The Romans never set out to create an empire but they did, from Britain in the north, to Algeria in the south, Spain to Israel, the Nile to the Rhine. Rome built its empire from the ground up, connecting people and places in a way that had never been seen before. One of the Roman Empire’s greatest legacies was its roads. But what difference did Roman roads make to the conquered lands they built them in? Here we explore the impact Roman roads had on the Roman Empire, in Britain, and their legacy today. The impact to the empire broke up its milestones to mend new paths. Year after year the heavy clay swallowed whole lengths of Peddars Way was built in around AD61. The road stretched 46 miles from Knettishall Heath, near Thetford, to Holme.

changing the landscape, etching the story of the Roman advance into the face of the land, channelling mineral wealth, land and tribute, they left behind a vast road network, linking marching camps and forts, Almost everyone in Britain lives close to a Roman road, if only we knew where to look. In the beginning was Watling Street, the first road scored on the land when the invading Romans arrived on a cold and alien Kentish shore in 43 CE.For two thousand years, the roads the Romans built have determined the flow of ideas and folktales, In this new connected world, the demands of the Roman state, including over a million consumers in Rome itself, could be met by producers many hundreds of kilometres away. This transformed the countryside.

In this magnificent book. . . Hadley takes us down a different way, looking through a gentler window on that road's long lost days. He reveals The Road's own intimate knowledge of the land it knew and the folk it's known, turning the tables on what we think we're reading; because The Road is not really about it, it's about us” - Mythical Britain, Michael Smith author of King Arthur's DeathIn our Book of the Month for January 2023 – T he Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past – Christopher Hadley takes us on a lyrical journey searching for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest road hubs in Roman Britain. While time and nature have erased many clues, Hadley gathers traces of archaeology, history and landscape in a mesmerising journey into 2,000 years of history only now giving up its secrets. Impossible to summarise and delightfully absorbing, Hadley’s book is comfortably the most unexpected history book of the year’ - Dominic Sandbrook in TheSunday TimesBooks of the Year Impossible to summarise and delightfully absorbing, Hadley's book is comfortably the most unexpected history book of the year' Sunday Times

For 2,000 years, the roads the Romans built have determined the flow of ideas and folktales, where battles were fought and where pilgrims trod. Almost everyone in Britain lives close to a Roman road if they knew where to look. Ermine Street has now been weathered by time, turmoil and redevelopment, yet portions can still be traced today. Another example is Fosse Way, which once connected Roman Exeter with Lincoln and now follows portions of the A46, A37 and A30. Christopher’s detective story is both an exploration of the skill of the master engineers who built Watling Street and those who have added their own footprint to its path through the ages. Christopher Hadley lives in Furneux Pelham with wife Rebecca, a GP partner at Bishop’s Stortford’s South Street Surgery, and their three children

The golden milestone

Establishing supply lines from the harbours to the marching camps and forts, a network gradually took shape from individual roads built for a specific military purpose – both a symbol and a concrete expression of Roman imperial might." This meditation on the power of folk myth lives up to its billing as an ‘unusual history’. It’s also engaging, wide-ranging stuff, exploring how stories become ties that bind’ BBC History Magazine