger, and the site seems to have been built around the temple. This site was extensivly used by the celts before the Roman invasion, with Dobunnic coins found during excavation. It was originally dedicated to Cunomaglus, the celtic diety of hunting dogs.
@@Swindondruid2Thank you! Whilst many who've not been paying attention think we've never been invaded, unlike those awful continentals, our history has been drastically subverted twice, or thrice if you count the beaker folk (they'd be livid, "Our glorious history of shaping up these hunter gatherers & we're named after our mugs!" 😆).
Anyway, I always have a longing to know upon what trajectory we were on before the great changes of 2200 BCE, 43 CE & 1066 CE (No tories! I'll never forgive your hero & surprisingly often, your forebear, William the Bastard! Without him, there'd be no you!)
Just what was swept away is so often overshadowed by subsequent events.
I appreciate your linking in our history here...
@@Aengus42 How did you know I was descended from William the Bastard?
@@Swindondruid2 My commiserations sir. How a family could bear the shame, I have no idea! "I'm descended from the invaders who committed "The Harrying of the North" you know!" is something I'd keep pretty quiet.
90% of all Roman villa estates lie to the east of the Fosse Way. The vast majority of legionary fortresses, temporary camps, marching camps and watch towers are either along the Fosse Way, or to the west of it.
The Fosse Way runs almost perfectly along the main geologic rift in England, with deep alluvial plains suiting agriculture to the east and rockier hill country suiting livestock rearing to the west.
It is also mirrored by the A38 running parallel never more than ten miles to the west of it, for much of it's length. The A38 being even older, linking many pre-Roman sites, hill forts and river crossings.
The Fosse makes more sense as an economic / political / social boundary ditch than a defensive wall. Hadrian and Antonine walls follow natural defensive positions, the Fosse is pretty much cutting through open ground for most of its length. Very little tactical advantage to its position.
It also separates the rough division of those parts of Britain that fell quickly or invited the Romans in, and those who resisted long enough to cut a deal. Boudicca's revolt being the only major attack on Roman Britain to the East of it - and interestingly her final battle on Watling Street took place roughly where that road crossed between the A38 and Fosse Way.
For many the line from the Severn to the Humber is the cultural and economic North / South divide in England today.
This division was here long before the Romans came, and may mark the boundary between ancient British cultures - one fell in line with continental practices and one that remained more Brythonic.
Very interesting
Always a pleasure to wait for your videos every Sunday. I can always be sure to learn something new.
I heard the name Fosse Way several times now, but this gives it a completely new meaning now. 👌
Cool, thanks. It's quite thought provoking
I was taught at school, by my then professor of classics, that the legionary fortress in Exeter (built around 55AD) and the line of the Fosse Way to Lindum was indeed the first provincial boundary (thanks to @colcester for correcting my dementic mind - hence my edit). Its linear directness - easily achievable in the lowlands, enabled these two massive forces to manage and quickly traverse the seemingly long distance. Ad altiora!
cool
Did you go to Hogwarts?🤣👍
I can confirm this - I did ancient Latin & Greek to degree level.
@@ddoherty5956 My nieces think I did! LOL
I would tell your teachers to do their homework better - Fosse Way doesn't and never has gone as far as York, it ends at Lincoln.
That is one thing with Roman history in Britain, it will continue to be researched and discussed for years to come. As a kid from Kent we were taken to sites on school trips. And even today Over 50 years later I still have to look at anything mentioning Roman. We know a lot. We still have a lot wrong. More will be discovered and aspects solved. But plenty will remain unknown or disputed given the complexity of Roman Britain. A lot happened in 400 years and Roman society was a complex organised structure fascinating to try to follow.
How cool, living with history! 😮👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
The cateyes were probably are in road planings. i.e. chipped old tarmac that is removed when the old road surface is removed cateys are dug up too. It can be relaid for farm tracks and very lightly used byways.
This makes sense seeing as some faced the wrong way!
I'm glad I scrolled down - was about to say the same. We used to get a few in the scalpings we used.
In geography we were taught about a line that could be drawn between the mouth of the Tees and Exe rivers. North of this line was rocky upland and south of it was younger clay sand and chalk country. I've often pondered on the effect of geology on the economy and culture of the people.
A very worthy thing to consider!
Excellent as always, Paul. What a remarkable idea; three defensive walls in Roman occupied Britannia.
Many thanks!
Amazing video, there are many instances of roads named fosse way, foss way or roman road further southwest than Ilchester. In fact you can follow the Fosse way on maps and it does in fact line up with many of those roads and follows the path of the A303 for a large part between Podimore and Cartgate roundabouts near Ilchester and Yeovil respectively. I was able to folllow a clear path even visible through trees and slight raising of the land on sattelite imagery, all the way to Dinnington and potentially beyond! Definitely worth checking it out and I live on this potential stretch of the fosse way so I may check it out myself. Also, its weird to think i first started learning to drive on a disused stretch of straught road in Ilchester that once cut towards Podimore roundabout and further. All this time it was the fosse way, no wonder it was so straight haha
That was fascinating. Thank you for another intriguing video. I always want to know more! Keep them coming.
😊😊😊😊
Cheers from Melbourne, Australia, Paul! I so dig this British Roman history! 🙂
Thanks Paul
Always interesting just how much history is still shrouded in mystery. Looking back to when I was a kid and those history books at school, spouting that ALL motte and bailey castles look like this and ALL roman roads were built straight and like this, with artists impressions. So funny now unravelling all those assumptions and leaps of faith.
Agreed. A lot of writings before the Norman invasion have been lost and while we have far more from Roman times then the early - mid Saxon period (and almost nothing before the Roman invasion) there are still huge gaps in our knowledge.
That is why archaeologists find so much unexpected things so often, when the written records fail us, the only thing we can do is to dig.
School history books are meant to paint an easy to understand picture of each period but people are not simple and just because one castle looked a specific way does not mean some Norman architect didn't decide to make something very differently, maybe to use the terrain, some specific knowledge or just because of personal taste.
Roman military engineers did tend to follow certain rules but they still had a bunch of different roads and due to poor translations, most schoolbooks show us how to build a floor inside a building instead of a road. Things built by civilians were far more diverse.
So assuming things without actually at least making some test pits to confirm our assumptions do lead to a lot of mistakes.
You are the essence and amalgam of all my Geography teachers. (Yes, I read Geography). Geography is understanding. The dimensions of Geography are unbounded.
Another terrific production Paul thank you, I really enjoy spending time with you on these wee explorations. Best wishes from North of the wall 😉 🏴
This is one of those channels where the local knowledge in the comments section is so valuable.
Always
Roman roads do not appear to have many major modern towns along their routes. Most Anglo-Saxon named towns are just a mile or so of the line of the old roads. The major routes of the Fosse Way and Watling Street cross almost in the middle of nowhere, the surrounding places being small villages. However when the Fosse way reaches Leicester it crosses the Via Devana.
That was fascinating, and very well filmed and edited. There is so much on TH-cam now, that seems superior to what the BBC do with one chosen presenter for a particular subject and often those presenters use their platforms to promote their own views on Subjects on which they are not experts and only have opinions.
We all need to walk more. A family story has it that an ancestor, great grandfather or so, died while on a walk from one town to another in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over a major set of hills. Oh, he was 120 they say (numbers tended to be rounded in the day. Native Americans did not track birthdates as we do!) My dream vacation is to walk through the English and Scottish countrysides and walk Via Appin Italy, stem to stern.
Sign:"Do not access river or river bank". Whitewick: Goes to film river. 😄
If any of you have seen M*A*S*H , there is an episode where Burns and Hawkeye are in a jeep and burns sees a sign that says ‘ Do not stop here, you under enemy observation’ so of course Burns says ‘ Stop here I want to take a picture.’
When digging a ditch the spoil, instead of being spread around, can be used to create a >45º sloping wall to one side which in effect doubles the height of the ditch. It’s an easy, relatively quick way to create a defensible boundary.
From this I think it probably was a ditch, not a road. It has too few settlements but everything else is Romanesque
I learned too much for one day in this video, then learnt twice that via the comments. I am amazed!
Welcome and thank you
So in effect, you’re suggesting this was a temporary defended line, in much the same way the Stanegate was before Hadrian’s Wall was built. A very interesting idea. I’ve long been fascinated by the Latin name of this road and the tantalising idea that we might just have one Roman road where their name for it has survived!
I must check Margary’s description of the route, but from memory, he does describe some surviving agger in places? Also, doesn’t that very famous picture of a cut section of a Roman road showing layers and layers of resurfacing, come from somewhere on the Fosse Way?
It’s great that you’re challenging in this way, Paul.
Yup. I think that highlights how varying this route was and that it wasn't seen as a whole route. Vast chunks seemed to be abandoned whilst the Shepton Mallet bit, repaired for 400 years.
A significant defended line is probably all it was, garrisons and forts along it. Though sum suggest much more, but the evidence is significantly lacking.
again a pleasure to watch, very interesting story!
Wow - as a kid, back in the 50's and 60's, growing up near Bath and The Cotswolds, my family and I drove along sections of the Fosse Way often, which obviously we knew it was Roman built. I loved how straight it was compared with the winding country roads, but never knew it may have had a fortification function.
I understood the Fosse Way was a road to allow the Romans to rapidly move troops along the boundary between conquered Britain and unconquered Britain to maintain their control.
I've always looked at that as the edge of frontier: the Romans got *this* far in campaign season 2 or 3, they stopped to consolidate, and when they did, they built their roads, along the paths the Legions had trodden down, plus roads linking as far as they got along those roads. That theory would, of course, be more interesting if there was a legionary fortress at each crossing point of the Fosse Way.
Captivating video. Thank you Paul. So interesting. We live and learn every week with you.
Very thought provoking - thanks😀
Some videos you just never know how they're gonna go eh Paul. Congratulations on another stonker mate! 🎉
Thanks Dude. It's an interesting time for sure!!
Wow! Great video again. Good job!
Wow, fascinating. The scale of the walls, roads, and other infrastructure always impresses me.
Very interesting and thoughtful hypothesis. I'm certainly no expert, but archaeological evidence supports the existance of a Roman road - at least for a significant part of its route. Perhaps 'Fosse Way' denotes a route following an existing defensive ditch - a border demarcating Roman-controlled territory.
Awesome research and presentation👍 I lived on High street in Ilchester back in 2010 for about a year. High street is the Fosse way as it runs north south through the town. Ilchester is the second most archaeologically important town in England after York. You’re not allowed to dig into the ground -even in your own back garden- any deeper than 18” without a permit due to the abundance of Roman archaeology still buried there. There is also the site of a Plague-pit in town from the Black plague. It is considered that Ilchester was founded in response to a nearby Britons gathering center where the borders of three local tribes met. This site was discovered after heavy flooding, and Ariel photography picked up the low outline of the Oppidium structure sticking out just above the flood waters.👍🍻 From Wikipedia…..’An oppidum ( pl. : oppida) is a large fortified Iron Age settlement or town’. Modern archaeology however, considers it to have been used as a Summer gathering place for celebration, trade, etc. hence the county name Of Somerset being ‘the land of the summer-people’.
Excellent video. Well done Paul for your tenacious questions of the received understanding of what we assume is a Roman road. I’m fascinated by your conclusion or inconclusive conclusion! There are some things we will never fully understand. A ‘ditch’ in time saves a lot of possible ideas!
Perhaps…
Oh it was VERY inconclusive!! I do think it was a wall/border.... abandoned in larger part as the border moved west
Very interesting video and brilliant to watch.
I've described roman roads as like being the goalkeepers line in football, and legions moving along like a goalkeeper, occasionally sallying forth to deal with restless natives. So it makes sense that they could
A. - be a line in the sand
B. - actually part of the defence.
A great explore with much more to find-Thank you Paul I have posted on my FB History group👍👍
very interesting video again Paul , really well done and thank you 😊
Very welcome
Keep these coming. It's like Strabo was reborn in the land of long lost Albion.
Hi Paul, very interesting video. I don't think I've ever seen parts of the Fosse Way, it looks a lovely walk to do and a great place to speculate as to its original purpose.
Both Hadrians wall and the other one further north seem sensible practical places to build a wall to defend borders. I don't see that on the Fosse way. Perhaps a boundry but maybe boundries were originaly geographical features such as rivers, hills and mountains.
Its got the mark of the Romans being so straight but maybe it was pre-existing and made out of several parts which joined up into one over time. I would guess that it fell out of use because it no longer connected places that people needed to go between.
Great thought provoking video, well done. Have a great week!!
Really enjoyed that thanks
Hi again nice weather you have for this my village was called ffosfelin, so now called tregwyr here in south wales and we had a Roman fort and river ferry boat crossing in Roman time in nearby loughor so we have great history of Roman origin nearby and maybe here in ffosfelin
I LOVE this sort of thing. Thank you!!
Thank you.
Great video Paul, thought provoking as always.
With respect to the knick in the fosse at Cirencester a suggestion I take from the formation of the Limes contintental europe. There usually the castra along the border came first then followed by the control-ways and subsequently watchtowers, ditches, pallisades aso. along the border. But the first structure on the border were the castra often accompanied by a village. In the case of Cirencester it may be the location of such a village near a castrum when the fosse was a meaningful structure as a control-way. The nick in the fosse-way may be due to the fact that its castrum wasn't placed on a geographical straigth line but some favourable place and the control-way had to take a detour to integrate it. I'm living a few hundred meters away from the castrum Zugmantel: There the castrum had been placed on a strategic high-point and the Limes has a nick running straight to the east and west-south-west from its position . This way the sight-line along the control-way was interrupted where a garrison was stationed which could intercept any intruders in either direction.
In the 60s we used to travel along the fossway from Exeter to Lincoln in my dad's Bedford doormobile to visit my mums family, it was an overnight trip in those days
Great video again made my Sunday
Glad you enjoyed it
great video has always. have you done much on the iron stone workings in Teesside and north yorkshire?
Fascinating! Thanks for that video!
Wow - that is a great educational video
The excavations at Fosse Lane in the 1990's are very interesting. A sizeable settlement was found unknown until then with hardly any grand buildings, mainly supporting agriculture. The archaeology also showed that Roman era crops were badly infested with the same weeds that modern farming contests with.
My history teacher at Wyggeston Grammar was adamant it was a defensive structure, not a road.
This was back in the late 1960's & to us he seemed old enough to have been around at the time. 😁
I always thought it was very odd that the mighty Romans would build a road that ran contrary to the direction if their main power base. Most of their roads expand in a radial pattern emanating out of Dover and anything 90° to this radial pattern of roads indicates some form of barrier or block that was deliberately put in place to indicate a boundary.
That's a great point which I didn't really consider
Fascinating, thank you Paul.
The Fosse Way as it passes through Nettlebridge and on up to Beacon Hill deserves much more investigating, as it intersects with the Old Sarum Way. In Nettlebridge, it zig-zags across the steep valley before once more heading straight to Beacon Hill. My neighbour had to renovate his steep driveway and in the process, revealed a great cross-section of the Roman roadway, maybe some 12-15ft below the present surface. It appeared that the Roman road had a much more gentle slope - it was not clear if the ground had been dug out when the road was built, or if surrounding land had built up over the years. The only other observation was that Roman road was much smaller than I remember being taught at school, many years ago.
Road was only as big as needed to move armies.
Not a mega project road for ever.
really good but feels like it needs a part 2
Thanks for sharing your research and opinions.
Fosa in old Swedish was "wet ground" or wet ground that been made dry by digging ditches, I live near a place called Hemfosa that is a farm landscape with some unused fields that still getting very wet during rain so it hard to walk there. Can those words be related or just words sounding similar separated by time?
Great video btw, and great to see less common history.
Interesting. I'd assumed that rather than being a defensive structure itself, the Fosse Way served as a road just back from the frontier enabling Roman troops to very rapidly move up and down the frontier to any threatened spots. Most of the bits of the Fosse Way that I know do not seem to be in good defensive spots. Would not the Severn estuary and river itself have formed a better defensive line for example?
I thought that, if you are going to build any form of defensive line, use the geology. Why start in darkest Somerset when much of the land to the West of the Fosse was marsh and bog and leaving the Mendip lead mines in bandit country. Unless it was a boundary marker between peaceful and non peaceful tribes like the ring of Roman forts near Malton in Yorkshire.
Hey Paul - @7:27 Akeman Street also goes through Berkhamsted if my Memory serves me correct b/c I used to go to Akeman Adventure Scout Unit - Very good as usual Paul - Thanks for sharing 😉🙂🚂🚂🚂
Cool, thanks
Foss is also the Welsh name for Ditch or edge/border. Also the vast amount of hill forts directly to the west of the way may have been the reason to establish a boundary on or near the current border lands .
4:48 It seems the settlement was on the right side of the way where the green is. You can see a dark T shape in a lighter green and some paths.
Its my favourite road. I visit a farm campsite at High Cross and drive up the Fosse Way from near Banbury towards Leicester to get there. The field we camp on cant be ploughed because its likely the site of the town of Venonia.. we drink in the campsites Fosse Way bar..
The Romans didn't really do walls that early - before Hadrian's Wall, there was the Stanegate frontier based on a road with forts. That's later than this, though. Likely to have been a frontier limit for a short period before they moved into Shropshire and Staffordshire and then towards Anglesey. And then kept in use only for local needs, varying over time. But the fact that the line mostly remained visible and in local use means something. Also... Anglo-saxon herepaths (army roads) often remain as secondary roads with few settlements. Maybe like that, for similar reasons.
Yes, the Romans used a road with a series of small forts and/or towers as their normal boundaries. Hadrian built walls in Britain, Germany, and Africa which was a new and odd strategy for the Romans, who believed that their power and influence wasn't limited within fixed borders.
Very interesting video, thank you! Where did you start your journey and how many miles did you walk?
100K views in 1day(ish), well played that man! Great work Paul!
Thank you for a wonderful presentation
Great stuff, Paul. It sounds like many more archaeological digs need to occur along the road to see if there were more forts etc along the route…
Yup, that would definitely help
Great video. Paul does Time Team!
Haha... Many Thanks.
Well done, brilliant video. Thank you.
Fascinating as always
The fact that it is not called 'Fosse Street' fits your hypothesis, it is a 'way' to travel, a landmark to follow.
I like it.
I like the drone footage. It gives the appearance that you have your own private helicopter!
Maybe... I do.... 🤪
I've heard of it, but totally forgot about it. Until you mentioned it by actual name, I had simply forgotten it. Kind of on point if you think about it. Thanks for this)
A pleasure.
where I live they've found roman farms on either side of the fosse way, so it was used by farmers to get there product someplace, and some towns have been found on the fosse way but when the roman empire ended the roman towns also ceased to exist, maybe they were trade based towns and when trade stopped they also ceased to exist.
Great video, walk and discussion but I’d suggest it is a road and it does link significant settlements of Cirencester, Leicester and Lincoln. There are smaller settlements/ villas along its route, some of which probably haven’t been discovered or excavated fully, but I couldn’t state when each was built to fit the timeline. In addition, it would surely have taken months if not years of work for the thousands of legionaries etc to construct, so where are the forts and settlements for them? In terms of it falling into disrepair at an early time, I fine it hard to understand why because it gives arrow straight access for moving troops messages/ news and supplies quickly from Exeter to Lincoln and the north.It’s an interesting theory I’m just not convinced. 👍
Fascinating video. Has there every been a archaeological dig that involved a cross section of the Fosse Way? That would clearly show if it started as a ditch?
I don't think that the Fosse Way makes the route of a defensive frontier wall. It is far more likely to be a frontier system of a road with attached garrison forts that defined the boundary between the Roman province and barbarian territory. A much better "model" would be the Stanegate road from coast to coast just to the south of Hadrian's Wall. You had a military road defining the boundary which linked up garrison forts along it's course. You can see the same or a similar frontier system elsewhere in the Empire on the Rhine, the Agri Decumates that linked up the rivers Rhine and Danube frontiers, the Danube, the Eastern frontier facing Parthia & Armenia and the North Africa frontier. Yes you did have barrier walls on some of those frontiers, but they came much later in the reign of Hadrian onwards.
I agree completely. I think all we have here is a road with Forts. This was likely what Tacitus was referring to.
Should add that the Fosse Way "frontier", like many Roman frontiers were seen more as a "living barrier" which expanded and creeped forward into "barbarian" territory which is why the Fosse Way seems to have had a limited life as a frontier.
Driving the Fosse Way from Cirecenster is a pain, with lots of right turns onto main roads followed by a left. Did it in the dark on a return from Bristol to Sheffield when the motorways were knackered and it was an interesting experience
Still considering doing it because...
@@pwhitewick isnt it roughly the A48 as the longest A road in Britain from Plymouth to Hull or something like that ?
@@pwhitewick there was a recent YT on "map of London" - specifically the City Of, which was interesting as it mentioned the ampitheatre - (which we know/think is under Guildhall Square give or take) and also that Romans settled on Cornhill and Ludgate Hill (oddly dont they both have a St Peter's church ?) with the Walbrook as the river running in the main valley) . A map then appeared to show ampitheatre near present St Pauls Cathedral ( approx Old Bailey/Paternoster Square ) but what actually was that - was one a roman "circus?"- the chariot race oval ?
Excellent Episode today Paul ⚔️⚔️👏👏👏⭐️
quite a suspicious wall like that above Neath, I find most Roman ruins as highly suspect as they completely lack Roman aspects, but that wall raises an eyebrow :)
Really interesting. I'd suggest the lost town you talked about would be the wrong side of a defensive structure. Hope there's more investigation.
It must have been a road as there are settlements every 20 miles. I used to live next to the Fosse Way in Leicestershire and exactly 20 miles south of Leicester is High Cross the first Roman settlement going southward.
Enjoyed that very much. Thank you.
Our pleasure!
When at primary school in the midlands in the 1950s, the Fosse was indeed noted as a ''defensive' work rather than just a road; the delineator of occupied territory. This was also mentione by my Uncle, who would have been at school in the early 1900s.
Yes, this is what irked me. Why so.... so I made this film.
A road called the Fossway in Newcastle runs parallel to Hadrian's wall on the northern side, the obvious side for a defensive ditch
Nice one Paul, gud vid...
Anyone who works the land will know that if you create a ditch, the stuff you dig out, which aids drainage, gets thrown up beyond and becomes a mounding or wall. Just as in Clawdd Offa =Offa's Dyke. It provides a vantage point and element of protection...especially useful in a flat landscape or when the opposition has toiled up a hill !
One thing that kept confusing me is I think of a wall as the opposite of a ditch as in that one goes up from the ground and one goes down into the ground. The conflation of the two, would probably be better with explaining why it makes sense to use those terms interchangeably.
Maybe not a wall per se. A ditch like this would be defensible, as attackers would be fighting uphill. The straightness means that it is important, and worth further investigation.
Very cool video.
Interesting. I've heard the theory that the Fosse Way formed some sort of early boundary to Roman Britain, whether as a road, ditch or mound, before. It makes sense, but its an awful lot of effort to design and build a 120 mile feature that I imagine the Romans would expect to become redundant quite quickly (I'm assuming that the Romans did have an overall plan to take over all of the UK eventually rather than the SE only). But if the Fosse Way was abandoned very quickly after construction after Roman Britain expanded, it seems remarkable that so much of it survives today - I'd have thought it would have decayed back into the landscape after a few decades (like abandoned railways do - at least those in the flatlands which didn't have massive earthworks to remind us of their presence). The real mystery is just how the Romans were able to lay out the Fosse Way so accurately over such distances. Surely, they must have had some form of cartographic skills with some idea of the actual positions of settlements to even make a start.
I think the fosseway started at Seaton on the devon coast,it has fosse named places and a roman road from the excepted route of the fosseway,its marked on google earth,i live near exeter i cant say ive seen a fosse name there.there seems also another road that goes to dorchester from seaton.maybe all roman roads were fosseway named originally.
The plant at 13:55 looks like Giant hogweed, or it could be Queen Anne’s Lace or something similar, touching the plant is for a bad day for a long time. Check with the government body if it is. That ditch seems inefficient, why build such a ditch. Thank you explaining this cool history. Have a great day.
Actually Fosse or Ffos in Cymric in Old Cymric is a Ditch, the word is Brythonic and not Latin, the ditches around Bronze and Iron age burials are called a Ffos, many ancient Sites in Britain would have had Ffos in their Historic name. especially Hillforts.
I lived in Ilchester for a time when I was serving with the RN at RNAS Yeovilton. Apart from it being known as the Roman mint, it's position on the Fosse is fascinating. Why build a mint at one end of a proposed defencive ditch?
Very interesting.
I have believed for some time that the Fosse Way marks the true North/South cultural divide. studying its route pretty carefully. Something that is enhanced by mostly the wide band of very few settlements. Indeed, the cities that are on the route are quite difficult to place as either N or S like in culture.