29 September 2016

The Roman Road, Wandlebury to Copley Hill....


This Roman road runs for ten miles from Cambridge into Suffolk.  The northern half known as Worsted or Wool Street is a Scheduled Monument because it was built to a higher standard than the rest.  Most Roman roads are buried under tarmac but this part of their great road system has survived as a green way because there is a parallel main road nearby, the A1307.  The Roman road was built to link the Roman camps at Godmanchester and at Cambridge to Colchester via the big camp at Great Chesterford.  It crossed the Icknield Way.  The most important Roman roads were paved.  Lesser roads, like this one, were built on the standard ditch and bank pattern and then surfaced with gravel.  These roads were of great use to travellers and also to traders such as the wool merchants of Suffolk.





Copley Hill is a natural chalk knoll, crowned by a barrow......






The entrance to Mile Road, a prehistoric track re-surfaced by the Romans....


Information obtained from the Local Heritage Board on the Roman Road.

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