How did the Romans get from Ribchester to Lancaster? This has been one of Lancashire's biggest puzzles for over 150 years. Good communications between these two important Roman sites was essential and suggestions of a route were first shown on the Ordnance Survey Maps of c. 1850. They depict "Ancient Causeways" both over Longridge Fell and approaching Galgate from the village of Street. From then on there has been endless speculation about the route taken between these two but hard evidence has been remarkably difficult to find.
The answer was simple - the road took a different course altogether. David Ratledge has been able to discover the actual route of this missing road using Lidar imagery from the Environment Agency. This new remote sensing technique, which uses lasers to measure precise ground topology, was explained when David gave us a talk earlier this year on. The answer to the route is surprising. Rather than following the Ordnance Survey route, it took a very sensible and economical route via Longridge and Inglewhite to Catterall, near Garstang.
Here it joined another Roman Road, the main road from the south heading to Lancaster. The alignments used are typical of Roman engineering, running straight for several miles but cleverly dog-legging up to Longridge to reduce the gradient. Site visits have confirmed it is real with several stretches surviving, albeit somewhat worse for wear. This is to be expected given that the Romans stopped maintaining it over 1600 years ago. There is a previously known Roman milestone adjacent to the route, although its provenance is uncertain as it has been moved and re-erected. The detailed route has been registered with Peter Iles, Lancashire County Council's specialist advisor for archaeology.
Kirkless Update
More site visits this month has enabled us to uncover more of the chimney base we discovered last month. We can now see the full extent of this huge feature which has lain hidden beneath the turf all these years. With a girth of 8m at its base, it must have been quite a structure. We have also been able expose more of the wall on the southwest side of the site. This wall has proved particularly difficult due to the campacted overburden. However, we have now reached the northwest end of the wall which enables us to establish the full extent of this building.
Christmas Meal
As mentioned last month we are having a meal and quiz at our December meeting. If you haven't got your name down yet, let me know asap.
Next Meeting
Thursday 8th October - in the Standish Suite at the Brocket Arms (7.30pm as usual). Our speaker this month is Norman Redhead whose talk is entitled Recent Archaeological Investigations in Salford's Historic Core. As you probably know Norman runs the Archaeological Advisory Service for Greater Manchester. Over the years he has overseen a number of archaeological investigations in heart of Salford's town centre. Please note the change of day. - this is due to unforeseen circumstances so apologies to those who can't make it, but hope to see you there, BA.
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