On the Roman Road

At last I have taken my Italian-Slovenian horse onto a Roman Road. I wonder how many Roman (or Etruscan) trails she travelled in Tuscany? Now she has trodden part of an English Roman Road too.

This one isn't very wide or straight anymore, and the famous Roman pavement has vanished. (But did a Roman Road across the chalk actually need a stone pavement? Perhaps not.) However once it was a major route between the southern ports and the centre of the country that avoided Roman London. It's route 160c, towards the bottom of the map below. The city of Sichester, now just a ruined wall enclosing farmland, must have drawn a fair trade. From the windswept silence of a Sunday afternoon I could imagine this road busy with farmers, merchants and adminstrators. Perhaps soldiers passed this way trudging north to far-off Hadrian's Wall? Some travellers would have been riding just as I rode. The white hawthorn and cow-parsley would have brightened their journeys too. Like me they would have watched relieved as the wind carried a belt of rain past to the north.

Then the Romans left and this road fell into obscurity. Silchester was abandoned. Centuries later King Alfred pursued the Danish invader eastward across this hill. Was the trail weed-grown and quiet then?

In fact it surprises me just how many Roman Roads have been identified. The ones on the map (which is roughly 120 miles east-west by 100 miles north-south) are not the full story either, witness the odd fragments that seem to stop in the middle of nowhere for want of archaeological discovery. Some are modern motor roads, others trackways or paths, and a number have vanished altogether. Not all are quite as straight as the brand image promotes, certainly not the less important roads and those through hill country. Perhaps some sections of older trails were impressed into service where convenient? There are older trails too, typically ridge ways, such as the one that I travelled along today to reach the Roman Road. What an ancient landscape this is, bearing so many traces of human interaction.

 

Comments

[jess]

I think your horse has seen as much of Europe as any medieval charger Julian! That mare has scaled the alps between Tuscany and Emilia Romagna (no small feat) visited the Etruscan city of Volterra, cantered through Fiesole and munch grass on the outskirts of Pisa... and thats just her Italian rides. In Slovenia she lived near the coast...and thats all I know :)
Lovely blog, you have me itching a ride.. and a trip back to Italy to my beloved Slovenian gelding Dali is on the cards ;)

[White Horse Pilgrim]

Hi Jess, well I am intrigued about Brena's past. I've owned a number of horses with history, and Brena is perhaps the one whose history is easiest to piece together.

So Brena has been right across the Apennines to the Po valley. And to Pisa. Then she is well travelled.

How curious that once Italy, Slovenia and England were all part of one empire, and that roads linked places throughout.

I do hope that you make it back to ride Dali. haps you will be able to visit England one day and see four of your horses in their new homes?

Perhaps one day I'll make it to Slovenia to see where she came from. I have the breeder's details and even can see his farm on Google satellite.