Colin's history and archaeology blog

 The name Via Devana was coined by the 18th century Cambridge antiquarian Dr Charles Mason and was said to be a route which connected Roman Colchester (Camulodunum) to Roman Chester (Deva) [1] . Ivan Margary [2] described the route from Godmanchester (Durovigutum) to Colchester as 'Via Devana' and numbered it road 24. Early Ordnance Survey (O.S.) maps show what was the Cambridge Road, then the A1198 and now largely the A1307/A14 Godmanchester to Cambridge road as 'Via Devana'. The route follows a track known as 'Worsted' or 'Wool Street' which runs south from Cambridge as green lanes and tracks. At Worsted Lodge on the modern A11 it crossed a Romanised section of the ancient 'Icknield Way'.  In 1959 a 10.5-mile (16.8km) length of gas main was laid along Worsted Street, the work being monitored by the archaeologist P.C. Dewhurst [3] . The trenching machine used produced a clean 3' (0.91m) deep trench, which allowed observation of the Roman ro...

  Launders Lane update  Although I have only seen small excerpts of it, there is a rather marvellous late C16th, or early C17th map in Derbyshire Record Office (DRO) titled 'Procession Way Plan of the Seale Estate' [1] . It purports to show the extent of the Gresley family's estate called 'Seale', consisting largely of the parishes of Overseal and Netherseal, in what was then part of Leicestershire. The Procession Way is shown surrounding the estate and may have been periodically 'beaten' to ensure that its boundaries remained well-defined. Dr Mark Knight of Overseal (pers. comm.), suggests that the Park Road, Linton Heath, Colliery Lane alignment [2] , as well as marking part of the county boundary with Derbyshire, might also be a relic of the Procession Way.   The villages within and nearby the estate are drawn with surrounding hedges or fences and have gates with lanes leading out into the fields. An area of woodland is also shown surrounded by a hedge or...

 The Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire) Bullock Road runs for c.18km from the Elton to Alwalton road west of Peterborough, mainly along high land between 50-60m, south to Upton near Alconbury. From here it may have joined Ermine Street to Huntingdon and probably on to St Ives, which had held a Bullock market in Front Street until 1886, or continued further south. [1]    The present road is a mainly tarmacked, sometimes single-track road. It may have remained as an entirely green lane until the 20th century, with some sections towards the south remaining so. These are subject to Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO), where gates or barriers may be locked shut, for vehicles of more than two wheels during the winter. Locked TRO gate on the Bullock Road at Great Gidding. (Photo: Google Earth).  Originally the road may have continued north of the Elton Road to reach Wansford. Perhaps it followed the Great North Road, which diverged from the Roman Ermine Street at Water...

 During the Second World War, the skies above Cambridgeshire and much of the east of England were filled with the sounds of aircraft, both Allied and Axis. A find from a recent Cambridge Archaeology Field Group fieldwalking exercise at Orwell, brought back to light one local incident from those dark times.  The group had been walking fields at Rectory Farm Orwell with the permission of the National Trust. There were generally few finds from these fields, however, we did find the remains of a 20mm cannon shell casing. Stamped on the end cap was 1942, the year of manufacture and K2, which indicates that it was a type produced by Kynoch at Standish, Greater Manchester, part of ICI. [1]  20mm cannons formed part of the armaments of several WWII aircraft, including versions of the Spitfire, Hurricane and pertinent to this article, the De Havilland Mosquito. The 20mm cannon shell casing from Orwell. (Photos: T Dymott)  Mosquitos were wooden-framed, multi-role twin-engine a...

 In this fourth part of the series, I will discuss some of the roads and lanes around the core of the village, which have been lost or changed.  Back Lane (didn't most towns and villages have one), is the most straightforward one to find. It is clearly marked in this map extract of 1945 below [1] . The Coates' were living at Back Lane in 1939 and probably continuously up to 1947 and the death of grandfather William.  From near the northwest end of Main Street, it ran in a southwesterly direction, up and over the high point in the village, then back down before turning slightly westwards, to a junction with High Street. It was later topologically appropriately renamed The Crest, when the Princess Avenue development was built. O.S. 25" to 1 mile, published 1945, Derbyshire sheet LX.13  Looking at the 1821/22 'Hartshorn' map, some of the lanes around Linton appear to have been drawn a little irregularly, particularly those leading to Cauldwell and Botany Bay [2] . How...