This site on Iping Common in West Sussex combines two distinct monuments: a stretch of Roman road (the London–Chichester route, commonly known as Stane Street's western branch or more accurately the Chichester–Silchester road) crossing the heathland, and a prehistoric bowl barrow forming part of the Fitzhall Heath round barrow cemetery. The barrows are Bronze Age (c. 2000–1500 BC) rather than Roman, while the road was constructed in the later 1st century AD and remained in use through the Roman period.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The road formed a key military and commercial artery linking Noviomagus Reginorum (Chichester) with Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), running through the sandy heaths of the western Weald; the Roman engineers' decision to route it past the existing prehistoric barrow cemetery reflects a common pattern of Roman roads respecting or appropriating earlier funerary landmarks as landscape markers.
The road survives as a well-preserved agger (raised embankment) up to 7m wide across Iping Common, identified through earthwork survey rather than significant excavation, with the bowl barrow surviving as a low circular mound nearby. No substantive Roman finds or burials are recorded from this specific stretch, and the site is protected primarily as an upstanding earthwork monument rather than from artefactual evidence.
This site on Iping Common in West Sussex combines two distinct monuments: a stretch of Roman road (the London–Chichester route, commonly known as Stane Street's western branch or more accurately the Chichester–Silchester road) crossing the heathland, and a prehistoric bowl barrow forming part of the Fitzhall Heath round barrow cemetery. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a cemetery site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman road across Iping Common and bowl barrow 180m north west of Fitzhall Lodge: part of Fitzhall Heath round barrow cemetery is classified as a Roman cemetery — 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 Iping (1.1 km), Part of a Roman road 250m south of Stubb Hill Farm (2.4 km), Mansio at Weston's Farm (4.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Roman road across Iping Common and bowl barrow 180m north west of Fitzhall Lodge: part of Fitzhall Heath round barrow cemetery