Page:VCH Worcestershire 1.djvu/278

 A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE to the two unquestionably Roman roads which, as we mentioned above, graze the eastern edges of the county. These are the so-called Rycknield Street and the Foss Way, the former the more important for a Worcester- shire topographer, the latter barely entering the county, but by far the more important as a road of Roman Britain. Both roads have one interesting feature, in that they are almost the only two Roman roads in the Midlands which do not run towards London. And first, Rycknield Street. (6) By Rycknield Street we mean a road from the Roman 'station' outside Derby to Wall, the Romano-British Letocetum near Lichfield; and thence past Birmingham to Alcester, also a Romano-British town or village ; and finally to the Foss Way at Bourton-on-the- Water. This road is easily traceable, and indeed largely still in use ; and its unswerv- ing straightness and connection with Roman sites justify us in calling it a Roman road. Its course needs no long discussion. Entering Worces- tershire close to Birmingham, where it seems to meet a Roman road from Worcester and Droitwich (No. i), it runs as a road in present use past Stirchley Street, Weatheroak Hill near Alvechurch, and Beoley ; then it enters Warwickshire, and passes Studley, Alcester, Bidford and the two Honeybournes ; at Bidford it begins to be called Buckle Street. A little further south, at Weston Subedge, it mounts the range of Broadway Down, and its course is less clear. The map-makers — on what authority I do not know — give the name of Buckle Street to a ridgeway which runs along the hill-top above Cutsdean and Temple Guiting, and descends ultimately to Bourton. This may represent the Roman line, which in that case diverged from its hitherto straightness and made a westward curve. But it may instead have continued nearly straight, and we may think to see its traces in the parish boundary be- tween Weston and Saintbury and in the Worcestershire county boundary, which forms the eastern limit of Broadway parish. A road following this line would, if produced straight on, coincide with the four miles of absolutely straight road called Condicote Lane, and thus reach Bourton by a route which would be a direct continuation of the northern part of the road between Birmingham and Weston Subedge. In either case it will be observed the road runs into the Foss Way at Bourton.^ Unfortunately the name of the road is much more obscure than its course. We have called it Rycknield Street, but we have done so simply for convenience, because that name is now usually applied to the road, and for the same reason we have adopted the usual spelling of a variously written word. But in reality the name is an old and famous puzzle, and deserves some notice here. The story appears to start with the Icknield Street. That road, under the title Icenhylt or Icenhilde Street, is a trackway through Berkshire and Oxfordshire, of which the course is still traceable and the name attested by Anglo-Saxon documents earlier than the Conquest : it is not a Roman but possibly a British road, and so far we 1 Ordnance Survey Maps (6-inch) : Worcestershire, v., x., xvi., xxiii., xxiv., xliii., Ivii. ; Warwick, XXXI., xlix. ; Gloucestershire, xii., vii., xiv. 214