About the Watling Street
The Watling Street is a Roman road about 352 km long in the Itiner-e atlas of ancient roads. It is mapped as 58 separate segments within the United Kingdom. 16 Roman places lie along it, from Portus Dubris to Viroconium.
None of the Watling Street is classed as certain: almost all of it is conjectured, so the line on the map is a best estimate of the course rather than a surveyed route.
- 352 kmlength
- 58segments
- 16Roman places
- 1country
How sure are we where it ran?
| How certain | Length (km) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Certain | 0 | 0% |
| Conjectured | 348 | 99% |
| Hypothetical | 4.6 | 1% |
Certain: well documented, mapped to within about 50 to 200 m. Conjectured: known road, course less precisely documented. Hypothetical: route not pinned down, or existence uncertain.
Where the Watling Street goes
| Country | Length (km) |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 352 |
In the UK it crosses: Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Bedfordshire, Greater London, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, City and County of the City of London, England.
Roman places along the Watling Street
In order along the route, from Portus Dubris to Viroconium. Names are the Roman ones from the Pleiades gazetteer.
- Portus Dubris
- Durovernum
- Durobrivae
- Londinium
- Sulloniacis
- Verulamium
- Durocobrivis
- Magiovinium
- Lactodorum
- Bannaventa
- Venonis
- Manduessedum
- Letocetum
- Pennocrucium
- Stretton Mill Fort
- Viroconium
Modern roads that follow it
Many of today's roads were built on top of Roman ones. These numbered roads in Great Britain run along or very close to the line of Watling Street. About 88% of the route in Great Britain lies on a numbered road of some kind.
- A5: 155 km (44% of the route)
- A2: 62 km (18% of the route)
- A5183: 28 km (8% of the route)
- A207: 12 km (3% of the route)
How we worked this out: we checked every 50 metres along the Roman line for a numbered road within 200 metres heading the same way (within 20 degrees). A road is listed only if it follows the route for at least 8 km in total and 3 km in one stretch. These matches are approximate, because the Roman line is often a best guess. Modern road data: Ordnance Survey Open Roads.
Modern towns near the route
These towns and cities are within about 4 km of the road, in route order.
- Canterbury (United Kingdom)
- Sittingbourne (United Kingdom)
- Gillingham (United Kingdom)
- Chatham (United Kingdom)
- Gravesend (United Kingdom)
- Dartford (United Kingdom)
- Bexley (United Kingdom)
- Eltham (United Kingdom)
- Canary Wharf (United Kingdom)
- Peckham (United Kingdom)
- Brixton (United Kingdom)
- Islington (United Kingdom)
- London (United Kingdom)
- City of Westminster (United Kingdom)
- Chelsea (United Kingdom)
- Cricklewood (United Kingdom)
- Finchley (United Kingdom)
- St Albans (United Kingdom)
- Dunstable (United Kingdom)
- Bletchley (United Kingdom)
- Milton Keynes (United Kingdom)
- Nuneaton (United Kingdom)
- Tamworth (United Kingdom)
- Cannock (United Kingdom)
- Telford (United Kingdom)
Source
Road name as recorded in the Itinerary field of Itiner-e (version 2024 1.3, doi:10.5281/zenodo.17122148). Sources most often cited by its 58 segments (segments citing each in brackets): [1] Margary 1955 (50): cited so in the data; the Itiner-e bibliography lists Margary, Ivan Donald (1973). Roman roads in Britain. Baker, London. 8 segments carry no source reference. Margary route number 1 (Dover to Wroxeter via London, St Albans and Towcester), per the Margary numbers table on Wikipedia (citing Bishop 2014, pp. 138-139).. Route lines: Itiner-e, CC BY 4.0. See all data sources and licences.
Keep exploring
Other named roads in United Kingdom
- Ermine Street (421 km)
- Fosse Way (372 km)
- Dere Street (273 km)
- Akeman Street (119 km)
- Stane Street (93.3 km)