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Updated: June 14, 2025
We now leave Handsworth on the left, following the stream through Hockley great pool; cross the Wolverhampton road, and the Ikenield-street at the same time down to Aston furnace, with that parish on the left. At the bottom of Walmer-lane we leave the water, move over the fields, nearly in a line to the post by the Peacock upon Gosty-green.
What could be the meaning that the Romans erected their station on the declivity of this hill, when the summit, two hundred yards distant, is much more eligible; are there no foundations upon it? "None." The commandry is preferable: the Watling-street runs by it, and it is nearer the Ikenield-street. Pray, are you acquainted with another Roman road which crosses it? "No."
About five furlongs North of the Navigation Bridge, in Great Charles street, which is the boundary of the present buildings, runs the Ikenield-street; one of those famous pretorian roads which mark the Romans with conquest, and the Britons with slavery.
Two of these four, the Watling-street, and the Ikenield-street, are thought, by their names, to be British, and with some reason; neither of the words are derived from the Latin: but whatever were their origin, they are certainly of Roman construction.
Though we are certain the Ikenield-street passes about a mile in length through this parish, as described above; yet, as there are no Roman traces to be seen, I must take the curious traveller to that vast waste, called Sutton-Coldfield, about four miles distant, where he will, in the same road, find the footsteps of those great mailers of the world, marked in lasting characters.
The Lord Clinton and his Lady seem to have occupied the Manor-house; and Sir Thomas, unwilling to quit the place of his affections and of his nativity, erected a castle for himself at Worstone, near the Sand-pits, joining the Ikenield-street; street; where, though the building is totally gone, the vestiges of its liquid security are yet complete.
In Mitchly-park, three miles west of Birmingham, in the parish of Edgbaston, is The Camp; which might be ascribed to the Romans, lying within two or three stones cast of their Ikenield-street, where it divides the counties of Warwick and Worcester, but is too extensive for that people, being about thirty acres: I know none of their camps more than four, some much less; it must, therefore, have been the work of those pilfering vermin the Danes, better acquainted with other peoples property than their own; who first swarmed on the shores, then over-ran the interior parts of the kingdom, and, in two hundred years, devoured the whole.
We should expect a fort in the angle, commanding both, which is not the case. The Watling-street is lost for about half a mile, leading over a morass, only the line is faintly preserved, by a blind path over the inclosures: the Ikenield-street crosses it in this morass, not the least traces of which remain. But, by a strict attention, I could point out their junction to a few yards.
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