Watling Street is a historic route in England, running from Dover and London in the southeast, via St Albans to Wroxeter. The road crosses the River Thames at London and was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main Roman roads in Britannia (Roman-governed Great Britain during the Roman Empire). The line of the road was later the southwestern border of the Danelaw with Wessex and Mercia, and Watling Street was numbered as one of the major highways of medieval England.

First used by the ancient Britons, mainly between the areas of modern Canterbury and using a natural ford near Westminster, the road was later paved by the Romans. It connected the ports of Dubris (Dover), Rutupiae (Richborough Castle), Lemanis (Lympne), and Regulbium (Reculver) in Kent to the Roman bridge over the Thames at Londinium (London). The route continued northwest through Verulamium (St Albans) on its way to Viroconium Cornoviorum (Wroxeter). Watling Street is traditionally cited as having been the location of the Romans' defeat of Boudica, though precisely where on the route is disputed.

The Roman Antonine Itinerary lists sites along the route of Watling Street as part of a longer route of 500 Roman miles connecting Richborough with Hadrian's Wall via Wroxeter. The continuation on to Blatobulgium (Birrens, Dumfriesshire) beyond Hadrian's Wall in modern Scotland may have been part of the same route, leading some scholars to call this Watling Street as well, although others restrict it to the southern leg.

In the early 18th century, England's first turnpike trust was established to pave the route through Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. In the early 19th century, the course between London and the Channel was paved and became known as the Great Dover Road.

The route from London to Wroxeter forms much of the A5 road. The route from Dover to London forms part of the A2 road. At various points along the historic route, the name Watling Street remains in modern use.

Name

The original Celtic and Roman name for the road is unknown, and the Romans may not have viewed it as a single path at all, since parts of it were assigned to two separate itineraries in one 2nd-century list. The modern name instead derives from the Old English ', from a time when "street" referred to any paved road and had no particular association with urban thoroughfares. The ("people of ") were a tribe in the St Albans area in the early medieval period. The Anglo-Saxon name of St Albans was referred to in a charter of 1005; this would translate into modern English as "Watlingchester".

The original Anglo-Saxon name for the section of the route between Canterbury and London was ' or Key Street, a name still borne by a hamlet on the road near Sittingbourne. This section only later became considered part of Watling Street.

Used as a boundary

Watling Street has been used as a boundary of many historic administrative units, and some of these are still in existence today, either through continuity or the adoption of these as by successor areas.

Examples include:

  • Watling Street was used as a boundary in the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum and it is often inferred that this made the road the southwestern boundary of the Danelaw.
  • It is the boundary of Leicestershire and Warwickshire, this may be a legacy of the treaty described above.
  • Watling Street forms part of the boundary of four London Boroughs (Harrow, Brent, Camden and Barnet) and is sometimes described as the boundary of West and North London.

History

British

thumb|right|Watling Street near [[Crick, Northamptonshire|Crick in Northamptonshire]]

The broad, grassy trackway found by the Romans had already been used by the Britons for centuries. The main path led from Richborough on the English Channel to a natural ford in the Thames at Thorney Island, Westminster, to a site near Wroxeter, where it split. The western continuation went on to Holyhead while the northern ran to Chester and on to the Picts in Scotland.

Westminster ford

There is a longstanding tradition that a natural ford once crossed the Thames between Thorney Island (present-day Westminster) and the Lambeth/Wandsworth boundary. Its location means that it is possible that Watling Street crossed it.

Several factors may have slowed the river here, leading to the depositing of enough sediments to create a usable ford:

  • The bend in the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge.
  • The two arms of the River Effra joining in that vicinity, depositing their own load, with the cross-flow causing the Thames to eddy and slow.
  • Similarly the southern arm of the Tyburn, once joined the Thames at this point, on the northern bank.
  • These factors mean the area is likely to have been the tidal head for some of the historic period.

Roman

thumb|The eastern end of the road at [[Richborough Castle, one of the Romans' Kentish ports and a Saxon Shore fort (visible at left)]]

The Romans began constructing paved roads shortly after their invasion in AD 43. The London portion of Watling Street was rediscovered during Christopher Wren's rebuilding of St Mary-le-Bow in 1671–73, following the Great Fire. Modern excavations date its construction to the winter from AD 47 to 48. Around London, it was wide and paved with gravel. It was repeatedly redone, including at least twice before the sack of London by Boudica's troops in 60 or 61. The road ran straight from the bridgehead on the Thames