"The Romans made a complete system of permanent inland roads to connect the
Continent with the military posts, London, York, Colchester, Chester,
Uriconium, Gloucester, Winchester, Silchester, Porchester and Brading, and
chief {9}trading towns with each other. At commanding points along or near
these roads the Romans constructed camps, and so placed their legions as to
protect the centres of metallurgical industry and the roads leading to
them.... The Romans did not originate the sites of many new seaport towns
or towns on large, navigable rivers, and, when they did so, as in the case
of London, Richborough, Uriconium, Rochester, Canterbury, it was for
strategical reasons, or indirectly connected with the traffic in minerals,
the great industry of Britain during the Roman occupation as it was before
it.... Silchester ... was forty-five miles from London, and was on high
ground away from river or forests, and not far from the junction of a
number of land-routes. It was on dry ground on which waggons could travel.
It was convenient for roads giving access to Cornwall for tin; to the
Mendips for lead, copper or brass; Gloucester and South Wales for iron; and
from these termini there were routes passable to the east and south coasts
of England."
From all this it would seem that the mineral wealth and the trading
interests which had inspired the line of route of the earliest British
roads were, side by side with military considerations, leading factors in
the particular direction given to the Roman roads that followed them.
As for the Roman roads themselves, so admirably were they built that some
of those laid down in ancient Rome and in France have been in use for from
1500 to 2000 years, while remains of Roman roads found in Britain, buried
deeply under the debris of centuries, have still borne striking evidence of
the solid manner in which they were first constructed.
But the point that here arises for consideration is, not only the high
quality of the great roads the Romans built in Britain, but the
broad-minded policy by which the builders themselves were influenced. The
provision of a system of scientifically constructed roads wherever they
went was, primarily, part of the Roman plan of campaign in the wars of
aggrandisement they carried on; but it was further designed to aid in
developing the resources of the country concerned, while it was, also,
carried out in Britain by the Roman State itself, on lines embracing the
transport conditions of the country as a whole, and in accordance with a
unified and well-planned system of internal communication on "national"
{10}lines such as no succeeding administration attempted either to follow
or to direct.
Thus the great Roman roads, connecting the rising city on the Thames and
the commercial centre of Britain with every part of the island, were
remarkable, not only because they represented an art which was to disappear
with the conquerors themselves, but, also, because they had been directly
created, and were directly controlled, by a central authority as the
outcome of a State road policy itself fated in turn to disappear no less
effectually. The almost invariable practice in this country since the
departure of the Romans has been for the State, instead of following the
Roman example, and regarding as an obligation devolving upon itself the
provision of adequate means of intercommunication between different parts
of the country, to leave the burden and responsibility of making such
provision to individual citizens, to philanthropic effort, to private
enterprise, or to local authorities. The result has been that not only, for
successive generations, were both the material progress and the social
advancement of the English people greatly impeded, but the actual
development of such intercommunication was to show, far too often (1) a
lamentable want of intelligence and skill in meeting requirements; and (2)
a deficiency of system, direction and co-ordination as regards the many
different agencies or authorities concerned in the results actually
secured.
{11}CHAPTER III