Reprinted from History N0. 5 (1991) pages 2-5 THE BISLEY PATH - AN ANCIENT ROAD FROM CORINIUM TO GLEVUM? by Christopher Cox INTRODUCTION will be noticed that both Painswick and Matson lie along the line The search for, and apparent discovery of, ancient roads is, like of this route. chasing rainbows, an engaging and relatively harmless pastime - In the later eighteenth century it was, according to Fisher, the u11less an imposing superstructure is erected on an untested, or even preferred route from to , despite the turnpiking illusionary, foundation.1 One such is the so-called Jurassic Way in 1751/2 of the road from that town through . or Great Cotswold Ridgeway, now accepted (often uncritically) The Bisley Path was also tumpiked but authority extended only as a genuine long-distance track from Yorkshire to the South-west to The Gulph;8 although milestones were put on the whole route across the Midlands and the , and said to have been in to beyond Bisley,9 they do not survive east of The Gulph, but are use from neolithic times to the Iron Age.2 clearly marked on the Preliminary Drawings for the first OS l-in This nebulous Way will not be discussed here, but it must be map. Although it was still given as an altemative route to Stroud said that actual evidence for it is exceedingly tenuous, that there in bad weather (what on earth were the other roads like!) it was is no consensus on the exact route apart from the stretch between by then used less frequently and in 1814, when the Stroud- Sapperton and Rodmarton, and as Christopher Taylor puts it ‘.... Chalford- tumpike road was built, the Bisley Path was we can now see that the evidence for a real trackway was very dispiked, and the road south of Cirencester Park realigned.10 slight, and that of Iron Age date slighter still’.3 Much of it has ceased to be a public highway, some of it has quite disappeared, but it was at one time, _ FI I I ‘ 1 : l 2 t and for many centuries, a road of ins S ~.'“- YD / { STROUDWATER ' - ' some importance.1 1 SYSTEM i But was it used by the ‘Ro- contours s. ( A ~ mans’? Arguments for this view will -water-courses _ ---p,“s% i be based on two things: the topog- so_ so _- P ‘9 ‘ raphy itself, and the verified Roman — -' \ 3 - \\ . - sites along or very close to this road. 1 1 _ I 1 ‘\ * * l -H % bi! V, __40 x \ ' j TOPOGRAPHICAL DETAIL ‘ _\'-*--.__ .._ Hf, I \_ J 1» 67 ?iI|I"—‘" {Z |Q? (:> ‘ii " ‘ 1 ’ I The main Roman road from \\ 55 i t i Corinium to Glevum was Ermin 0: s 1 '~-.... .- . I ‘ Street, the alignment of which is -‘.“'I. -I J U / c \\— -4, ) -' ‘ largely followed today. Laid out as 1 . \_ >../ ) ‘ K } l H \ . “yphg" a typical military road, it is straight -,\_':'to the sevstm . 3 _ 4. / I, . t I and all but unde-viating. Taylor I . wams against being led astray by 4 /A we-', geographic determinism, but as F.J. \ .#i,) I I (xv / t North points out, while long-distance

T 0 fie...-1‘ _ \ thoroughfares may pay scant heed to - - -e W e U O oz- relief and geology, these are often A '/I-\ '2’ i K B Y I important considerations for shorter, , contours in feet: valley ‘ ___ 0 streams named. Based on more local, roads. 12 Thus we A5’ \ os 1 inch map. should not expect our local road to . .. _., I - ‘I 7 1-L i7 H L 7 1 g M115 ’-—- """II-- have looked like a ‘Roman’ road. T "" /“"*‘\ r J Bisley 4‘ Z T Painswick For one thing it would hardly have Stroud i ‘ i I 1 been constructed in that fashion, it t-P D Dudbridge u '1 vi G The Gul ph probably was unmetalled, and may 97fqL______S 97i bc Bu11's Cross F well have followed existing tracks 9 I st Steanbridge / sc Stancombe from earlier times. When such roads cross-roads- cease to be used they tend to revert ‘u__ I Villa and may become unrecognisable. Fig. 1 The Stroudwater System So whatever the Roman align- As Dr. Darvill and Dr. Della Hooke warn, it is very difficult ment was, we should not expect it to have remained unchanged to find, let alone to date, ancient trackways,4 and therefore this over the years. paper will merely offer a hypothesis (a plausible one it is hoped) The Romans made good use of wheeled vehicles, and to as- of the use in Roman times of an authentic highway that was still cend a steep hill-side engineered ‘finely constructed zig-zags’ to used up to the end of the eighteenth century. ease the gradient, or made their road follow the curves of the hill- This is the route known in its eastern extremity as the Bisley side itself, whereas the medieval traveller in these parts employed Path, and for convenience the term will be employed for its whole pack-horses or ponies. 1 3 But even with the growth of wheeled length. It ran from Cecily Hill in Cirencester alongside the border traffic in the eighteenth century, carts and carriages continued to of Cirencester Park and Oakley Wood to Park Corner, west of usc the ‘vertical’ up-and-down tracks in the area of Stroud, as which it crossed the Frome (it was termed The Gulph in the Fisher records.14 Examples to be seen are: the Nailsworth eighteenth century), then the Holy Brook at Tunley and on to Ladder, the vanished road from Minchinhampton to Bristol just Bisley. The next crossing was of the Slad Valley at Steanbridge, above Nailsworth (and faintly to be seen on Taylor’s map of 1777), after which came the climb up to (and down from) Bull’s Cross, or the existing road up Rodborough Hill. The passage of innu- over the Painswick brook, up to the scarp edge under Painswick merable sharp hooves, aided by winter rains, caused the devel- Castles (Kimsbury Camp) and so down and on to opment of many hollow-ways, as that from Bowbridge up past The between Upton St. Leonards and Matson. Bannuts to Rodborough Common. Such hollow-ways appear on J.C. Milner has argued that it was a medieval road, and the either side of the Frome crossing, testifying to extensive use in the writer has suggested it was in use as early as the eighth century.-5 not-so-distant past. But visible on the Preliminary Drawings on In the seventeenth century Charles I passed this way from his the western flank, and to be seen on the ground alongside the night’s stay at Sir William Masters in Cirencester, to Painswick hollow-way on the eastern side of the valley, are zig-zags. It is where he stayed the next night before making his way to Matson faintly possible - no firm claim can be asserted - that these represent House, his headquarters during the 1643 siege of Gloucester.6 It a continued use of Roman zig-zags as at Frocester Hill. This is 2 near Boumes Green on the former Bisley Common. It *4 was dug out in 1841-5 and -0, ~‘-' 0 o4,- 5, "-:06 '-5% like Ifold and Daglinworth .__ °-“ls! Hooc 0-‘ 750 It was conveniently close to €=‘;,_',.--'..-,-?-',‘-.;'-.§...?'¢;.,_,a=.~1>;;_-?='E=;'F*-.T':7;,;i—_7‘fllIlIf1—HI'I7’ _— -1-" - > ' ' ' 7 r T" ' _ i W _ _ . , __-_=;:+_-;f'?__ , 5°° ;‘-'2; ,1; . _- '»_-:'--J: _ _ ".°I_;.;_.°-' }I°."'.'§?‘i-I§--"§.§.'.'l°::_f;'4?;?=-: ",,'\°:;'° ;',,.."'°,°_,Z7 ?1§_‘;°.°ri' 7" I":--"'4-——-"I .' .'°; 2 so the road, giving access both 5-"-'-i-"’=-4' ’-’*¥*l"*"7*'-"-';1-a*%"i1"t*-'5-"'<=23;1"Z?!W"I'=‘;'-'?I=T."<1'5!‘{.'5?5';-*5-‘;_:;r§-li"'-t;-:=.,;'-,=:...f.*:~.;=rt-";"-===:.==£53;-1§.=i='¢:fz§'e-jj--:=:s=-=-;-=Z- 0 rm Bisley Path ''5'--'-=--3‘-1-——-'"""-'7' ""'“"“ in-—----*-—'-':°"'-'.-°----"‘- "C.-‘--- _-‘ _. * 1_- ' """"- '°° -9" °— A am. --.A--a-!+°-.-i_l-' to Corinium and to Glevum. It was also close 1 mile to the ancient way going hp“-all-I-Ill!" north across the Frome 6‘ <0 valley at Chalford for :5I °<},%o Q Birdlip. *5’ 0 00¢ 9+ % 60¢ Daglinworrh A possi- OI) Q Q "\ -Q 6} "°b "3: I’ 9 6°-0 J’: ble villa, about half a mile

czob ('0 d—-"In.O ‘*7O Coo\l' -_-_, '0’-'*_* ___4 OJ. south-east of the parish I‘ 150 -%"¢¢-—_—_-__. M" 4<- ,,.. .t-, -- + —~ " - r -r =" ..i’.':;'..’%"'I1I3'fi'-'!'?'=-T-'*;‘1.%.‘?-1--"‘l.i",‘*1:"”.-.='.*"T-.-1'-I-?P' .. I I I i i Q-1 7 W L:-;:. -,‘.:_?f:.-:..-ih .;-_'b7 _,, _ , - 7': J-':o_:éJ1|;;'_°0 0»-_".'-‘ ' _;*:;o4T‘_‘:;.- '.'¢- __ LT- church. SOO -'-""" _""""-' ' '** 6 _ ' -.:. ' __.'-E.'_-;:- . - ;.'f1'1~:.j?j..:_;-55:34:-.~;,';-;";'-T;-.2:=f-,g:;.,-_=E.-.::;‘- _w__._._-t _.. 00,‘.-'_._'_.7f'\.-;,'.-~;:.,-_;-,;_~_-,1-0.9, --; ,;_'_c_;_£’__,...-;,._..-f:'%1—_ .___'_‘5ffl2'v',,_. Q -_ .1. w.-s.¢ - .-— - ~ .-~- ..--.-» 0 \ O T T. W77’ ,- ,..°0_.\T7 "_-_",~ ;.°-- °.-0 '-;-"\.‘.°,','I - 0 I'\-I. . IA’. °.-IT‘;. _.°-"-"--'.- -‘Q -- L"l"'27,.‘ '...-_Q '--_~_'é,-°,=_'L5,. .-I I Th. fi'- I ,- _ I ' '.-0-gs‘ ""5\;;0 I. ‘ Of special interest for *9 ._ , CG-I-I--|¢.l‘—*&-4'_ _ _ Ll-l:J~_~_r~’_ Q . "~"L’afi __o_._l"O ftL4L'Iat I,,_.-_L4-54::i i 1'! J’+._. *"'L‘7_§:‘.fr . 3. 5 J , _ i ,'_;-‘,1-’i‘,;-5'-,_3-=",.__~'?¢;,.o 9 .. . n_ -rm Bisley Path 1% Fae‘ this paper are two other *0,“ Q l mi le sites. a Lnnuinnlull-IIII-I-I Down Farm, at the end of a spur between the two head-combes of the Slad Flg 2. Section along the Bisley Path from Corinium to Glevum. valley, and reported too late unprovable, and perhaps unlikely, as time and the absence of for inclusion in the RCHM volume, close to the Path and to the wheeled vehicles could well have obliterated the signs. Never- Steanbridge crossing. Villa or not, it is tempting to think of it as theless 15 a convenient pull-up for carmen - travellers and stock, at the right The relief map shows that this is the likeliest route from the distance from Glevum for rest and refreshment. Speculation of scarp near Painswick to Cirencester. One of the most important course - but just look at its situation! factors in determining a route is the availability of river crossings. Bisley Called by R. Leech a ‘very large and enigmatic site’, The proponents of the Jurassic Way with its wide swing to the east votive tablets, altars and gravestones have been found in the round the Frome river system, lay much stress on the avoidance area.2! A former vicar of Bisley, the Rev. A.A. Allen, and a bit of steep valleys, and Grundy thinks that prehistoric routes followed of an historian, told the writer that he not infrequently dug up bits the watersheds almost to the exclusion of other possible ways of of both Saxon and Roman stone carvings from his garden hard- traversing the countryside. Not so! Evan Hopkin, civil engineer, by the church. This cannot be verified as he has since died. pointed out in 1805 that ‘steepness (was) not of much consequence One mustn ’t backdate Victorian revivals into the distant past before the use of wheeled carriages.’ 1 6 Certainly, on foot or pony but it has been suggested that Bisley was the site of a ‘holy well’22 back, or for pack-horses, such a crossing was preferable to taking and with the recent discovery of a Roman temple at Uley this is a much longer level circuit round. The essential thing was a ford not entirely impossible. ln any case the site would have been with a firm, hard bottom, depth and swiftness of water being of important, with its production of sculptures, for the market of lesser consideration. In the Frome valleys, such crossing places Corinium, which must have cast a wide net by reason of its size, occur where the valley sides have been ‘pinched’, often by its commerce, administration, population, probably its town houses landslides, to give a narrow, firm-footed crossing, while usuallv for the country gentry and a gentleman’s club. The Bisley Path the valley above and below is wider, and in past times would have is the obvious route to that urban centre,23 and the transport of been muddy, swampy, even covered by a shallow lake. Such fords heavy or bulky objects could have been one reason for easing the were often bridged in medieval times, as at Bowbridge, worst gradient, that at The Gulph. Wallbridge, Dudbridge - and Steanbridge. 17 There was also a It is interesting to note that Margary, in his diagram of his route footbridge at The Gulph. 1 8 So this cross-country route would have 544, a minor Roman road, takes it along the Bisley Path for some been feasible in Roman times. Was there a need for such a track distance. lt is, he says ‘supposed to have left Cirencester via Cecily to be used? Hill’ for Coates, Rodmarton and Kingscote, but then inexplica- bly he depicts it as taking an abrupt left-hand turn for Coates. It ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE would seem more likely that this minor road was a side-road off Roman settlement along the Bisley Path the more direct, straighter route westward. P. lsaac, writing on Most of the following references are taken from the relevant ‘Coin hoards and history in the West’, points out that villas were volume of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments. part of a town-oriented economy and dgpended on good com- Remember that only the most durable sites have survived, and there munications for their standard of living. 4 must have been (the word is used advisedly) a great number of CONCLUSION smaller settlements, down to single farms and habitations, and that we know virtually nothing of these. 1 9 It is as though all we could Certainly Taylor’s cautionary words should be borne in see of a great mountain range were only the few major peaks. We mind:25 do not know what sort of local economy supported the great ‘The fascination of roads and tracks, and the ex- country houses, the equivalent of the mansions of the eighteenth citement that the process of tracing them onwards century. This area of the Cotswolds was thronged with ‘villas’ and across country gives, have all too often in the past there would have been a multiplicity of inter-connecting local resulted in complete mental blocks and visual tracks and access roads.20 It is not the writer’s intention, by blindness’. picking out a few Roman sites, to produce a sort of ‘ley-line’, but Various attempts have been made to identify ancient tracks, these sites, together with the continued existence of this route over especially the glamorous Roman ones, within our area. G.B. Witts’ so many centuries, lend at least a species of plausibility to the Roman ‘road from Aquae Sulis to Glevum’ has its points, a track subject of this paper. along the scarp’s rim is a ‘natural’ and probably is of considerable Ifold Villa At the edge of a ledge overlooking the Washbrook antiquity - there must be innumerable such tracks in use at different valley close to Painswick, its position is analogous to that of the times - though the Fosse Way to Corinium from near Bath, and Painswick House of the present day, close to the road from the present A38 south from Glevum to Abone (Sea Mills) on the Gloucester to and through Painswick. Bristol Avon, would have been by far the more important roads.26 Brownshill Possibly a Roman cemetery? It lies on the op- St Clair Baddeley also took a hand suggesting several minor posite side of the valley. Further down, near Stroud, Roman Roman roads, such as Wick Street.27 But as Aston remarks, the pottery and iron slag were found in 1868 at - West Grange House. need for any such road at any one time must be taken into con- Lillyhorn Nothing remains now, but it is the site of a large villa sideration.

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I B'i5'?'Y‘”’£ ."'"%"“‘.xs:'caa-;;aar.‘..a.-trail1: criamaon. .7" ‘ ‘t‘“ isx'\\L Fig 3. Detailfrom Cary’s Map ofMail Coach routes, 1816. Such maps are often inaccurate and out of date. Note that this is not a map of turnpike roads. It does of course not include new roads built after 1816, but oddly omits the Nailsworth valley turnpike of 1 780/81, and the Slad valley seems to have been destroyed by some geological convulsion. Perhaps here there is confusion between the 1800/01 Slad road and the road up Stroud Hill past Bisley to Birdlip - note Standcomb (sic) cross. The roadfrom Cirencester to Stroud through Minchinhampton still shows the bend on the south side of the Park, which was eliminated after 1814, but the road is still shown through the Park, now a private road. The route goes into Minchinhampton, and shows the same bends that appear on Taylor’s map of 1 777. Again oddly, the ‘by-pass’ over Old Common is not marked, though it isfaintly shown by Taylor. The whole of the ‘Bisley Path’ appears as a minor road, but only the continuation ofWick Streetfrom Painswick to Gloucester is a mail (ie. main) road. (Salperton should read Sapperton - frequently confused on such maps, as is Easingtonfor Eastington). This paper too is speculative, but the route called here the 8. 25 G II c.l3, 1751/2. Bisley Path fulfilled a function over many years, and when the 9. C. Cox, Milestones of the , TBGAS 83, 1964. villas had vanished, estates, villages and large houses still remained 10. 54 G III c. 80, 1814, confirmed by 58 G III c. 23, 1818. and could be served by an existing, if deteriorating, track. But in I l. See for example the distribution list of the Gloucester Jour- the last two hundred years, the industrial valleys of the Frome nal, 24 April 1725. James Pewteris distributed to Painswick, Bisley, overtook in importance and in the need for communications the Cirencester .. John Butler to Stroudwater, Tedbury (Sic) ie. the largely aigricultural plateau. Former centres such as Bisley de- Bisley Path was followed by J. Pewteris. I do not know how papers clined,2 and valley settlements such as Stroud were the more went to Stroud, butl suspect via Brookthorp and the old road uphill important. The former roadway ceased to be a through-way, and to Huddingknoll Common, then down via Whiteshill to Paganhill and so to Stroud. A guess! was fragmented into disconnected stretches of country lanes. 12. F.J. North, Geology for archaeologists, Arthaeol J, 35, 1937, Nevertheless, taking together the various Roman sites on or pp 106-149. near the line of the route, the fact that it was a much-used high- l3. See eg. the well-known illustration of a weaver or merchant way for several centuries, and the evidence of topography that it taking his cloth on pony back past Avening Church, from R. Bigland, is the only really feasible way across the headwaters of the sys- reproduced in VCH Glos 11, facing p 144. tem of the Frome from east to west between Ermin Street and the l4. Fisher op cit p l5l. route over the Minchinhampton plateau, it seems not unreason- 15. l.G. Margary, Roman roads in Britain, Phoenix, 1955. A.K.H. able to think that the way called here the Bisley Path was in es- Evans, reviewing this book in the Jnl ofTransport History, 2, 1955- sence, and at certain points, the actual route used in Roman times 6, says ‘he makes it very clear that the Romans employed zig-zags between Glevum and Corinium for the villas and settlements or even curves, where the terrain required it’. See also footnote 23, between those two important urban centres.29 McWhirr, p 132. l6. Evan Hopkin, An Abstract of the Particulars contained in a REFERENCES Perambulatory Survey of above Two Hundred Miles of Tumpike 1 . ‘A great deal of rubbish has been written in the past about roads, Road through the Counties of Carmarthen, Brecknock, Monmouth particularly Roman roads and ridgeways Little attention is paid to and Gloucester. Pointing out the most obvious defects, and also the why a particular road might have gone this way or that, what it was improvements which may be made along this line of Road. Swansea, used for and which settlements it was linking’. M. Aston, Interpreting 1805. the landscape, Batsford, 1985, p 138. 17. VCH Glos 11 gives a reference of 1358 for a bridge here (and 2. C. Fox, A la Tene brooch from Wales Archaeol. Cambrensis dates for the others): Milner op cit says it was recorded earlier, in 1248. 72, 7th series, 7, 1927, pp 67-1 12, seems to have originated the phrase. in other words, it was of some importance for traffic in the 13th G.B. Grundy wrote prolifically from 1917 on ancient tracks and routes, century at least, and probably earlier. mostly in the Archaeological Journal, and W.F. Grimes detailed the 18. VCH Glos 11, p 5. whole Way, in Aspects ofArchaeology in Britain and beyond, 19. See eg. K. Branigan & P.J. Fowler, The Roman West Coun- Edwards, 1951, pp 144-171. The concept is accepted by many au- try, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1976. thorities. 20. T. Darvill, op cit P 97. 3. C. Taylor, Roads and tracks ofBritain, Dent, 1982, p 32. 21. R. Leech Larger agricultural settlement in the West Country, 4. T. Darvill, Neolithic Gloucestershire, in Archaeology in in The Roman West Country, ed. K. Branigan & P.J. Fowler, David Gloucestershire, ed. A. Saville, Cheltenham, 1984. D. Hooke, The & Charles, 1976. And see his Appendix II, handlist of villa sites. reconstruction of ancient routeways, in The Local Historian, 12, 1977. 22. R.C.S. Walters, The ancient wells, springs and holy wells of 5. J.C. Milner, A medieval road to Cirencester, Glevensis 15, 1981. Gloucestershire. Bristol, 1928. Also C. Cox, The Lypiatt Cross, Glevensis 19, 1985. 23. See A. McWhirr, Roman Gloucestershire, A. Sutton, 6. Iter Carolinum, in Gutch Collectanea Curiosa II, no xiii. Gloucester, 1986, chpt. 6, especially pp 132, 135. 7. P.H. Fisher, Notes & Recollections ofStroud, J. Elliott, Stroud, 1871. 4 24. P. Isaac, Coin hoards & history in the West, in Branigan & See Note to Fig 3. Fowler, op cit. References from the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments 25. C. Taylor, op cit xii. volume, Iron Age & Romano-British Monuments in the Glouces- 26. G.B. Witts, Old Sodbury and an ancient road from Aquae Sulis tershire Cotswolds. 1976. to Glevum, TBGAS 1883-84. 27. St. Clair Baddeley, A secondary Roman road system. TBGAS Ifold SO 85781020 p 93. 51, 1929, and 53, 1930. Brownshill SO 85500726 p 94. West Grange House SO 85000558 p ll2. 28. ‘ the town is most unfavourably situated for a market, being of very difficult access, by reason of the deep bottoms which environ Lillyhorn SO 91320438 p4l. it every way ...’ Rudder op cit on Bisley, p 289. 29. The term ‘Bisley Path’ is really a misnomer when applied to the whole route given here, but is used for convenience for lack of a better.

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