Ancient motorways of Bibury

A mysterious stone next to Akeman Street near Ready Token.

The area around Bibury is threaded with country lanes, bridleways, tracks and footpaths. It’s all very quiet and peaceful, a bit of a backwater. However, scratch the surface and you will discover some of England’s historic transport arteries, carriers of valuable commodities, armies and animals. These major routes were effectively ancient motorways - with Bibury sitting amidst, a busy commercial place. Here are a few to look out for…

Fosse Way

The most famous road-builders of all time are, of course, the Romans. And one of the longest and straightest roads in their province of Britannia was the Fosse Way, which was probably an upgrade of an even older track. It runs about five miles away from Bibury, from south-west to north-east. It starts near Exeter and ends up around Lincoln and is still the best way to get from Cirencester to the East Midlands.

All the above may interest you but it probably won’t entice you to pay a visit. However, the Roman Villa at Chedworth, just off the Fosse, is worth a trip. It’s in a magical spot - a great place to get some down-time. It’s a few miles from Cirencester, which as Corinium was Roman Britain’s second largest city. The villa must have been a commutable distance and just off the ‘motorway’. Very handy. A bit like Beaconsfield. There are also two great pubs on the Fosse Way, next to roads from Bibury: The Fossebridge and The Stump (formerly The Hare and Hounds: ‘the stump’ nickname came from the old tree that stood outside next to the road).

Akeman Street

Not quite as currently important as the Fosse Way - it disappears in places - but still in its day an important east-west route. Also an ancient by-way that was upgraded and straightened by the Romans. You can see an impressively wide and straight portion of it between Quenington and Ready Token from where it heads into Cirencester to join up with the Fosse. There’s a nice walk you can do, from the campsite in Arlington over to Ready Token up Akeman Street before following the River Coln back to Bibury.

Icknield Street

Another Roman Road, the main bit of which seems to have gone from Bourton-on-the-Water to Birmingham and on to Yorkshire. However, there is mention of it appearing in Coln St Aldwyn, just downstream from Bibury, suggesting it continued southwards from Bourton. There is mention of it going into Wiltshire and Dorset. But I can’t find any maps to establish where the route runs either side of Coln St Aldwyn. A mystery. Perhaps it was an ancient Corinium by-pass? The Fosse Way was probably murder at rush hour.

The Salt Way

The road between Bibury and Coln St Aldwyn is today known as Salt Way. It continues as a track around the north side of Bibury, past the abandoned Bibury Airfield, and emerging again in Ablington. However, this is just a small part of a much longer road, from Worcestershire to the ports on the Hampshire coast, that was used to export the salts produced in Droitwich. Export of chemicals sounds quite a modern thing, doesn’t it? But this trade along the Salt Way is very old, dating at least to the Roman period when trade between Britannia and the rest of the empire would have been encouraged and enabled and salt was a critical commodity.

The Welsh Way

This ancient route passes through the nearby villages of Barnsley and Ready Token before heading to Fairford and Lechlade. It connected Wales to London and dates back to the Iron Age. Apparently, there’s evidence the Romans used it as a short-cut to march their armies between Akeman Street and the Fosse Way. The current name dates back to the 13th century, from when the route was used by Welsh drovers to take their livestock to London to be sold as meat at Smithfield Market in the City.

Drovers tended to travel on foot, usually four or five to a herd. Perhaps the better off men might ride on horseback, but on foot was more normal. They were assisted by well trained dogs that were sometimes sent home alone once the drive was over. The dogs, their homing instincts well developed, followed the same route back and often "lodged" in the same inns that the drovers had stayed at on the outward leg. 

The drovers would, of course, have already paid for the dogs' food and accommodation. The drovers themselves probably spent three or four days in the pubs and inns of London or wherever they found themselves, spending their hard-earned money before returning for another trip and another herd. 

(You can find more of this interesting stuff about drovers here).

What a life that must have been! It all came to an end in the 19th century with the arrival of railways and their stock-cars.

Note: this is an interesting source.