Hello again,I'm back from my holiday in Brentford,very nice it was too! To get get back to things Romano Brentford,I'd like to bounce a few ideas (and that's all they are),of off anyone interested. As I've said before my main interest is in the area between the Half Acre and Kew Bridge,particularly during Roman times. I've long held the notion that there was another Roman road ,other than the track through the British Camp alongside the Brent, going northwards to St. Albans. I suspect that the first visible sign of this other Roman road in Brentford today is the existence of North Road, (the clue is in the name),if you take a look at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/image.aspx?compid=22574&filename=fig11.gif&pubid=89 (the 1822 map is clearest) then you can see an almost straight road from the Ait area going Northwards and ending at St.Marys church in Ealing. I expect some of you have walked the section from Occupation Lane between the cemeteries,it was the straightness of this section that first caught my interest. On my recent visit, I bounced the idea of off a very elderly relative,he immediately replied " Oh you mean the Old Coaching Road", he'd been told by his Grandfather that this was the case and that there were coaching inns on the site of the Gunnersbury Tavern and the existing Rose and Crown near St. Marys' Church. In view of the straightness of this section,I'm wondering if the ground work for this road wasn't in fact done by the Romans,the area is known to have been dense woodland with oaks and other hardwoods in pre Roman times,British tracks tended to go around trees rather than through them,I guess the chances of finding a straight treeless route over such a distance are miniscule. Why would the Romans need a track on that heading? Well if you take a look at a modern Ordnance Survey map and place a straight edge along the line of the road,it almost exactly aligns with St.Albans, in fact joining Watling Street at Brockley Hill (Svlloniacae). Returning closer to Brentford,it may be that the original road re appears at Barnes Pikle in Ealing,it has the same width and heading,and then onward to what is today Longfield Avenue and and thence through Longfield Walk, the later is also very nearly the same width and direction. It's seems slightly possible that remnants may be found under Pitshager Park where it would cross the Brent,(bridge or ford?). I hope to be carrying out basic geophysical tests (ground resistance/conductivity) when the weather is "good for it",if you do them in wet conditions you get the same readings everywhere,so a lengthy dry period is required. It is possible to borrow sophisticated ground penetrating radar from N.E.R.C. but permission to use it has to be cleared with the Civil Aviation Authority but is unlikely to be granted due to the proximity of flight paths to Heathrow and Northolt sadly. Was Brentford a major supply route to St.Albans? Well I think it may have been. Taking a look at the map of the stakes in the Thames at Brentford.... http://debra.truth.posiweb.net/liabletoflooding/assets/history.pdf.....it seems to me as though the Romans may have created a harbour behind the Ait with the only access being through the channel between the islands (Hogs Gap). Further evidence being the "Palisades" along the bank, opposite todays North Road which presumably would have reinforced the banking,thus creating a loading/unloading dock for trade or reinforcements from home (Rome!). Of couse,the work done by Sir Montagu Sharpe and Caesars journals suggests that the stakes were put in place by the defending Britons,however I'm not at all sure that they had the equipment to hand to carry out such massive (at the time) engineering work. Trying to force,maybe 6 to 8 inch stakes into the bed of the Thames from the small craft they had available would have been daunting. In physics there is a well known expression that,"for every action,there's an equal and opposite reaction",so as hard as they banged downward,the boat would try to rise....hardly any effort would do anything useful. I wonder if there might have been two sets of stakes (date wise),maybe the first set more akin to 2 inch poles rammed in at an angle and pointing towards the Surrey bank,similar to the land based anti horse traps and the Romans copying the idea later to provide a safe haven? Just random thoughts...sorry about that!There you are Nigel,not only did the Romans bifurcate Brentford,I'm suggesting that they may have trifurcated it,the swines! ;0)
Tony Wood ● 6764d