Oddly enough, what is in most cases the strongest motive of all for the preservation of a road was here entirely absent, and that is what I have called the “potential” between the two terminals. When there is a long and continued motive for joining up two terminal points the Road has a cause of survival superior to any other. There was, and remains to this day, an extremely strong “potential” of this kind between the ports serving the Channel straits, with their nucleus at Canterbury, and the economic capital inland at London. It therefore, as the Roman road between the one terminal and the other, remained permanent throughout the centuries, with the exception of the deflection towards the Thames which grew up in the Dark Ages to serve the landing places at Gravesend. But such a “potential” is entirely lacking for the north-western road communication—so far as we know—to go between London and Chester. The trade with Ireland ceased almost during the early Dark Ages. The north-western road led nowhere. If it was preserved, therefore, as it has been preserved, it must have been due to other causes which escape us. There it runs, however, still almost uninterruptedly used, from the Marble Arch in London to Oakengates in Shropshire, and in places still acts as part of the main artery leading from south-east to north-west.
v
(2) Stane Street. The Stane Street (which I must be excused for quoting so continuously as I know it in great detail) is, I think, the leading example of a road still remaining for the most part and clearly showing how the later systems were built up upon a Roman backbone.
I will take the liberty of recapitulating here my argument, developed at greater length in my monograph on this Way. The original motive of the Stane Street was the connecting of the Chichester Harbours, and indirectly of Portsmouth Harbour, with London by a road which should overcome the difficulties of the Weald. The Weald is a mass of stiff clay, impassable to general traffic for six months of the year unless one uses artificial means. Left to itself it turns rapidly into a waste of oak and thorn scrub: save in the dry months, there is no going over it in its natural state for armies or bodies of wheeled vehicles. Its watercourses are numerous, muddy, difficult of approach, and soft at bottom. It produces nothing save in moments of high civilization, when it can be heavily capitalized by draining and penetrated by expensive artificial communications. The supply of good water is rare and capricious. The Weald was, therefore, the great obstacle between the south coast and the Thames. Because it was such an obstacle the Romans drove their first great road from the main harbour of Portsmouth to the capital round westward by Winchester, Silchester, and Staines; but they needed a supplementary road, for two reasons. First, they wanted a short cut to serve Portsmouth and the lesser inlets collectively called Chichester Harbours (Bosham appears to have been an official port throughout the Dark Ages); and, secondly, they wanted to be able to reach quickly for purposes of travel and commerce the very fertile sea plain of which Chichester is the capital. Therefore did they construct the most purely military and most direct of all the Roman roads in the island, the Stane Street. It ran from the east gate of Chichester in a direct line to the crossing of the Arun at Pulborough, with a camp at the end of this first day’s march to defend it; thence it made in another great straight limb for the shoulder of Leith Hill, with a camp at the second crossing of the upper Arun at Romans Wood; thence by a series of much shorter limbs to the third camp at Dorking; thence over the Mole at Burford Bridge and over the Epsom Downs past the racecourse to the fourth camp at Merton, and thence to London Bridge—a five-march stage.
In the Dark Ages the Weald became impassable again, the causeway on the Arun marshes broke down and was swallowed up. The bridge at Alfoldean broke down, and Sussex was isolated from the north.
Further, with the absence of any exit for direct and rapid communication between Chichester and London the meaning went out of the road between Dorking and Merton. Merton was close enough to London to give the road vitality again, and between this and London it was never lost. It runs to this day, and is the main line of tramways upon which people still travel from Streatham and Balham to the Borough. It is only deflected at the end by the intricacies of the Southwark streets.
[Now, if you look at the present scheme of roads surrounding this original Roman core] they look at first as though they had no connection with it, but when you examine them in detail the way in which they grew up out of the Roman road is clear. Every deflection can be accounted for, and the development of the local systems from the original continuous backbone becomes evident.
Part II, Sketch XI
First you have all Sussex south of Pulborough Marsh, and again south of Alfoldean Bridge, isolated.