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Port Way
Port Way (also known as the Portway) is an ancient road in southern England, which ran from Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, in modern-day Hampshire) in a south-westerly direction to Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum, Wiltshire). Often associated with the Roman Empire, the road may have predated the Roman occupation of Britain.
By the time of the Roman occupation of Calleva Atrebatum and Sorbiodunum, 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, although the section between Londinium and Calleva Atrebatum is correctly 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 the Roman town at 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 36+1⁄4 miles (58.3 km).
Port Way connected Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) and Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum near Salisbury). Both towns predated the Roman occupation of Britain, and it is possible that the road is pre-Roman in origin. The name "Port Way" is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and like other ancient routes with the same name, refers to a road between market towns.
From Calleva Atrebatum, the road continued the south-westerly course of The Devil's Highway (Margary route 4a) from Londinium. 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. 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. The Ordnance Survey's 1911 25 inch to the mile map shows the road to be on a heading congruent with the theory it connected to Calleva Atrebatum's West Gate, although a 1989 article in the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies' Britannia journal shows it leaving the town at the Lower West Gate.
Less than 200 yards (180 m) from Calleva Atrebatum, Port Way ran across an Iron Age entrenchment near to where the 1985–87 Silchester Hoard of coins and rings was discovered. The road passed near to (or cut across) the Flex Ditch near Silchester, another Iron Age earthwork. 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 present Hampshire–Wiltshire border, passes through St Mary Bourne and crosses the Bourne Rivulet. 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. Approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) east of this crossroads was a mansio, the only significant settlement on the Port Way other than its termini. Hoare believed that this was the settlement of Vindomis, and the Ordnance Survey's 25 inch to the mile map of 1895 marks it as "ROMAN STATION / Supposed to be VINDOMIS". Charles Roach Smith wrote that the distance of Vindomis from Calleva Atrebatum given in the Antonine Itinerary – 15 miles (24 km) – did not "materially clash" with the idea that Vindomis was the settlement at this intersection. Despite this, Francis J. Haverfield wrote in 1915 that "there was no town or village at the crossing; so far as we know, there was not even a house at all". Contrary to Hoare's belief that this was the site of Vindomis, the discovery of the Calleva Atrebatum to Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester) road led to the consensus that the settlement was in the area of present-day Neatham near Alton. No later than the 1730s, John Horsley had suggested that Vindomis was in the vicinity of Farnham (some 7 miles (11 km) from Neatham). If not Vindomis, the settlement at the East Anton crossroads may have been Leucomagus.
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Port Way AI simulator
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Port Way
Port Way (also known as the Portway) is an ancient road in southern England, which ran from Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, in modern-day Hampshire) in a south-westerly direction to Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum, Wiltshire). Often associated with the Roman Empire, the road may have predated the Roman occupation of Britain.
By the time of the Roman occupation of Calleva Atrebatum and Sorbiodunum, 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, although the section between Londinium and Calleva Atrebatum is correctly 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 the Roman town at 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 36+1⁄4 miles (58.3 km).
Port Way connected Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) and Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum near Salisbury). Both towns predated the Roman occupation of Britain, and it is possible that the road is pre-Roman in origin. The name "Port Way" is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and like other ancient routes with the same name, refers to a road between market towns.
From Calleva Atrebatum, the road continued the south-westerly course of The Devil's Highway (Margary route 4a) from Londinium. 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. 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. The Ordnance Survey's 1911 25 inch to the mile map shows the road to be on a heading congruent with the theory it connected to Calleva Atrebatum's West Gate, although a 1989 article in the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies' Britannia journal shows it leaving the town at the Lower West Gate.
Less than 200 yards (180 m) from Calleva Atrebatum, Port Way ran across an Iron Age entrenchment near to where the 1985–87 Silchester Hoard of coins and rings was discovered. The road passed near to (or cut across) the Flex Ditch near Silchester, another Iron Age earthwork. 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 present Hampshire–Wiltshire border, passes through St Mary Bourne and crosses the Bourne Rivulet. 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. Approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) east of this crossroads was a mansio, the only significant settlement on the Port Way other than its termini. Hoare believed that this was the settlement of Vindomis, and the Ordnance Survey's 25 inch to the mile map of 1895 marks it as "ROMAN STATION / Supposed to be VINDOMIS". Charles Roach Smith wrote that the distance of Vindomis from Calleva Atrebatum given in the Antonine Itinerary – 15 miles (24 km) – did not "materially clash" with the idea that Vindomis was the settlement at this intersection. Despite this, Francis J. Haverfield wrote in 1915 that "there was no town or village at the crossing; so far as we know, there was not even a house at all". Contrary to Hoare's belief that this was the site of Vindomis, the discovery of the Calleva Atrebatum to Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester) road led to the consensus that the settlement was in the area of present-day Neatham near Alton. No later than the 1730s, John Horsley had suggested that Vindomis was in the vicinity of Farnham (some 7 miles (11 km) from Neatham). If not Vindomis, the settlement at the East Anton crossroads may have been Leucomagus.