This is a surviving stretch of the Roman road running between Sorviodunum (Old Sarum) and Vindocladia (Badbury Rings), preserved as a prominent agger along the southern edge of Vernditch Chase on the Wiltshire–Dorset border. The road was likely laid out in the later 1st century AD as part of the road network linking Salisbury Plain to the route system around Dorchester (Durnovaria) and the south-west, and remained in use throughout the Roman period.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The route formed part of the strategic and economic spine connecting Old Sarum — a major nodal town at the junction of several Roman roads — with the Badbury complex and onward to Hamworthy/Poole Harbour, supporting both military movement in the early conquest period and later civilian trade across the chalk downland. Its preservation through Vernditch Chase, where it has never been ploughed out, makes it one of the better-surviving sections of this route.
The road survives here as a clear earthwork agger, generally around 6–7 m wide with flanking ditches, and has been mapped through field survey and LiDAR rather than significant excavation. No substantive published excavation exists for this specific stretch, and finds are limited to surface observation; its alignment and form, however, are well established within the wider studies of the Old Sarum–Badbury road by Margary (Margary route 4c) and subsequent fieldworkers.
This is a surviving stretch of the Roman road running between Sorviodunum (Old Sarum) and Vindocladia (Badbury Rings), preserved as a prominent agger along the southern edge of Vernditch Chase on the Wiltshire–Dorset border. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman road along the south side of Vernditch Chase: part of the Roman road between Sorviodunum (Old Sarum) and Vindocladia (Badbury) 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 Bronze Age and Romano-British enclosure on Martin Down, east of Bokerley Junction (0.7 km), Roman road north east of Vernditch Chase: part of the Roman road between Sorviodunum (Old Sarum) and Vindocladia (Badbury) (1.6 km), Two linear earthworks, two barrows and Iron Age and Romano-British settlements on Tidpit Common Down (3.8 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 along the south side of Vernditch Chase: part of the Roman road between Sorviodunum (Old Sarum) and Vindocladia (Badbury)