Highways Agency

Archaeological Excavations

The Road Over The Hills

Archaeological excavations alongside Roman Ermin Street

Foreword

On conventional road building projects any archaeological work required is normally undertaken in advance of the construction. However, on the A419/417 Swindon to Gloucester contract, the archaeologists were employed directly by the construction company and their excavations were integrated into the building works programme. This worked very well and 32 sites of interest were excavated, with 90 archaeologists involved in the project at its peak.

Many areas of archaeological interest were found, several relating to the history of road building, from the Roman period to modern times. The finds created a lot of interest at the time from our own construction staff as well as local people. I found the build up of the road layers since Roman times and the possible 'service area' at Birdlip particularly fascinating and was therefore delighted to be able to produce this publication. It describes the archaeology we found in easy to understand terms and I know will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of transport in the Cotswolds.

Phil Smith, RMS

Introduction

This route across the natural barrier of the Cotswold Hills has been important throughout our history. For the Romans, it led across their first frontier at Cirencester to the new army base at Gloucester. For the expanding economy of the 17th century, it linked two important river systems, the Severn and the Thames. Today, the A419/417 forms a strategic link between the M4 near Swindon at junction 11 and the M5 near Gloucester at junction 11a.

Easing The Flow

Its importance is reflected in its use, which by the 1990s had become too heavy for the existing road to support. Severe congestion in towns and concerns about road safety led to the plan for the new highway, a development to improve the traffic flow which was undertaken by Road Management Services (Gloucester) Ltd. - a consortium of AMEC, Alfred McAlpine, Brown & Root and Dragados.

Archaeology

Building a road requires excavation, which inevitably affects some historical remains. Advance surveys were carried out, and where possible remains were left untouched beneath the new constructions; otherwise a full archaeological excavation took place. It was clear that the route would uncover evidence from the Roman occupation; Ermin Street, the Fosse Way and Akeman Street were all part of their road system. In fact, the evidence recovered by the Oxford Archaeological Unit in its 35 excavations covered a broad range of history from the Mesolithic to the 19th century, much of which related to the previous history of the roads.

The purpose of this website is to describe the findings of the archaeological excavations in simple terms. The following pages will trace the history of this route which in many ways mirrors the history of transport itself.

Palaeolithic and Mesolithic

Hunters And Gatherers

The earliest people who lived in this area left few traces. The oldest item found was a Palaeolithic handaxe, which probably originated in the quarries of Latton Lands. The Palaeolithic period dates from around 500,000 to 10,000 years BC.

Later, the area was occupied by nomads of the Mesolithic period (10,000 - 4,000 BC) who were making a variety of tools - including knives, spears and arrows - by setting sharp flint flakes into wooden handles, using plant resins and bindings. A small flint flake discovered at Cherry Tree Lane was probably a part of one of these tools.

Flint Flint

These people lived by hunting game such as deer and boar and gathering a wide variety of wild foods; hazelnuts, wild parsnip roots, blackberries, honey and many others.

Hunter-gatherers rely on a very detailed knowledge of their locality to find their seasonal food.

They travelled by way of routes rather than paths, much as migrating herds move in the same direction each year but not along the identical track - except in narrow or difficult places like river fords.

Neolithic and Bronze Age

The First Farmers

From about 4,000 BC this way of life gradually changed, as people began to improve their supplies through growing crops and stock-rearing. Farming generally involves staying in one place, but it may have started the development of trackways. Herds of stock are very valuable; they need to be protected from predators or raiders and moved between pastures. They also have to be brought into the farmstead for milking, shearing or slaughter, and kept off growing crops on the way. The wear of their hooves on narrow tracts of land may have created tracks almost automatically, at least around farmsteads.

The rituals of religious belief left their mark in the form of "barrows" - mounds of earth or stone surrounded by ring ditches, which were used for burial rites. These barrows were oblong in shape at first - "long-barrows" - but changes in belief and custom led to the round barrows of the Bronze Age. Some were used for many generations, and tracks to and from the local communities may have formed here as well.

The Bronze Age

Travel By Water

By the late Neolithic period there are signs that people were aware of other, more distant communities, and that there was trade or exchange between them. Perhaps this is because settlements were forming in the river-valleys at this time and people were using the rivers to travel. Most societies have used water as a means of transport from very early times.

Unfortunately, rivertravel leaves very few archaeological traces, but other aspects of life at this time were uncovered at Duntisbourne Grove and several other sites. Arrowheads show that hunting was still important to these people: these, and remains of hazelnut, hawthorn, wheat and barley show a mixture of farming with other, older ways of life.

The Ridgeways

Throughout the Bronze Age in Britain (about 2,600 - 700 BC), overland travel remained difficult. The extensive, dense lowland forest was only occasionally broken by clearings for farming. Marshlands, such as Somerset and the Fenlands, were largely impassable; the inhabitants created timber trackways connecting their easily defended island settlements with dry land. Areas of high ground - well drained, dry ridges - were the only reliable routes: especially the long limestone ridges such as the Icknield Way.

Fruit

Gift-Exchange

Tribes, villages and even households were very largely self-sufficient, producing their own food, clothing, utensils and tools. Even on the Ridgeways, it seems that few people felt the need to travel for any great distance. The goods which came in from outside the community were usually very special items, such as a polished axehead of an unusual type of stone or later, of bronze or iron. Even these goods seem to have spread through early communities by gift-exchange, with items passing from one community to another, rather than by travelling merchants "trading" as we understand it today. Without trade, and with both government and warfare being very local affairs, travel was limited.

Flint Flint Flint

The Iron Age

Throughout the Iron Age (700 BC - AD 43) the population increased in numbers and there was greater prosperity than ever before. The excess wealth was there to be spent and trade with Roman Gaul (modern day France) made exciting new products available: enterprising merchants were in business.

Much of southern Britain was, to some extent, "Romanized" before Roman troops ever arrived in Britain. While not going as far as copying Roman building or engineering methods, the Iron Age population bought Roman products, and were not actively hostile to Rome. By now there were signs of more active movement around the country; trade in commodities such as salt and livestock. Circular Iron Age enclosures, which may well have acted as "corrals" for livestock in transit, are fairly common, and this may well be the function of the enclosure found at Preston.

burial map The White Way is one example of a local track which may have a prehistoric origin; another is the Lynches Trackway, probably an older route which was re-surfaced by the Romans. The burial found where the new road crosses the Trackway shows another function: tracks may have marked tribal boundaries, or have grown up along them - in this way, travellers would not have to cross territory belonging to another tribe. Burials during the Iron Age were often placed at the boundaries of settlements, perhaps in the belief that the spirits of the tribe's dead would protect the living.

For all that, most of these routes would have served only local interests. A national road network is only needed when there is a central government - such as that of the Romans.

The Romans

The Romans invaded Britian in AD 43 and within 50 years they had established the main framework of the road system which would serve this country for the next 400 years, or in some cases, such as Ermin Street, for the next 2,000 years.

The Roman Empire's system of central government depended on roads. Essential communications needed good roads with posting-stations for the couriers and other officials. Roads encouraged trade and the generation of wealth, and Rome flourished by taxing the wealth of its territories.

The strength of the army enabled Rome to conquer, hold and keep order in its territories. Heavy infantry was backed up by heavy equipment; the army built and maintained the network of roads so that they could use them, moving quickly into hostile territory, and bringing up reinforcements and supplies.

Government, Trade And The Military Invasion

The Roman advance fanned out from the south-east of Britain along a number of routes, one of which eventually became Ermin Street. The military forces concentrated on strengthening their position in the commercially valuable south of Britain, and the first limit of the conquest was the long ridge of the Cotwolds.

A defensive screen of strategically-placed forts, linked for mutual support by the Fosse Way, stretched from Exeter to beyond Lincoln. Cirencester, with its fort at Leaholm, was near the centre of this line; it was also on the main route from Silchester, securely placed in the occupied territories and able to provide back-up if required by troops entering the more distant territories.

When the Romans advanced again they extended Ermin Street to Gloucester, where they established a garrison at the river crossing. This was part of their move outwards from the safety of their Fosse Way defences. They occupied northern Britain, and safeguarded the borders by extending their campaigns into the highlands of Scotland and Wales.

Occupation

The military presence continued, and the army was still using the roads, but changes were happening in the country's trade and communications. Local people were making use of the major roads, and extending the system with networks of minor roads branching off to small settlements. The excavations identified several of these local tracks at Field's Farm, Duntisbourne Leer and Court Farm, linking small settlements to Ermin Street.

Survey

The proverbial straight Roman road shows their technical expertise, finding the shortest route that was practical to make and easiest to travel. These decisive routes were the work of the Gromatici, the Roman surveyors, who were usually army trained. Using simple equipment and methods, they used their experience and eye for the lie of the land to produce impressive results - especially in hostile, unknown and difficult territory. Archaeological analysis of the area around Dartley Bottom, for example, shows that this was woodland at the time of the road building.

Roman coins A new route would be walked first, checking for prominent landmarks to use as main references. They would then build up a network of intermediate points, altering the line to avoid any serious obstacles. The Romans included some steep gradients, but if a section was too steep to walk comfortably they eased it by zigzagging the route. The final survey of the line of the road was made using a groma, an instrument which could be used to sight along a line of survey poles fairly accurately.

The army provided most of the manpower for road building; one reason for the Roman army's success was its adaptability - the regular divisions were also very capable builders and engineers. Road building also gave occupation to a standing army which, in normal times, had very little fighting to do.

The army engineers knew that, for it to last, a road needs a solid foundation, good drainage and a hard surface. They provided these by raising the road on a bank of solid material, the agger, which had a hard cambered surface to shed rainwater. Where necessary, side ditches collected the runoff and also drained any water that had soaked in. This was the basic plan; they adapted it according to circumstances.

Maintenance

No road surface survives without maintenance, and those of the Romans were no exception. Systematic resurfacing of Ermin Street seems to have continued into the 3rd century, sometimes resulting in massive build ups of material nearly a metre thick. Clear evidence of at least four resurfacings was found at Dartley Bottom, Burcombe and Dowers Lane; at Cowley Underbridge there were seven.

Using The Roads

Service stations along main highways are nothing new. Travellers have always had to find places for food and safe shelter. The official Roman traffic used the government postingstations; traders and other travellers used hostelries set up by enterprising locals. These were often established at crossroads where traders would stay, and this encouraged the development of villages and towns.

At Birdlip Quarry part of a thriving settlement has been unearthed. There are traces of a number of roundhouses, the typical dwellings of Iron Age Britons which continued to be used through the Roman period. Large, roomy structures with a conical thatched roof, they probably housed extended families of several generations. With a central hearth for cooking and heating, there was room for most of the leisure, work and storage needs of the community. Like many other examples of roundhouses that have been found, the doorways faced the sunrise at the mid-winter solstice - apparently an important point in the people's religious beliefs.

The main business of the people of Birdlip was farming. Stock enclosures adjoined the houses, and the remains of a corn dryer were found. This was a form of kiln, fired with wood or charcoal, which passed hot air over grain to dry it out. This "parched" corn would keep through the winter, without going mouldy. Farming was probably the mainstay, but the community may have combined it with providing food, wine and shelter to travellers.

Birdlip Quarry

The inhabitants of Birdlip enjoyed a good lifestyle from their business, and the finds from the site reflect the trade that passed along the road. Pottery for cooking and tableware came not only from the local industries of the Severn Valley and Oxfordshire, but from Dorset, the New Forest and even from France. Wine came from France as well, carried in the great storage jars called amphorae. A different, rounder type of amphora was also used to import olive oil from Spain. All these things, and the many coins dropped from the small change of those times, point to a busy, prosperous community.

Clues to this secondary trade can be found in the many horse and oxen bones recovered from the excavations which showed signs of heavy work: these were probably draught animals, which may have been hired out for the long hauls up the hill. The fragments of hipposandals - a kind of tie-on horseshoe used by the Romans for horses with damaged hooves - may also be associated with this trade, and fragments of metalwork from Roman military uniforms suggest the presence of army detachments - perhaps on escort duty for important travellers.

The End Of The System

The Roman road system was built for the needs of a centralised government. Even before the Roman Empire disintegrated British society had changed, becoming more based on local communities than on the Empire. Long-distance road networks became less important so repair and maintenance ceased. Many of the roads were lost, yet some - like Ermin Street - survived through their situation, good building, or because their route was simply the best line to take in difficult country. The concepts of the Roman engineers survived long after the Empire.

Roads after the Romans

The influence of the Roman Empire continued after its collapse: people were more aware of other places and cultures than before. This effect was strengthened by the spread of Christianity, a faith which was international, and which formed cultural links as effective as those of the Empire.

All this had no effect on the roads. For more than a thousand years the technique of building an allweather road was a lost art; transport, especially of heavy goods, was only undertaken during the summer months, and in winter, excursions away from home were only undertaken in an emergency.

Roads existed in Britain after the demise of the Roman Empire - many of them, such as Ermin Street, never went out of use - but repairs were limited to making dumps of hardcore into ruts or potholes. It was no-one's responsibility to do more. Where the Roman road began to break down - an embankment over soft ground, for example - detours were made onto drier, firmer land.

Walkers

Walk Or Ride

Personal transport meant walking for most people - given time and good health surprising distances can be covered; the Medieval pilgrims not only travelled the length of Britain but also to the shrines of Europe and the Near East. Footwear was as stout as the wearer could afford; cleats and hobnails protected shoe soles from wear during the Roman period, and continued to be used up to the mid 20th century.

Riding on a horse or mule was faster and easier. Either animal was expensive to buy, feed and maintain, so only wealthier travellers had that option. The animals were also a target for thieves. The tales of Robin Hood and Dick Turpin are only entertaining at a distance: during the whole of this time the risk of robbery with violence was very real for any traveller. Travelling armed and in company was the only safe way.

Where there is concentrated horse-traffic, the horses' hooves quickly cut up a soft surface and churn it into mud. Hard road metalling is needed to resist this, so an iron horseshoe must be attached to the horse's hoof to protect it. Exactly when they were first used is still uncertain, but it seems unlikely that the Romans shod their horses (except in case of injury, when the tie-on "hipposandal" was used). A number of horseshoes came to light in the excavations: they are difficult to date precisely, but the Medieval shoes were forged from solid bar, whereas the "fuller" - a groove which lightened the shoe and protected the nailheads - was characteristic of later shoes.

Pedlar

Pedlars And Packhorses

Pedlars of small or light goods could carry their own packs. For greater loads the packhorse was used for many centuries; if the load was well balanced, they could carry a great deal. They could also carry loads along narrow, uneven tracks and bridges where a cart could not pass, and in general were less dependent on a good road surface.

Horses And Oxen

Heavier and bulkier loads had to be transported by cart, and for many centuries these were drawn by oxen rather than horses. There were several reasons: although slow, the ox can exert enormous pulling power, has great stamina, is docile, cheap to feed and can be converted into beef at the end of its working life. The horse's advantages were its speed, intelligence and greater agility, and while it was not originally as strong as the ox, improved breeds such as the Shire steadily became heavier and stronger. Between 1500 and 1750, the horse gradually took over from the ox for road haulage despite its higher running costs.

The change in draught animal meant that another system had to be used to transfer power from the animal to the cart. The system of a pair of animals pushing a yoke worked well for oxen but not for horses; the anatomy is different. The full potential of the horse could not be used until the collar was developed.

Carts, Wagons And Carriages

Wheeled transport had its own evolution to go through. Light, two-wheeled carts and chariots were used during the Iron Age, with a pair of animals harnessed to a pole shaft to draw them. This worked well for light loads and was fully manoeuvrable, but heavier loads needed the weight to be spread over two axles. The introduction of the four-wheeled wagon brought several problems, of which the worst was steering. These fixed-axle wagons did not steer well, and needed manhandling around anything more than a slight bend, or perhaps braking the wheels on one side only - a great waste of energy. The problem remained until improvements were made in the 16th century.

Livestock

Cattle As towns and cities grew, so the demand for foods of all kinds began to outstrip what could be supplied locally. The most efficient way to bring in fresh meat to the urban areas was on the hoof, and so the drove road system flourished - a network of ways by which cattle and sheep could be driven from country farms to town markets. Overnight stops were needed for the animals to rest and feed, and these paddocks were marked by small groups of Scots pine - a tall, distinctive tree which could be seen from a long way off. Where surviving examples of these trees had to be removed for the road development, RMS has planted replacement groups of Scots pine as near as possible to their original locations.

Canals

Water transport is probably as old as land transport, and certainly easier. Ocean-going cargo vessels had evolved by the time of the Romans.

Water Haulage For Heavy Loads

Canal Heavy loads were much more manageable in boats than on carts. Laden carts were harder to pull, especially uphill. On downhill sections it was difficult to keep the load under control without efficient brakes. The same load in a boat is supported by the buoyancy of the water, and there is almost no friction. Once a barge is moving, a single horse can pull a load that would need dozens of horses to move it on land. Navigable waterways also follow the contours of the land so that there are no steep hills to climb.

Water haulage was used wherever possible. But many places had no nearby rivers large enough to take boats, and even rivers such as the Severn and Thames were made unnavigable at times by drought or flood.

Canals: The Ultimate Waterways

Canals provided a controlled system of waterways which resolved the problems of drought, flood and other natural conditions that impaired inland water transport. The Thames and Severn canal, which ran alongside Ermin Street for part of its length, was built to link

two navigable rivers of southern England. Passing over the limestone ridges of the Cotswold Hills it demonstrated engineering skills of the day. Sapperton Tunnel was an incredible feat of engineering, with its two Classical and Gothic entrances; it was the longest tunnel that had yet been built in England at over two miles long. Associated building work, such as the five circular cottages built for maintenance workers, or 'lengthmen', can still be seen today.

The canal was completed in 1789 and remained in profitable use for the next fifty years. After the 1840s it remained in use, for longboats continued to pass along the canal for another ninety years. But both its profitability and its traffic were depleted by the transport revolution of the 19th century - the Railway.

Today canals are an important part of our leisure industry. Canals are being renovated all

over the country, and the Stroudwater Thames and Severn Canal Trust is devoted to bringing this waterway back into use. This is a longterm project, and the canal has not yet been restored where its course crosses the new road near Latton. However, to make sure that this is possible, RMS has bridged the A419 in advance of the canal restoration taking place.

The Turnpike Road: 17th Century

One obstacle to road-making, bigger than any natural feature, was people's reluctance to pay for them. England was a very parochial country; well into the 18th century, Englishmen felt more loyalty to their local parish than they did to the country as a whole. Parishes certainly had a legal obligation to maintain the roads within their boundaries, but in practice they could see little point in repairing trunk roads for "foreigners" who were only passing through the district.

The Turnpike Acts

By the 17th century, some kind of action was overdue. England was becoming more prosperous, but development was strangled by poor transport; it was becoming difficult to bring enough food into the growing towns and cities, and prices were rising. Still there was no direct action by the central government, but the Turnpike Acts enabled local authorities to contract out the necessary work: turnpike trustees had the power to sell shares or borrow capital for roadmaking, and then to levy tolls to repay the investment and finance its maintenance.

Although the first of these Acts was passed in 1663, the idea was slow to take root and only a few Turnpike Trusts were created over the next hundred years. After 1760, however, the idea took off, and by the mid-19th century 22,000 miles of road in England and Wales were maintained by the system. Ermin Street was a part of the Gloucester to London route, and its importance is shown by the early dates of its Turnpike Acts - 1697 for the Gloucester to Birdlip section, the Lechlade and Henley sections following, and the final link from Cirencester to Lechlade made in 1747.

Map "Turnpike" describes a way of paying for a road, not an improved method of building it. A number of repairs which came to light during the excavations - at Burford Road, for example - date to this time, but they amounted to little more than dumps of hardcore in the worst of the ruts and potholes: repairs would not have lasted long. What was needed was the same application of engineering skill that the Romans had used; techniques which Telford and McAdam rediscovered in the early 19th century.

The Turnpike Road: 19th Century

The New Engineers

As excavations at Burford Road showed, the method of turnpike road repairs consisted of dumping hardcore onto the rutted surface which was not a very satisfactory solution. Two engineers, John Telford and John McAdam, developed methods of road construction similar to those of the Romans. John McAdam recommended raising the road for good drainage (and adding side ditches if necessary), and metalling the road with small stones compacted into a smooth surface.

Sections of the road excavated at Cowley Underbridge and Dartley Bottom revealed roads that appeared to follow John McAdam's construction advice. It is possible that he may have worked on this road as he is known to have worked on the Dorchester to Cirencester road during the 1820s.

The early mail coaches achieved average speeds of 8 miles per hour in the 1780s.

With the improvements in road surfaces in the early 19th century, the average speed increased to over 10 miles per hour. Although slow compaired to today, a 25 percent increase had a significant impact on the transportation of goods and people. Improved roads also reduced the pressures put upon the horse and the average lifespan of a horse used to pull carriages also increased from around 8 to 12 years.

Road Transport: 20th Century

From the very beginning it was muscle power that carried goods and people along our highways. The railways were the first to use mechanical propulsion by means of the steam engine, but road traffic was not far behind. Steam engines are necessarily heavy from the weight of the boiler, which makes them less suitable for road traffic. It was the combination of the internal combustion engine and pneumatic tyres that provided the key for successful progress.

The Tarmac Road

The road had to make its own evolution. McAdam's methods were sound, and in many ways are the foundation of roadbuilding practice today, but the surface needed to be changed. Plain rammed stone worked well with iron tyres, for the grinding action produced stone dust which cemented the metalling together, but this effect was lost with the new rubber tyres. Tarmac, with bitumen binding the stones together and making a waterproof surface, was the answer to this, and the excavations at Dartley Bottom show that the first resurfacing with this material took place shortly after 1900.

car on a tarmac road

Cars For Everyone

Cars for everyone Motoring remained very much a rich man's pastime during the first half of the century: cars were still being coachbuilt by traditional production methods, and the relative cost was high. Goods traffic, and most commuters, travelled by rail. With the end of post-war austerity and the recovery of the mass-production car industry, road use began to increase in the 1950s. An increase in prosperity and more leisure time made cars more affordable and accessible for a mass market. More car journeys were made, for pleasure and holidays, as well as for work.

The Birth Of The HGV

With the deregulation of road haulage, this too expanded. One weakness of both canals and railways was that deliveries could rarely be "door to door". Even if the client built his factory as close to a rail depot as possible (as many did), a short road haul was often necessary at each end of the journey. Road haulage cut out the need to load and unload several times; it also became rapidly cheaper and more competitive as demand grew.

20th Century Roads

This extraordinary growth in traffic forced the growth of the road network. First came the expansion and improvement of the existing network, which had of course originally developed for the needs and the speeds of horse-drawn traffic. The development of the motorway system was a different concept, for motorways were designed from the start for motorised vehicles and could cope far better with the higher volume and speed of traffic. This is the point at which we now stand, where transport has returned to a largely road-based system.

Future Interpretations

As we have seen, everyone builds for the needs of their own time. But these needs change, and yesterday's constructions slip into the top register of the "archaeological record". How will the remains of the new A419/A417 be read by the archaeologists of the future? Industrial archaeologists often study quite recent structures - some less than a hundred years old - but they can be very difficult to interpret. Iron and steel are taken for scrap, and stone for other buildings. If the central reservation barriers were recycled in this way, how would archaeologists interpret the row of postholes and the scatter of heavily corroded nuts and bolts? How well will the reinforced concrete metalling survive centuries beneath the earth, and will anyone be able to decipher the strange system of hieroglyphic markings that we know as traffic signs? Perhaps the biggest question of all: will they understand why transport was so important to us that we went to these enormous lengths to achieve it? Or will transport, for them, be of such minor importance that they look for some other explanation of these massive works?