Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for ICKNIELD-STREET

ICKNIELD-STREET, an ancient Roman road from the E to the SW of England. It took its name from the British Iceni, who inhabited the region now forming Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Hunts; and it was, to some extent, originally British. It began at Caistor-St. Edmunds, the Venta Icenorum of the Romans, their principal station in the region of the Iceni; it went south-westward, past Taesburgh, Icklingham, Exning, Ickleton, and Royston; was crossed, at Royston, by Ermine-street; proceeded to Baldock and Dunstable; was crossed, at the latter, by Watling street; went on to Tring, Wendover, Watlington, and Streetly on the Thames; was joined, at Streetly, by the Ridgeway or Ickleton street, which went along the hills to Abury; proceeded to Speer, Walbury, Salisbury, and Badbury-Rings; is known there as Achling ditch; branched into one line, called the Icening way, from Wimborne-Minster to Poole, and into another called Ridge way, going to Weymouth; also sent off lines of its own name and of other names, westward so far as Birmingham; and is supposed to have likewise been prolonged, both from Ickleton street and from the Weymouth Ridge way, south-westward, through Devon and Cornwall, to Land's End.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "an ancient Roman road"   (ADL Feature Type: "roadways")
Administrative units: Cambridgeshire AncC       Norfolk AncC       Suffolk AncC       England Dep

Pages for linked administrative units may contain historical statistics and information on boundaries.