A1-The Great North Road
Around 77 AD - 80 AD Dere Street was built running from York to the Firth of Forth in Scotland. It was often called Watling Street, for example by MacLauchlan in his "Survey of the Watling Street" in 1852 and on the early editions of the OS maps. Across what is now County Durham its route is punctuated by the need to cross rivers and their bridging points are associated with forts at Piercebridge on the Tees, Binchester on the Wear, Ebchester on the Derwent and Corbridge on the Tyne.
Dere Street entered Durham at Piercebridge, where it crossed the river Tees. For the Yorkshire section see Leeming Lane. A detailed description of the road north of Piercebridge is given by Raymond Selkirk on The Northern Archaeology Group Web Site. Suffice to say here its route lies northwards to Bishop Aukland where it crosses the River Wear at Binchester, or Vinovia, the largest Roman fort in County Durham. The first fort was built in timber around AD 80 but was replaced by a stone fort in the early second century AD. A large civilian settlement soon grew around it and the site continued to be used after the end of Roman occupation in about 410. The bath house seems to have been used as a slaughterhouse and pre-Christian burials took place in the sixth century. The site has probably the best preserved example of hypocausted baths in Britain. More from English Heritage and from Tony Rook.
North of Bishop Aukland a road branches north-eastward to meet another Roman road coming up from Northallerton to Chester-le-Street and Newcastle. Dere Street, however, continues north till just before the River Deerness where it turns north-west towards Lanchester, which it passes just to the west, and then on to the River Derwent at Ebchester, or Vindomora, just north of Consett. Dere Street is here followed by the B6309. So it continues to Corbridge where, crossing the Tyne, it enters Northumberland.
The Derwent Valley Railway Path is crossed just before reaching Ebchester.
Whellan in 1894 notes that:
Ebchester is built right upon the site of a Roman station. In this it differs from many other successors of Roman towns, which are generally situated at a little distance from the ancient sites; Lanchester, for example, which is to the south of Ebchester, and Corbridge to the north, on the same great Roman highway, or Watling Street. They are situated a few hundred yards from what were the centres of Roman civilisation sixteen hundred years ago. Ebchester, however, stands right upon the old site, and Roman ramparts, Roman altars, and Roman remains of all kinds are mingled in singular confusion with the gardens, cottages, roads, and church of to-day. After the Roman town fell into ruins, the whole neighbourhood of Ebchester appears to have become one dense forest. The beauty of the situation, however, rising rapidly from the banks of the Derwent - 'the Smiling Water' - and its retired character, seem to have attracted hermits, so that in Bishop Pudsey's time it was known as 'the place of Anchorites.'
Some folk, over a certain age, are surprised by the development of the abbreviated degeneration of the our language for the purpose text messaging. But there's nothing so new under the sun. This inscription was found on a Vindomora altar stone:
DEO MARTE ET N AVG N P F
It is thought to read: For the god Mars and the divine will of the emperor, the Company of Foot Soldiers made this, the NPF standing for Numerus Pedes Fecit. I suppose carving rock may have been even trickier than typing on a mobile.
Here is a strange tale from 18th century Ebchester.
Dere Street kept south of the Roman fort of Ebchester, crossing the River Derwent near the weir, 50 yards south of the old bridge. The base of two supposed Roman piers have been found. River crossings seem to have migrated downstream for the new bridge, carrying the B6309 is another 50 yards north. Upstream from the weir, ten acres of woodland on the steep eastern riverbank is National Trust land. On the other side, the Roman road heads west at first across the first field before turning north-west at the southern corner of the little copse. There's nothing much to see except its alignment, seen in the straight B6309 further up the hill towards Whittonstall. But we've crossed into Northumberland and that's on another page.
Lincolnshire
©Biff Vernon 2002, 2003