Summary

A 275m length of Stane Street Roman road running NNE parallel with Plattershill Copse towards Waterland Farm.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 31st October 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a length of Stane Street Roman road running 275m parallel with Plattershill Copse to within close proximity of Waterland Farm. It ascends a slope towards the NNE in, or on the edge of, Roman Woods. The major south west-north east aligned Roman road linked the regional capital of Noviomagus Regnensium (Chichester) to Londinium (London).

The road comprises a broad central agger, or raised cambered trackway flanked on each side by a ditch from which material used in its construction was excavated. The ditches have become part in-filled in places and survive as buried features.

Further archaeological remains survive within the vicinity of the monument, some are scheduled, but others are not currently protected and these are not included within the scheduling because they have not been formally assessed. Other lengths of the road are the subject of separate schedulings.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Roman roads were artificially made-up routes introduced to Britain by the Roman army from c.AD 43. They facilitated both the conquest of the province and its subsequent administration. Their main purpose was to serve the Cursus Publicus, or Imperial mail service. Express messengers could travel up to 150 miles per day on the network of Roman roads throughout Britain and Europe, changing horses at wayside 'mutationes' (posting stations set every 8 miles on major roads) and stopping overnight at 'mansiones' (rest houses located every 20-25 miles). In addition, throughout the Roman period and later, Roman roads acted as commercial routes and became foci for settlement and industry. Mausolea were sometimes built flanking roads during the Roman period while, in the Anglian and medieval periods, Roman roads often served as property boundaries. Although a number of roads fell out of use soon after the withdrawal of Rome from the province in the fifth century AD, many have continued in use down to the present day and are consequently sealed beneath modern roads. On the basis of construction technique, two main types of Roman road are distinguishable. The first has widely spaced boundary ditches and a broad elaborate agger comprising several layers of graded materials, such is the case with Stane Street Roman road. The second usually has drainage ditches and a narrow simple agger of two or three successive layers. With the exception of the extreme south-west of the country, Roman roads are widely distributed throughout England and extend into Wales and lowland Scotland. They are highly representative of the period of Roman administration and provide important evidence of Roman civil engineering skills as well as the pattern of Roman conquest and settlement. A high proportion of examples exhibiting good survival are considered to be worthy of protection.

Despite some erosion and reuse as later trackways, the 275m length of Stane Street Roman road running NNE from Plattershill Copse towards Waterland Farm survives relatively well and forms part of the most significant Roman route from the south to London. It will contain archaeological information and environmental evidence relating to the road and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
West Sussex HER 1930 - MWS3220. NMR LINEAR173. PastScape 868177.

Source: Historic England