KENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY  -- RESEARCH    Studying and sharing Kent's past      Homepage


Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Roads - Page 139

the Wealden road. An account of the discoveries in and about Maidstone will be found earlier in this article (see p. 98), and it will suffice here to say that the line of the road is south-east by way of Week Street, Stone Street, and Loose Road, through the cemetery to Mangravet, where it changed direction to south-south-east and passed along the south-west side of a small kite-shaped earthwork (now destroyed) that was obviously aligned on it. Then by way of Pested Bars it passed the site of the walled cemetery at Lockham (p. 158), and close to the villa near Brishing Court; from a point 200 yds. south-east of Lockham to a point about 140 yds. north of Rat’s Castle, Langley, the road disappears, but at the latter place it is represented by a hollow way followed by a parish boundary as far as Four Wents. A small section of modern road lies on the course between Four Wents and Amberfield, where a trackway continues, not quite in the same straight line, to a point ½ mile south of Amberfield; here the road, bending to the south-west for a short distance, is cut down into the ragstone at least 20 ft., but it soon takes up its alignment on a modern road with a parish boundary and passes by Hermitage Corner to Crabtree Green, Chart Sutton. A short trackway follows the course from the ‘Lord Raglan’ Inn towards Cheney’s Court, and Mr. Crawford has found traces of it again on the south side of the Beult, where, ¼ mile north of Sweetlands Corner, Staplehurst, he saw a causeway about 3 ft. high and 50 ft. wide. The alignment is preserved for 2½ miles by a modern road by Knowles Hill through Staplehurst to Iden Bridge, where it bends slightly east at a stream crossing; the road then skirts Camden Park, but the alignment soon becomes lost and cannot be traced for 3 miles. Then, north of Hemsted Park, Benenden., it appears once more. The line as marked on the 6-in. O.S. map, sheet LXX S.E., is fairly certain, and between Hemsted and Corner Cottages, Mr. Crawford notes, there is a pond dammed by the Roman road, though a larger dam has been built on it; and at Corner Cottages there are several big stones in the side of a pond. The road then continues south as a hollow way within trees (on the east of Seven Acre Shaw, Mr. Crawford has noticed large blocks of stone that may be the remains of a paved surface), to Stream Farm, Iden Green, where it crosses the stream by a paved ford, 12 ft. 9 in. wide, that is still visible (P1. XXX).15  Soon after this it turns south-east, roughly on the line of the Rye road, crossing a stream at Wande Mill; in a field by Chattenden the causeway may be seen making for Sandhurst Cross. South of Sandhurst Cross the road is lost, but its line produced points towards the crossing of Kent Ditch at Bodiam Mill, and towards Court Lodge in Sussex. It is, indeed, tempting to carry the road further south-westward by Battle to Pevensey, and thus to provide an indirect road from the Saxon shore fort at Lympne to the sister fort at Pevensey; the eastern sector of the road (which joins the Rochester road at Hemsted), has been identified with some certainty, and though, as we shall see, there is a small gap near Kingsnorth, the suggestion has possibilities.
   (3) LYMPNE—HEMSTED.—In Hemsted Park the road just described is joined by another road which can be followed across the country eastward for some miles to Lympne; its course, as indicated on the 6-in. O.S. map,16
   15  Journ. R. Studies, xii, 277. The photograph, reproduced through the courtesy of Mr. Crawford, is by Dr. G. A. Simmons.
   16  Sheets—lxx, S.E.; lxxi, N.E. S.E. S.W.; lxxii, N.E. N.W.; lxv, S.W.; lxxiii, N.E.; lxxiv, S.W., and see the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain, 2nd edition.

Previous Page          Page 139           Next Page

For details about the advantages of membership of the Kent Archaeological Society   click here

        Back to Roads page listings       Back to Contents Page        Back to Research    Back to Homepage

Kent Archaeological Society is a registered charity number 223382
© Kent Archaeological Society June 2006

This website is constructed by enthusiastic amateurs.  Any errors noticed by other researchers will be to gratefully received so
 that we can amend our pages to give as accurate a record as possible. Please send details to research@kentarchaeology.org.uk