Roman Roads in Britain - Table of Roman Roads By Saxon Name

Table of Roman Roads By Saxon Name

Unlike their counterparts in Italy and some of the Roman provinces, the original names of Roman roads in Britain are not known due to a lack of written and inscribed evidence. Instead, there are a number of names ascribed to them by the Anglo-Saxons during the post-Roman era (the "Dark Ages"). The English classification of a particular road does not correspond to the likely original Roman name e.g. the Anglo-Saxons gave the name Watling Street to the entire route from Dover to Wroxeter, via London. But the Romans may well have regarded the first section - Dover to London - as a separate road with a different name from the second section - London to Wroxeter.

The only Anglo-Saxon name which may echo an original Roman name is the Fosse Way - Exeter to Lincoln. Even then it is likely to derive from a popular, rather than official, Roman name for the road. "Fosse" may derive from the Latin fossa, meaning "ditch". But, officially, a road would normally be named after the Emperor in whose reign it was completed, e.g. the Via Traiana from Rome to Brindisi in southern Italy, named after the Emperor Trajan (r.98-117 AD). Thus the Dover to London section of Watling Street may have been known to the Romano-Britons as the Via Claudia after the Emperor Claudius (r.41-54 AD), who was responsible for the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD.

• A.^ Sections of modern road that lie directly above the Roman road. Such stretches are marked "ROMAN ROAD" on Ordnance Survey Maps.
• B.^ Not to be confused with Icknield Way, a pre-Roman trackway from Buckinghamshire to Norfolk. Although the known road ends at Templeborough, it almost certainly continued to Doncaster (Danum) to join a branch of Ermine Street to York.
• C.^ This is not a Saxon name, but a Latin one invented by 18th century antiquarians to define a putative route. It amounts to just a series of cross routes to reach Watling Street from Colchester.