But the attempt to truly and earnestly show the road as it has been throughout all of its history is such an ambitious one that I can forgive him those topples into pretension, because there is so much that is fascinating and beautiful and wonderful, and I think he gets quite close to what he's trying to do. Christopher Hadley is a journalist and author writing at the murky, wonderful intersection of history and folklore.

Thought there'd be more to it, but there are some interesting historical asides here and there, even if, for some reason, I felt it'd be a lot more focused on the attempt to follow a forgotten Roman road than it was.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Nowadays a long straight road is considered boring and dangerous to drive along - we prefer curves to keep us awake - but the excitement of realising we are sometimes travelling a road initially constructed 2,000 years ago along our exact path helps connect us to the generations who have undertaken the same route, marching, riding, droving, walking (or driving) for two millennia. The joy of this book though is not simply to be found in how Hadley attempts to reconstruct the Roman past from trenches and ceramic shards buried in the landscape. It's not perfect, and there are definitely moments when Hadley loses control of his prose and both he and you get a bit lost.

Drawing on the findings of years of work by dedicated archaeologists, aerial photographers and historians, Hadley travels the length of a spur of Ermine street in the direction of Great Chesterford pondering how and why it was built and the lives of the people who travelled or lived along it. There is equal pleasure in following him through the countryside in all seasons, sharing his reflections on how echoes of past millennia continue to be part of our present experience. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Along the way we learn about how roads were sited, construction methods, how roads were used by and against (e. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.Then I realised that the last time I thought much about the subject was when I was at school in the 70s and my brother and I used to play with 1/72nd scale 'Romans and Britons'. Much like a road itself - there are some interesting bits and then there are some bits where you’re just chugging along and the scenery is pretty pleasant but it’s scrolling past as you go on your way. The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. Hadley traces the path of a single Roman road in Britain and uses this trek as a tool for explaining much that is possible to know about all such roads in that country. For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password.