A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE through South Herefordshire, but there are now no traces of a Roman road in these parts, and its course is practically unknown. We may assume that it ran from Monmouth past Whitchurch, Goodrich, and Walford, and that from Weston it followed approximately the line of the modern road from Ross to Gloucester by Lea and Huntly. It probably crossed the Wye at Walford, where is an ancient ford (in Domesday Wake ford, i.e. ' Welsh ford')." 3. We may append here some details about roads which have been traced, or thought to be Roman, on somewhat insufficient evidence. (i) A road has been thought to have branched from Watling Street at Leintwardine, and to have run in a south-easterly direction past Blackwardine, where was a small settlement, to Ariconium.^*' The only part of this route which in any way suggests a Roman road is through Ashton, Stockton Cross, Stretford, and Blackwardine, as far as Risbury Camp. The rest is pure imagination. The course proposed is by Bodenham, Preston Wynne, Withington, Lugwardine, Fownhope, and How Caple, but not a trace really exists. Still less likely are the suggested roads from the above-named, {a) by England's Gate to Stretton Grandison,'* {b) from Fownhope to Kenchester." (2) A road has been thought to run from Kenchester past Bishopstone into Radnorshire — according to some, to the Roman remains at Cwm ^^ — but there is no evidence of it beyond Bishopstone. Codrington traces this road by Staunton-on-Wye to Hay and Brecon." (3) We have already noted the existence of a probable Roman road from Kenchester to Stretton Grandison, which at the present day coincides with a remarkably straight modern road to within a short distance of Yarkhill. It is stated that a milestone with illegible inscription is still lying in situ on this road near Withington. But that it was continued, as some writers have imagined," beyond Stretton over the Malvern Hills to Worcester, is entirely unproven." On the other hand there is better evidence for a road at right angles to the last named, leading in a very straight line for some seven miles to the south-east, through Ashperton, Pixley, and Preston, and thence more deviously to Dymock and Newent. In Isaac Taylor's map, pubhshed at Ross in 1754, the earliest on which roads are marked, this does not appear, but if really an old road, it may perhaps be Roman. ^* Its general direction seems to indicate that it led eventually to Gloucester. " Arch.Surv. 15 ; Codrington, Roman Roads in Britain, 363 ; Brayley and Britton, Beauties of EngL and Wales, vi, 406 ; Murray's Guide toHerefs. (1884), p. xxxiv. " Woolhope Club Trans. 1885, p. 340; Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 2), v, loi ; Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxvii, 381. " Arch. Surv. 15 ; Woolhope Club Trans. 1868, p. 185 ; Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 2), v, 102 ; (Ser. 5), v, 196 j Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxvii, 381. " Arch. Surv. 15. " See Arch, i, 304 ; xvii, 1 70 ; Giraldus Cambrensis, I tin. (ed. Hoare), i, p. clvi ; Williams, Radnorshire, 48, 241. '° Roman Roads in Britain, 365. '^ E.g. Arch. Journ. xxxiv, 370 ; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxvii, 381 ; Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 2), v, loi j (Ser. 5), V, 197 ; Duncumb, Hist. o/Herefs. i, 29 ; Brayley and Britton, Beauties of Engl, and Wales, vi, 406. See r.C.H. Worcs.i, 213. '^ Arch. Surf. 15 ; Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 5), v, 197 ; Woolhope Club Trans. 1903, p. 189 ; Codrington, Roman Roads, 364 ; Fosbroke, Ariconensia, 24. 174
