This site preserves a surviving length of Roman road on Sovell Down, on the chalk downland of Cranborne Chase in north Dorset. It formed part of the road network linking Badbury Rings (Vindocladia) with Old Sarum (Sorviodunum), active from the later first century AD through the Roman period, and survives as an earthwork agger crossing the down.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The road was a key arterial route across Cranborne Chase, connecting the important nodal fort and settlement at Badbury Rings with the regional centre at Old Sarum, and threading through the densely settled Romano-British landscape of small farms, field systems and ritual sites characteristic of the Chase.
The road survives as a visible agger, typically 7–9 m wide with traces of flanking ditches, recorded by RCHME and Royal Commission survey but not subject to modern excavation here; flint and chalk metalling has been observed where the agger is sectioned by tracks, consistent with construction methods seen on comparable lengths of the same road at Oakley Down and Bottlebush Down nearby.
This site preserves a surviving length of Roman road on Sovell Down, on the chalk downland of Cranborne Chase in north Dorset. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Length of Roman road on Sovell Down is classified as a Roman site — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Lengths of Roman road in Norwood Coppice and in The Rookery (1.4 km), Hemsworth (4.1 km), Roman buildings N of Witchampton Mill (4.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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