The Fosse Way Exploring the people, places and history along a Roman Road Created by Benjamin Wormald
The Fosse Way
In the late summer of AD 43, the most important event ever to have happened to the British Isles took place on the shores of the English Channel, near the modern day port of Dover. Boats landed under the white cliffs carrying legions of uniformed men, who brought with them weapons and armor of a quality so far unseen on the land on which they came ashore. The ideas that these people brought over the waters on agriculture, urbanisation, industry, architecture and transport revolutionised the island, which had previously been stuck in the relatively primitive Iron Age. They left an indelible mark on the land, both physically and culturally. These people were sent under orders from the Roman Emperor Claudius, who had acted upon information passed down from one of his predecessors: the infamous Julius Caesar, who had performed a number of reconnaissance journeys almost a century previous. Slowly, and without substantial resistance from the indigenous people, the Romans made their way across the South East of modern
Fig 1. day England. They encompassed and modernised the rural tribes that inhabited the area who solely relied on agriculture. There is little evidence left of resistance in the first and second campaigns carried out by Claudius and Aulus Plautius between the years of AD 43 and 47. These campaigns encompassed the agricultural Iron Age tribes of Cantiaci (Kent), Trinovantes (Essex), Atrebates (the Home Counties), Regni (Surrey, Sussex), Catuvellauvni (the East Midlands) and Durotriges (Dorset). These people had been marginally influenced by the Romans on the continent during the Iron Age, but now coinage was introduced and the widespread selling of crops was done to for the benefit of everybody.
Fig 2.
Fig 3.
These now encompassed tribes lived and farmed on a land that had been, millions of years ago, under the sea. This land was predominantly sedimentary rock, which is created by the remains of living water-bound organisms millions of years old. This type
51.629526,-2.107959 Mr Lipsy
51.449735,-2.289464 Margaret & Jim
of rock creates generally less extreme contours on the land due to its susceptibility to erosion, and so happens to provide much more fertile soil for crops to grow on. In the geological map of the British Isles (figure 2) you can see the definition between the light greens and yellows of sedimentary rock, and the purples, reds, browns, pinks and dark greens that make up the metamorphic rock that is characteristically harder, meaning that it is more resistant to erosion and less fertile in its nature. This type of rock finds its inception not from the remains of other living things, but from molten rock exiting from the innards of the earth, millions of years before the Romans arrived. During the Iron Age, the peoples who lived on this metamorphic rock generally led different lives to their counterparts on the sedimentary rock in the South East. Due to the comparative infertility of the land, people were more nomadic in their nature. Due to this nomadic nature these people may well have
50.780177,-3.073211
50.778569,-3.030639
Taunton Cross
Kilmington
been much more in touch with the land which led them to having a higher level of understanding on how to survive and of the geography of the British Isles. They were also much more likely to use urban hill forts as a place to congregate for trading. This potentially was a problem for the advancing Romans: the peoples on the lower lands were relatively docile as their lifestyles were benefited by the Romans advancements – due to their relative similarities with Roman culture – but the tribes people of the higher lands had a lifestyle which would not benefit so much from the Roman advancements, thus meaning their conquest of the British isles might hit a snag once they reach past this geological line. Derived from the Latin word ‘fossa’ meaning “ditch”, the Fosse Way is thought by historians to be originally a defensive ditch or a road that the Romans created to mark the frontier. There is little written evidence of this tracing back to the Romans, but due to its geographical nature and position in the timeline of Roman Britain, such deductions can be made.
51.340834,-2.40239
51.490963,-2.256027
Rodger
Richard
50.731233,-3.447229 Blackhorse
50.732435,-3.439407
The Roman’s British commander Ostorius Scapula – who ruled from AD 47-52 – was one of the first of a list of Roman commanders to attempt an advance from this frontier. These advancements from the Fosse Way into modern day Wales, the West Midlands, and Northern England took 30 years to complete, compared to the four years it took to attain the whole of the South East. The tribes of the Dumnoii, who originate from the counties of Devon and Cornwall, the majority of the Irish and Scottish and some western Welsh Celtic tribes were never occupied by the Romans, thus explaining the strong Gaelic and Celtic-rooted culture these peoples still maintain. After their initial use of the Fosse Way as a frontier, the Romans incorporated it into their vast network of roads that acted as arteries for the life blood that was free movement of trade and the military, both of which were integral to the efficiency of the Roman Empire.
50.754948,-3.356066
Clyst Honiton Bridge
Chris
51.298208,-2.457075
50.77384,-3.109689
Clandown
David
51.314493,-2.430553
50.745173,-3.413165
Peasdown St John
Unknown
50.79948,-3.189898
50.791762,-3.20966
Lee
Harry
51.670266,-2.035174
50.798205,-3.193814
Kemble
Julie
50.791504,-3.216848 A30 Honiton
In figure 1, the Fosse Way stretches 230 miles (370 km) from the Roman settlement of Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter), passing though the bathing town of Aquae Sulis (Bath) and similarly Corinium (Cirencester), famous for its amphitheater. It also passes through Ratae Corieltauvorum (Leicester), the military town, and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln), where the Fosse Way meets Ermine Street, another Roman road that linked the advancing northern frontier with the stable south of Britain and therefore the continent. Road building was a relatively new concept in this society so the building techniques used to construct them were primitive compared to techniques used today. Incredibly, though, the route that the Fosse takes never deviates more than six miles from a straight line. Equally remarkable is the fact that the road manages to straddle the drainage basins of the surrounding major rivers, meaning travellers never had to negotiate their way around or over any large river at any point along the Fosse Way (figure 3).
These factors make it a local landmark wherever it passes though. Whilst walking along it, it is evident that place names have been heavily influenced by it, with places such as Stratton-on-the-Fosse in Somerset and Fossebridge in Gloucestershire, both adopting the name. The people who live, work and use the Fosse Way today are normal folk. Many of these people live peacefully in the surrounding countryside, away from their counterparts who inhabit the bustling cities that have sprung up over the centuries, long after the Romans made their way back across the channel.
Benjamin Wormald travelled along the Fosse Way in the winter of 2013/14 AD. Walking, hitchhiking were his modes of transport, and his icy tent and friends floors were his abode. His interests are exploring historical, biological and anthropological ideas and presenting them in a topographical visual format. He is graduating from the Press & Editorial Photography course at Falmouth University in the summer of 2014.
Wirh thanks to: Isabelle Neil, Jack Reed, Alex Atack, Oscar Yoosefinejad, David White, Tom Ingate, Caron Cooper, Mr Lipsy, Eva Cooney, David + Sarah + Emily Wormald, Thomas Codrington, Publius Tacitus, John H.B. Peel, Hugh Davis, Keith Branigan & P J Fowler, and all the drivers who picked me up when my thumb was out.
Contact: wormald.ben@gmail.com +447794058895 Website: benwormaldpics.tumblr.com Instagram: @benworm