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 ROMANO-BRITISH WARWICKSHIRE Archceological Association^ 1877 (xxxiii. 281), alludes vaguely to Roman coins as ' found lately in Kenilworth.' With this inadequate notice we end our meagre list. Doubtless there was never much villa life in Roman Warwickshire, but the care- lessness of modern men has made that little seem even less. 5. ROADS Romano-British Warwickshire, as we have described it, can hardly have required many roads for its internal communications. But the position of the county in the midlands is such that almost all who wish to cross our island from south to north from London or Bristol to Lincoln or Derby or Chester must necessarily touch at least its borders. Accordingly three roads will here concern us : Watling Street, the Fosse, and the Rycknield or Icknield Street. There are also some branch roads, and some supposed roads which probably are not real. We commence with the Rycknield or Icknield Street, because it requires a somewhat longer discussion than the rest. (a) NORTH AND SOUTH ROAD THROUGH ALCESTER By Rycknield Street * I mean the Roman road, or perhaps the continuous series of roads, which runs from the north past Derby, Lich- field, Birmingham and Alcester to join the Fosse at Bourton-on-the- Water. The Warwickshire parts of this route are easily traceable, and are still largely in use as field-track or road, except in and near the town of Birmingham. It is perhaps worth adding that its line scarcely ever coincides with a parish or county boundary. Its course from north to south is briefly as follows. It enters the county, running slightly west of south, at the Street station on the Walsall and Water Orton branch of the Midland Railway, and crosses Sutton Park. Here it almost but not quite coincides with the present county boundary, and its easily distin- guishable track has long been noticed by travellers and antiquaries. 8 From the corner of Sutton Park (Royal Oak inn), it is represented for 2 1 miles by an existing highway, but at the crossing of the Tame Valley canal the highway bends, while the Roman road runs straight on, coincides briefly with the county boundary, crosses the Tame at Holford or Holdford, and so approaches Birmingham. Its course through that city and its suburbs is uncertain. We shall return to it in the next paragraph. Here we need only observe, first, that somewhere in this lost section its direction shifts from slightly west of south to slightly east of south, and secondly, that it may perhaps have here been joined by a 1 I may state here that I use Rycknield Street in preference to Icknield Street purely as a matter of convenience. No doubt, if antiquity of usage is to be considered, the road was called Icknield Street before it was called Rycknield Street. But it will be apparent from my arguments that I doubt whether the road has any real and original right to either name ; and if we style it Icknield Street, we risk con- fusion with the real Icknield Street in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. It seems best, therefore, to use the name Rycknield as being no less correct (or no more incorrect) than Icknield, and as having the advantage of being unmistakable. Probably it would be better still to avoid both names, were it not that preceding writers and common custom cannot be neglected. ' Gentleman's Magazine, 1762, p. 402 ; 1797, i. 1 10-13. 239