Port Way
Port Way (also known as the Portway) is an ancient road in the south of Great Britain, which ran from Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, in Hampshire) in a south-westerly direction to Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum, Wiltshire). It is not known whether the route was created by the Romans or marks a pre-existing trackway.
During the Roman period, the road formed part of a longer route between Londinium (London) and Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter). The term "Port Way" is sometimes used to refer to this whole route,[1] although the section between Londinium and Calleva Atrebatum is specifically known as the Devil's Highway, and the section between Sorbiodunum and Vindocladia (Badbury Rings) is Ackling Dyke.
The road was studied by antiquarians such as Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Henry MacLauchlan, Charles Roach Smith, Thomas William Shore, Thomas Codrington, and Ivan Margary, and much of the route can still be traced. The section east of Hannington in Hampshire, however, has not been definitively traced in over 100 years and sources differ on the precise route into Calleva Atrebatum.
Margary's Roman road numbering system, devised in the 1950s, gave the route from Londinium to Isca Dumnoniorum the number 4; the Port Way section is 4b. He recorded the distance of this section as 36¼ miles.
Route
Port Way connected Calleva Atrebatum and Sorbiodunum. Both towns predate the Roman occupation of Britain,[2][3] and it is possible that the road is pre-Roman in origin. The name "Port Way" is Anglo-Saxon in origin,[4] and like other ancient routes with the same name, refers to a road between market towns.[4]
From Calleva, the road continued the south-westerly course of The Devil's Highway (Margary route 4a) from Londinium.[5] Both Ivan Margary and Thomas Codrington believed the road left the town on its western side; Margary favoured the theory that it connected with the town's Lower West Gate, although it possibly connected with the main West Gate.[6] Sir Richard Colt Hoare suggested that the road branched off Margary route 42 – the road from Calleva Atrebatum to Venta Belgarum (Winchester) – immediately outside the town's South Gate; this theory was supported in an 1846 article by the British Archaeological Association.[7]
Less than 200 yards from Calleva, Port Way ran across an Iron Age entrenchment near to where the 1985–87 Silchester Hoard of coins and rings was discovered.[8] The road passed near to (or cut across) the Flex Ditch near Silchester, another Iron Age earthwork.[9] It continued south-west through Pamber Forest, towards Cottington Hill near the present-day village of Hannington.
From Cottington Hill, the road takes on the heading of Quarley Hill, near the Hampshire–Wiltshire border, passes through St Mary Bourne and crosses the Bourne Rivulet.[10] Beyond St Mary Bourne, near Finkley and East Anton, Port Way was crossed by Margary route 43, the road from Venta Belgarum to Cunetio (Mildenhall), sometimes described as being part of the Icknield Way. A mile east of this crossroads was a mansio,<ref">National Heritage List 1001901: Roman house ½ mile E of Finkley Farm (Scheduled ancient monument entry)</ref> the only significant settlement on the Port Way other than its termini. Hoare believed that this was the settlement of Vindomis,[11] a theory much disputed/
Quarley Hill provided a line-of-sight with Sorbiodunum, and from here the road took a south-west heading through the Bourne Valley into Wiltshire, crossing the river between Winterbourne Gunner and Gomeldon. At Sorbiodunum, the road entered the town on its east side,
Both Calleva Atrebatum and Sorbiodunum are listed in Iter XV of the Antonine Itinerary, although the distance given between the two towns – 55 Roman miles – is via Vindomis and Venta Belgarum rather than a straight route along Port Way.
Construction
In 1879, some a quarter of a mile the road near St Mary Bourne was removed to provide better access for farm vehicles. The metalled road surface was found between four and eight inches below ground level, and the road was approximately 24 feet wide.
Further west, close to the Amesbury and Military Camp Light Railway in the parish of Newton Tony, a section of the road in excellent preservation was carefully examined; Margary noted that both here and at Bradley Wood, the 'agger' was 27 feet wide.[12] The road here was bottomed with chalk, then layered with three to four inches of flint, upon which a 12-inch layer of local gravel was laid.[13] The road had been cambered to give a thickness of 7 inches at the centre. There were V-shaped ditches on each side of the road, each 15 inches deep and three feet wide. These were situated roughly 32 feet from the south kerb and just over than from the north kerb, making a total width for the road zone of 84¼ feet to the ditch centres.
References
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Port Way) |
- ↑ Holmes, Edric (1922). Wanderings in Wessex: An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter. Robert Scott. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11410/11410-h/11410-h.htm#085. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
- ↑ Fulford, Michael (2018). Late Iron Age Calleva : the pre-conquest occupation at Silchester Insula IX. London. ISBN 9780907764458.
- ↑ "Old Sarum archaeologists reveal plan of medieval city". BBC News. 3 December 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-30300837.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Bailey, Stephen (2019). The old roads of Derbyshire : walking into history : the Portway and beyond. Kibworth Beauchamp: Troubador Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 9781789018431.
- ↑ (in en) The Gentleman's Magazine. W. Pickering. 1836. p. 53. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Gentleman_s_Magazine/9SNIAQAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
- ↑ Thomson, James C. (1924) (in en). A Great Free City: The Book of Silchester; the Dramatic Complemental History of the Remarkable Atrebatian Stronghold which Became the Imperial Municipality Called Calleva Atrebatum, the Third Free City of the Romano-Britannic Province, More Commonly Known as the Ruins of Silchester. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, Limited. p. 277. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Great_Free_City/UgLSAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
- ↑ (in en) Transactions of the British Archaeological Association, at Its Second Annual Congress, Held at Winchester August 1845, Consisting of the Papers Read at the Several Meetings Together with an Account of the Exhibitions, and Excursions Made by the Association. H.G. Bohn. 1846. p. 141. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Transactions_of_the_British_Archaeologic/3J7JemoDCK4C. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
- ↑ Fulford, M. G.; Burnett, A.; Henig, M.; Johns, C. (1989). "A Hoard of Late Roman Rings and Silver Coins from Silchester, Hampshire". Britannia 20: 219–220. doi:10.2307/526164.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1008725: Flex Ditch, Silchester (Scheduled ancient monument entry)
- ↑ A History of the County of Hampshire - Volume 4 pp 295–299: Parishes: St Mary Bourne (Victoria County History)
- ↑ Stevens, J (1888). A Parochial History of St Mary Bourne. Whiting and Company. p. 61. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Parochial_History_of_St_Mary_Bourne/mjJAAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
- ↑ Margary, Ivan (1955). Roman Roads in Britain. Phoenix House. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Roman_Roads_in_Britain/Uo3VAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
- ↑ Collingwood, RG (1937). "Roman Britain in 1936". Journal of Roman Studies 27 (2): 243. doi:10.2307/296369.
