The Roman road through Spye Park, Wiltshire, formed part of the route linking the major settlement at Verlucio (Sandy Lane) with Bath (Aquae Sulis), running across the wooded high ground west of Calne. Active throughout the Roman period from the mid-1st to the 4th century AD, it was a stretch of well-engineered minor highway, likely 5-6 metres wide with an agger and side ditches, serving both military movement and civilian traffic.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The road was a key element of the network connecting the Mendip lead-mining region and Bath to the small towns of north Wiltshire and ultimately to London via the Verlucio-Cunetio axis. Its course through Spye Park demonstrates Roman engineering across the Avon valley's clay vales and limestone ridges, and helped integrate rural villas such as those at Nuthills and Bowood into the wider economy.
The road survives as an upstanding agger in places within the woodland of Spye Park, identified through earthwork survey and aerial photography, with antiquarian observations by Colt Hoare and later confirmation in OS and Wiltshire SMR records. No modern excavation has been published, and details of construction, milestones or roadside features remain largely unrecorded.
The Roman road through Spye Park, Wiltshire, formed part of the route linking the major settlement at Verlucio (Sandy Lane) with Bath (Aquae Sulis), running across the wooded high ground west of Calne. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman road in Spye Park 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 Verlucio (0.7 km), Nuthills Roman villa (1.3 km), Round barrow 1260m NNE of Baltic Farm, 75m south of Roman Road, forming part of a barrow cemetery situated on North Down (8.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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