Straight & narrow

A meander down an extinct Roman road uncovers fascinating stories from the past.

- NEVIL GIBSON

THE ROAD: The story of Romans and ways to the past, by Christopher Hadley (HarperCollins, $37.99)

It is no stretch of fact or the imagination to say that Romans conquered ancient Britain by road. Their road-building is unique in archaeological history, writes Christopher Hadley, author of Hollow Places, a book acclaimed for its imaginative re-creation of 1000 years of history based on the tomb of a reputed dragon slayer.

The Road uses the same formula to bring alive the past through “field walking” 23km on a now-extinct road from Braughing in East Hertfordshire to Great Chesterford in Essex. It is RR21b in the Margary numbering system of Roman roads.

The Romans began their conquest of what they called Britannia at the beginning of the Christian era and left 400 years later as the Roman Empire crumbled. They left a roading network of some 16,000km that covered most corners of England, Scotland and Wales.

Hadley’s claim of archaeological uniqueness is that the roads were built to a standard not matched for nearly two millennia and are still in use today.