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Articles
A5 Watling Street
Before the Roman invasion, the routeways of Britain were dirt tracks. In the course of their military occupation, the Romans constructed many thousands of miles of roads to move troops quickly over large distances and to connect the new towns they were building across the country. They needed to move goods, both supplies for the ever advancing troops and also industrial products, back to the ports for export. The roads were postal routes, used by couriers on the official business of Imperial Rome and later grew in importance as trading routes.
The Watling Street was one of the most important highways in Britain, running from the Channel port of Richborough in Kent, through London and St. Albans to the intersection with the Fosse Way, 13 miles SW of Leicester. It then continued in a westerly direction to Wroxeter near Shrewsbury. This street crossed the Ryknild Street near Wall which developed as a place where travellers were able to change horses and obtain lodgings.
Many major trunk routes still follow the exact line laid down by the Roman engineers and in Hammerwich, as along almost the entire length of the A5 from London to Shrewsbury, the A5 follows the line of the ancient Watling Street. All Roman roads consist of a series of straight sections and if necessary turn at an angle rather than follow a large bend. A detailed land survey must have first been undertaken by surveyors who knew their local geography. With no magnetic compasses to help them, the sun and moon were probably used to establish a bearing over the required route. They were straight for simplicity and convenience for the engineers. They were laid out in this manner using sighting landmarks although if necessary they did deviate around natural obstacles.
From Muckley Corner, the road diverts little from a dead straight line westwards until the point is reached where the A5 now joins the A452 outside Brownhills. It then turns to the WNW - probably the best place from the point of view of visibility to make a necessary turn.
The Saxons built their settlements on sites away from the Roman roads, probably for security reasons. The fact that the Watling Street marked the whole of the former southern Parish boundary until 1980 supports this fact as these boundaries would not have gone through the centre of the small settlements. Also, with their raised central ridge and ditches the old roads would have been a major feature in the landscape and so useful in marking out territory.
Law books of the twelfth century list the Watling Street as being a royal road, a 'via regia', which indicates its continued importance These had to be wide enough for two wagons to pass. In Medieval times, many local roads appeared to link the growing villages and towns but by the late sixteenth century it was the Watling Street that was still the primary route hereabouts. As trade and consequently traffic increased, the roads became in poor condition, especially in wet weather.
The Highways Act of 1555 required each Parish to repair its roads and parishioners were required to spend 4-6 days/year working on them. In 1621, Parliament tried to control the maximum weight of carts and coaches and the number of horses and they tried to ban the use of narrow wheels in an attempt to protect the road surfaces. Before the canal and railway eras, the Watling Street would have been used to carry all manner of goods from coal to foodstuffs. It was also a drove road for cattle and sheep linking the market at Northampton with Central Wales. (Another route known as the Welsh Road, left the Watling Street at Brownhills and went via Sutton Coldfield towards Buckingham.) One can imagine the state of the road surface.
The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions generated even more traffic and it became increasingly difficult for parishes to maintain their major routes. In the eighteenth century, several Turnpike Acts empowered commissioners to, amongst other things, collect tolls and undertake road repairs. The A5 from Muckley Corner to the A452 was not turnpiked until 1789, which was quite late due to its distance from London and possibly due to the fact it traversed sandstone and so was better drained than those routes which had been built over clay soils.
The Act of Union with Ireland in 1801 led to a need for a more efficient means of communication with that country. In 1810, Parliament appointed the first of eight select committees to report on the state of the whole of the London to Holyhead Road. Parliament voted £20,000 for improvements in 1815 and Thomas Telford was appointed engineer. His roads were based on firm, hand-set stone foundations overlain with smaller stones - a method similar to that used by the Romans over a thousand years before.
The building of the railways saw toll revenues rapidly reduce as stage coaches disappeared and goods traffic abandoned the roads. As the turnpike system was dismantled, reverting to the parish system of maintenance was not an option, especially on heavily used routes such as the London to Holyhead Road. In the late nineteenth century, these roads became 'main roads' and the burden of upkeep of the A5 passed to the newly created County Council.
By 1910, the application of tarmac was well underway (named after J.L.Macadam (1756-1836) who worked to improve many road surfaces by rolling broken stone to form a smooth, hard surface.) The motor car was giving the roads a new lease of life. In 1936 the A5(T) came into being with the Trunk Roads Act which was designed to provide a national system of routes for through traffic with Central Government having direct responsibility for them.
The A5 now runs from just NW of St. Albans to Holyhead and remains the principal route to North Wales and Ireland.
Over the centuries the growth of population, industry and trade have led to a constant demand for better roads. But once any improvement was made, it started to generate its own traffic - so as the turnpikes were repaired, more people used them. The M6 Toll was designed to relieve congestion on the M6. How long will it be before it needs widening? The idea of those who use the roads having to pay for them is nothing new either.
How little things change.
Wendy Taylor (April 2003)
