This is a surviving section of the Roman road running across Cranborne Chase in north Dorset, near Ashmore on the chalk downland close to the Wiltshire border. The road forms part of the route linking Badbury Rings (Vindocladia) with Old Sarum (Sorviodunum), in use from the mid-1st century AD through the later Roman period, and visible here as a substantial agger crossing open downland.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The Badbury–Old Sarum road was a major military and administrative artery connecting the hillfort-derived Roman centre at Badbury with the network around Sorviodunum, facilitating movement across one of the most heavily Romanised rural landscapes in southern Britain, dotted with villas and settlements on Cranborne Chase. Ashmore lies on the high ground where the road is best preserved, and the route remained influential as a parish and estate boundary into the medieval period.
The road here survives largely as an earthwork agger rather than as an excavated feature, recorded through field survey and aerial photography by the RCHME and later the OS; no significant modern excavation of this particular stretch is published. Typical construction on this geology consists of a flint and chalk metalled surface on a cambered bank with flanking side ditches.
This is a surviving section of the Roman road running across Cranborne Chase in north Dorset, near Ashmore on the chalk downland close to the Wiltshire border. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Section of Roman road, 380m north east of Ashmore Farm 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 Linear boundary and section of Roman road, 550m south east of Ashmore Farm (0.5 km), A complex of Iron Age and Romano-British settlement on Berwick Down centred 700m south east of Ashcombe Farm (2.8 km), Iron Age and Romano-British settlement remains on Rotherley Down (3.5 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 Section of Roman road, 380m north east of Ashmore Farm