Icknield Street or Ryknild Street is a Roman road in England, with a route roughly south-west to north-east. It runs from the Fosse Way at Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire () to Templeborough in South Yorkshire (). It passes through Alcester, Studley, Redditch, Metchley Fort, Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Lichfield, Burton upon Trent and Derby.

Names

Four Roman roads having the King's protection are named in the Laws of Edward the Confessor: Watling Street, Ermine Street, the Fosse Way, and Hikenild or Icknield Street. Hikenild Strete is generally supposed to be connected with the country of the Iceni. Various forms of the name (the earliest in Anglo-Saxon charters are Icenhilde Weg or Icenilde Weg) designate other roads from the borders of Norfolk through Cambridgeshire, Bucks, Berks, Hants and Wilts into Dorset. These locations, however, would identify the route as Icknield Way an Iron Age trackway running from Norfolk to Dorset.

What is today referred to as the Icknield Street road acquired the name Ryknild Street during the 14th century, when it was named by Ranulf Higden, a monk of Chester writing in 1344 in his Polychronicon. Higdon gives the name as Rikenild Strete, which, he says, tends from the south-west to the north, and begins at St David's in Wales and continues across England to the mouth of the Tyne, passing Worcester, Droitwich, Birmingham, Lichfield, Derby, and Chesterfield. It has borne that name, or Rigning, Reenald or Rignall, from early times. In three of the four MSS of Higdon the name is given as Rikenilde or Rikenyldes, and in the fourth (which is said to be one of the earliest), Hikenil Street. Trevisa's English translation (1387) calls it Rykeneldes Strete. Harverfield, writing in the Victoria County History of Warwickshire doubted whether the road had any real and original right to either name, preferring Ryknild as no less correct (or no more incorrect), and being able to distinguish it from Icknield Street in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It is now called Icknield or Ryknild Street to distinguish it from the older Icknield Way. In the 19th century it is also referred to in antiquarian literature with the spelling "Rykneld Street".

A preserved section of the Roman road can be seen at Sutton Park, now in the City of Birmingham.

Route

George William Collen's book Britannia Saxonica (1833) concisely outlines the route, drawing on Leland's Itinerary:

Today's route

thumb|upright

Much of the Midlands route of the Icknield Street is used by modern roads, most notably the A38 from Lichfield to Derby; and many sections retain the name "Icknield Street", but not always accurately as in Hockley, Birmingham and in Redditch, Worcestershire where there is also a road called Icknield Street Drive which stands near the course of the Roman road. [http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=Icknield%20Street%20Drive&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl] "Ryknild Street" is still in use in Lichfield and "Ryknild Road" in Derby.

Bourton-on-the-Water to Bidford-on-Avon

thumb|Condicote Lane, north of [[Bourton-on-the-Water.]]

The road appears to have joined the Fosse Way near Bourton-on‑the‑Water. Starting about two miles north of there, and two miles west of Stow-on-the-Wold, a lane (Condicott Lane) runs northwards in a straight line to Condicote and then Hinchwick. This lane appears to indicate the course of Icknield Street. It leads towards high ground, about on Bourton Down. It is not clear how the ascent of from Hinchwick to the Down was made, but on the Down a lane northwards from Springhill takes nearly the same line for to near the Evesham road , from which a parish boundary over Saintbury Hill seems to mark the course down the north side. On the west side of Weston Park, a line seems to be taken up lying between high ground , to the south, and Alcester, to the north. A road in this line, passing on the west of Weston-sub‑Edge, leads on to a highway with a parish boundary along it called Riknild or Icknield Street, which is crossed by the railway at Honeybourne Station. It continues northward under the name of Buckle Street to Staple Hill, one mile south of Bidford-on-Avon.

Bidford-on-Avon to Birmingham

thumb|Near [[Beoley in Worcestershire]]

From Bidford following the named Icknield Street the line of the road then follows Waterloo Road through Bidford and then across country as the B4085. At Wixford by the Three Horse Shoes Inn the modern road turns west whilst the line of the road continues north in a hollow way to Saint Milburga's church where it becomes a track running along the ridge to the east of Ragley Hall heading towards Alcester. At Alcester the original crossing point has been lost due to changes in the course of the river and the development of the town but the line is recovered north of the town on the modern A435. Passing Coughton Court the road bears the local name of Headon or Haydon Way and proceeds through Studley and to one mile beyond, where the modern road turns off to the north-eastward. It then follows the course of Walkers Heath Road over the traffic roundabout at Parsons Hill, to Broadmeadow Lane, Lifford Lane, Pershore Road and Hazelwell Street, finally disappearing into residential developments at Stirchley by the swimming baths.

Across Birmingham

thumb|[[Birmingham's Middle Ring Road.]]

The 7 miles from Stirchley in the south of Birmingham to Perry Bridge at Holford in the north is a serious problem. It has long vexed Birmingham antiquaries and is perhaps insoluble. Hutton gave the course as "onwards by Stirchley Street, crossing the Bromsgrove road at Selly Oak, leaving Harborne a mile to the west, by the observatory in Lady Wood Lane, crossing the Dudley Road at Sandpits, and along Worstone Lane, passing five furlongs north of the Navigation Bridge in Great Charles Street, Birmingham. He saw the section of the road where the inhabitants attempted to pull it up for the sake of the materials, 20 yards wide, and one yard deep, filled up with stone cemented with coarse mortar," and he says that "the course was discoverable by its barren track through uncultivated meadows." Icknield Street or Icknield Port Road are not old names and cannot be traced in the city prior to 1825 and may have been introduced as a result of Hutton's theory. and part of a network of forts across the Midlands linked by roads. It stood by Birmingham's earliest known road junction at the point where Icknield Street was met by Roman roads coming in from Droitwich and Penkridge. and resistivity surveys undertaken on sites either side of the crossing in 1992, showed that, although the line of the road is clearly indicated on old maps and aerial photographs, the site has been considerably altered this century by, among other things, the embankment of the M6. The one place where the road might have been detected proved inaccessible without considerable clearance of dense undergrowth (remnants of a hedge-line following the road?) and a 20-metre grid on adjacent open ground proved negative. The second site was on wasteland immediately south of the river. Here, the "Walker" road-line only shaved the top comer of this before disappearing under a modern industrial development (plot-holders in allotments to the south did not recall any finds during building work, nor were they able to identify any "hard" areas on their land, where the "Walker" line might be expected to continue). A series of complete and partial 20-metre grids laid down the fence line between the industrial estate and the wasteland and then right across the open area yielded nothing which could relate to the "Walker" line but did produce some low resistance features running parallel with the site's east boundary.

Birmingham to Lichfield

thumb|Knowle Lane near Knowle Farm.

Icknield Street: a section preserved in [[Sutton Park, West Midlands|Sutton Park|thumb|right]]

From Perry Bridge the road heads North, Coddrington describes the route as following a county boundary for a quarter of a mile and then a road, now the B4138, Kingstanding Road, until it enters Sutton Park close to the old Royal Oak Inn, now the Toby Carvery and Lodge. The course is preserved as it crosses the Western edge of the park, where the ridge appears very plainly, of a rounded profile, eight or nine yards wide over all, and three to four feet high in the middle. It has been described as presenting one of the best examples of a Roman road, wide with a ditch on each side. It has little claim to be so considered, and the ditches where they occur appear to be connected with modern drainage. at the point where Ashcroft Lane crosses the A5. There is then a considerable change of direction to the north-east, and a straight course for nine miles to near Barton-under-Needwood. William Stukeley wrote that "part of Rigning Way north from Wall was very fair with a high straight bank" and that "upon the hill south of Littleover, Rigning is under the eye as far as Etocetum, and the hills beyond it." At Littleover the road turns to the east

thumb|left| The section of Rykneld Street and the remains of Bronze Age cemetery at Littleover are lawned over and are an island in a development of new houses.

The course appears to have been on the west side of Derby Swan doubts that Ryknild Street went to Strutts Park, which was replaced around 80 AD by the fort at Chester Green on the other side of the River Derwent, the construction of Ryknild Street being contemporary with that of the later fort. Stukeley traced the track of the wall at Chester Green all round enclosing an area, according to his plan, 120 paces from east to west, and 100 paces from north to south, the foundation of the bridge he said could be felt with a staff. and Bishop Bennet in 1817 said that the piers of the bridge could be felt in a dry summer. It is certain that a road left Derventio to the east which led to Sawley on the River Trent, Icknield Street branching from this to the North East. The course is well marked beyond Breadsall, one and a half miles from Little Chester, but the intervening length has not yet been ascertained, however, there is a Ryknield Hill in Denby, which may be part of the route.

See also

  • Roman Britain
  • Roman roads in Britain

References

  • Birmingham Roman Roads Project (Hosted by the University of Birmingham)
  • Metchley Fort, Birmingham
  • Derby City Council list of Scheduled Ancient Monuments
  • Full text of Roman Roads in Britain, Thomas Codrington