A1-The Great North Road
From the Colsterworth roundabout the A1 turns from due north to north-west to head for Grantham. The Roman Ermine Street, here known as High Dyke, maintains it's northerly line for another four miles and then turns slightly to the north-east. It passes a couple of miles east of Grantham and maintains a straight course across the flattish upland of the Jurassic Limestone of Lincoln Edge. Where the Great Northern Railway crossed Ermine Street the name High Dyke was given to the signal box by the junction with the now disused ironstone railway to Woolsthorpe and Stainby. According to Varah part of Ermine Street hereabout is called The Ramper, or, according to Addison, The London Ramper a name probably derived from rampart.
Oldershaw Brewery is at Harrowby, just east of Grantham close the Ermine Street. It is a micro brewery, producing 16 barrels of real ale per week, with names such as High Dyke and Ermine Ale. The Roman line is here followed by the B6403 and, for about half a mile, by the A52 as well. Here is a spot called Cold Harbour, a name often associated with Roman roads. It lies at the junction of Ermine Street and the Salters' Way.
Just passed Barkston Heath airfield the road is joined by another Roman road from Bourne to the south-east. High Dyke becomes much lower as it descends into the Ancaster gap, the one time course of the River Witham and perhaps even a proto-Trent, but now an all but dry valley, the source of the River Slea in years when the water table in the limestone hills is high enough to feed the springs. There were Bronze and Iron-Age settlements here, overlooked by Honington Camp, an Iron-Age fort, rare in Lincolnshire, on Barkstone Heath. But for the Romans this was the junction of ancient trackways and so of strategic importance on Ermine Street. The establishment of a military base by the 9th Hispanic Legion in the early years of the conquest was the start of a Roman town at Ancaster which lasted throughout the occupation.
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Honington Fort is best approached from the A153. Stop at the turning to Honington village and walk up the hill following the track marked as a public footpath. There are no brown tourist signs or explanatory notice boards to indicate you are approaching Lincolnshire's most significant pre-Roman Ancient Monument. And, perhaps consequently, you are unlikely to meet another visitor. |
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Honington Camp The fort comprises a flat area, strangely asymmetrical but not far off an oval or rectangle, about 100 yards in length and 60 yards across. It is surrounded by a bank, a deep ditch, a second, large bank, another ditch and a third, smaller, bank. Perched atop the limestone escarpment, there are wide views to the fens and sea in the east and across the Trent valley in the west. Ermine street runs a mile off and its position far to the north-west where it forded the Trent at Littleborough is marked by the cooling towers of Cottam power station on the distant horizon. While the ancient Britons knew nothing of electricity generation they may have had the road. It is likely that Ermine Street follows the course of an earlier trackway. 1691 an urn, filled with Roman coins, was unearthed at the site. Subsequently, many other artifacts have been uncovered, including spears, bridle-bits and swords. Now the embankments protect a beautiful limestone meadow from agricultural encroachment. |
| Mesolithic worked flints have been found hereabouts and the
Bronze Age is represented by many flints and broken cinerary urns.
Best of all is the fabulous gold necklace, known as the Sudbrook Torc, the
only such item from the late Bronze-Age found in Britain.
There was a significant Iron-Age settlement here and some coins were found. We are only eight miles from the coin mints of Sleaford. Here is a web version of the book Ancaster - A Roman Town by Jenny Stevens and Henny Shotter. Oh and with Channel 4's Time Team about to put Ancaster on the map we'd better look at Guy de la Bédoyère's website. |
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According to the advert for Guy de la Bédoyère's lecture on the Time team dig:
"Ermine Street, the great Roman north road cuts right through Lincolnshire just to the east of Grantham. Along this road all the commercial and military traffic of the Roman province of Britannia passed on its way from London to Lincoln and the armies of the frontier in the far north. Just like today’s motorway service stations, the Roman roads were dotted with towns and hamlets that made their living from the trunk-road traffic of the ancient world.
"Ancaster was one such place and along with inns, hostelries and food, it also offered the Roman traveller spiritual sustenance in the form of Mother Goddesses, Minerva, and a local god called Viridios. Passers-by and travellers made their offerings here, commemorated in stone carvings from the town - part of an ancient industry in religious carvings from Ancaster stone that were shipped around Roman Britain."
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This sculpture, about 18 inches long, was dug up by gravediggers in the churchyard at Ancaster in 1831. It was found upright, standing on a massive stone slab six feet long. It may have been in its original position forming a shrine to the Romano-Celtic triple Earth-Mother Goddess. The three women, appear to be pregnant and are holding various foodstuffs. The sculpture is now kept at Grantham Museum. |
Ancaster is the source of Ancaster stone, a mid-Jurassic oolitic limestone, worked by the Romans and used for many great buildings such as Lincoln Cathedral. The stone was transported considerable distances, such as the 35 miles to Nottingham to build Wollaton Hall in about 1580, in the panniers of packhorses.
Camden describes the area thus:
This river Witham presently beneath his head hath a towne seated hard by it named Paunton, which standeth much upon the antiquity thereof, where are digged up oftentimes pavements of the Romans wrought with checker worke, and heere had the river a bridge over it in old time. For that this is the towne Ad Pontem which Antonine the Emperour placed seven miles distant from Margidunum, the name Paunton, together with the distance not onely from Margidunum but also from Crococalana doth easily convince: for in Antonine that towne was called Crococalana, which at this day is called Ancaster, and is no more but a long street, through which the High-way passeth, whereof the one part not long since belonged to the Vescies, the other to the Cromwells. At the entrie into it on the South part, we saw a rampier with a ditch, and certaine it is that aforetime it had been a Castle, like as on the other side Westward is to bee seene a certaine summer standing campe of the Romans. And it may seeme that it tooke a British name from the situation thereof. For it lieth under an hill, and Cruc-maur in British signifieth A Great hil, like as Cruc-occhidient, A mount in the West, as we read in Giraldus Cambrensis and Ninnius. But what should be the meaning of that Calana, let others looke. The memory of antiquity in this towne is continued and maintained by the Romane Coines, by the vaults under ground often times discovered, by the site upon the High-street, and by those fourteene miles that are between it and Lincolne through a greene plaine, which we call Ancaster-Heath, for just so many doth Antonine reckon between Croco-calana and Lindum. But now returne we to the river.
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There is a lovely nature reserve at Ancaster
Valley. Walk a hundred yards from the traffic lights in a
Sleaford direction (east) and find a footpath on the right. This
leads to a steep-sided dry valley, possibly cut as a subglacial meltwater
channel, but now managed as calcareous grassland with a rich assemblage of
flowering plants. It may be one of Lincolnshire's last refuges,
along with Honington Camp, of the Pasque
flower or Easter anemone (Pulsatilla vulgaris). It is also
found at Barnack Hills
and Holes, 25 miles to the south. Check out its
Biodiversity Action
Plan
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And then to the pub - The Ermine Street |
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It is said that an old witch, named Meg, lived in the area, causing much fear amongst the local people of Ancaster. One day they contacted a Knight, and hired him to seek out the witch and kill her. Upon finding the old woman, the knight attempted to carry out his duty, but she dug her long nails into Byard, the knights faithful old horse. This so frightened and pained the horse that he leapt away from the witch, and amazed everyone by leaping 500 feet in only three strides.
Sadly after this feat, Byard collapsed and died, whereupon the knight drew his sword and killed the witch. The people of Ancaster were so grateful that they marked the spot of Byard's leap with two sets of horseshoes - which can still be seen today.
There's a motor museum with a fine collection of bubble cars and suchlike small vehicles at Byard's Leap.
Here's a fuller account of Byard's Leap.
Temple Bruer
North of Byard's Leap Ermine Street is no longer used by the modern roads. It continues instead as a broad grass path, used over the ages as a droving road but now frequented more by walkers and the occasional farm vehicle, it makes a valuable nature reserve.
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Bastard toadflax (Thesium humifusum) is a very rare and apparently insignificant little weed, found on the grass verges of High Dyke north of Ancaster, where it enjoys the calcareous soils on the Jurassic limestone, untroubled by fertilizer or herbicide. It does, however, have its own Biodiversity Action Plan, so that's all right. Thanks to BioImages - Virtual Field-Guide (UK) who supplied these pictures. |  |
©Biff Vernon 2002, 2007
