Roman
Road, Box Quarry and Box Tunnel
The day
started fresh and early, well, as early as I can manage
this side of Xmas!
Got set up and headed down near the Swan mine in
Kingsdown to have a look accross the valley
down to Farleigh Down sidings and up the other side
towards Monkton Farleigh, in search of
the Roman road I was.
Just to the
left of the pylons running up the hill is what seems to
be some kind of raised trackway,
standing in some places nearly 2 metres tall, this is
most likely the old route of the roman road running up to
meet or cross with the Wansdyke ditch.
The route running from Kingsdown
Possible
Roman Road between Monkton Farleigh and
Kingsdown.
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Possible
Roman Road north of Monkton Farleigh.
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Possible
Roman Road north of Monkton Farleigh.
Looking due east, the road should follow a track
parallel to the pilons.
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However
it could just be an old quarry track which runs up to the
hillside through the woods,
above the mines, but the majority of the tracks run at 90
degrees to this one and the route is
very steep, especially for heavily laden carts...so Roman
it must be.
According
to old maps of the Wansdyke this is the likely Roman
route running straight to London.
We followed the raised road all the way up to the number
13 camp at Monkton Farleigh, behind
Main East buildings.
I had
always wondered what became of the buildings in this area
from the WW2 period, and had my questions answered by
convieniently stumbling accross the
remains which had been bulldozed down the back of the
steep wooded hill, covering the "lip" of the
Roman road. I may visit there again to look through the
"rubbish" but for now I'm in the wrong era.
The road
comes out near the edge of Farmers fields (Hobhouses
land?) and disappears from
view...years of working the land has covered the
remains...the only clue is a wall running past the fields
(with a few remains of barns built into it), this comes
out near a spring in the centre
of the field under a large pylon. The land around here
has many earth features...bumps and
mounds, and is the site of a Tumulus. I think the route
of the road runs along the edge of the wooded area,
heading out to the horizon Devizes direction. I plan to
research this more, and
anyone with any help would be greatly appreciated.
After
dinner a visit was paid to the Quarrymans Arms in Box,
Wiltshire, cheers for the drink guys
and a copy of the central survey of the quarries was
bought...I didn't realisee that place was
so big! Also bought a copy of Deep, Dark and Dusty a
video documenting the story of Bathstone quarries and the
workers.
We drank up
and decided to check out the Backdoor entrance way,
behind a tennis court in an
elaborate garden. We decided to not venture far and
crawled through the small squeeze,
inside we decided that it was best if we checked our
brains and return with a qualified tour
guide, this quarry was ancient and VAST!
In the
evening time just a dusk, we drove through Neston past
Ridge quarry and around past
Rudloe area, all very quiet here.
After many back alleys and wrong turns we stumbled
accross the East entrance of Box tunnel,
recently cleared away exposing the East portal area
running into the hillside and also the pill
box along the trackway, light was failing us so decided
that it was time to turn home.
Copyright © 2003,
'Wayne'. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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